Hear Jim’s thoughts: https://youtu.be/-v-kKmL_6q0

or read his words below…

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Life, actually…

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INHALE EXHALE INHALE EXHALE AND SO ON

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My brown leather book satchel is fraying at the handle. I lug it along with me on the way to grammar school, this now-remembered morning.

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The brown leather frayed book satchel contains a broken pocket knife still serviceable should saber-toothed beasts approach, a beat-up textbook stamped approved by unseen boards of education, a number two yellow pencil in case of sudden learning, an overripe apple to nibble during recess, one Big Little Book about the Phantom should I have a chance to advance the illustrated adventure…

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What else snuggles within the cracking leather?

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Oh, a black-and-white snapshot of me and my sweet dog Brownie, a child-sized Aspergum tablet, a paper-wrapped tooth that ejected itself yesterday, and a yellow crayon that nobody loves. 

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I am young and innocent and self-contained at this moment in time. I wend my own way across the abandoned military encampment, a once-vital encampment that played its part in the recent war. Post-war grounds are now my playground, my beaten path to school, my nobody’s-land space between home and the rest of the world.

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On the rusty orange ground at my feet, something glitters and beckons. I stop and stoop and peer. It is a severed expansion-band ownerless wristwatch.

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I pick it up. I’ve never owned a real watch–only a frozen-time play watch that tells time twice a day.

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The face of this timepiece is also frozen. But just in case, I wind the stem and feel the satisfying notching that activates the inner workings.

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The watch still works, still tells me the correct Central Standard time, makes me aware of the minute-to-minute seconds that escort me through the day, still hides in my loose-change pants pocket. My first watch!

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I stand a little straighter, gaze smartly at the nearby abandoned red-brick-buildings, and continue my trek to school. I am now assured that now I can consider myself an important member of the tribe of men and women who keep up with time and make things happen.

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My initiation within the tribe will be complete once I own an unbroken expansion band that will allow the broken watch to join society on the wrist of a scrawny kid.

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A scrawny kid who just wants to get through the day in one piece, in order to get back to the Phantom and his righteous quest for truth and justice

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 © 2026 A.D. by Jim Reed