This is (not) a cuff. This is a literary cuff by Julio Cortázar
Preamble to the Instructions
on How to Wind a Watch
on How to Wind a Watch
Think
of this: When they present you with a watch they are gifting you with a
tiny flowering hell, a wreath of roses, a dungeon of air. They aren't
simply wishing the watch on you, and many more, and we hope it will
last you, it's a good brand, Swiss, seventeen rubies; they aren't just
giving you this minute stonecutter which will bind you by the wrist and
walk along with you. They are giving you—they don't know it, it's
terrible that they don't know it—they are gifting you with a new,
fragile, and precarious piece of yourself, something that's yours but
not a part of your body, that you have to strap to your body like your
belt, like a tiny, furious bit of something hanging onto your wrist.
They gift you with the job of having to wind it every day, an
obligation to wind it, so that it goes on being a watch; they gift you
with the obsession of looking into jewelry-shop windows to check the
exact time, check the radio announcer, check the telephone service.
They give you the gift of fear, someone will steal it from you, it'll
fall on the street and get broken. They give you the gift of your
trademark and the assurance that it's a trademark better than the
others, they
gift you with the impulse to compare your watch with other watches.
They aren't giving you a watch, you are the gift, they're giving you
yourself for the watch's birthday.
wonderful, Cadu!
ReplyDeletePerhaps the words are cuff?
ReplyDeleteI wonder. Perhaps they are when double folded on the bottom of their edges... ;-)
Delete