Watch

Of course, John knows he could just kill himself and be done with it all but on the off chance there is a god watching over the sick joke that is his wretched existence, he doesn't want to risk going to hell, particularly when the whole point is to escape the hell his tragically impeccable memory keeps him trapped in. No, John needs to be rid of his memories for good while still alive, if for no other reason than to enjoy the slow process of drinking himself to death and maybe fuck the bartender at Wolfie's.

But on the morning of February 3rd, 1987 John has an epiphany. He realizes exactly what it is that every seemingly arbitrary event in his dismal past had in common and what he must do to be free of them all for good: he has to forget time itself, the stage upon which all horrible things have happened. Every single catastrophe he encountered operated according to the laws of that little instrument he wears on his wrist, every moment of unbearable pain occurring at some point on that watch face. Every loss, every insult, every disappointment, contained right there in that tiny circle of finite numbers.

So John smashes the watch. Problem solved.

But when John steps out the front door to begin his daily walk to "Wolfie's" bar as a man newly freed from the tyrannies of time he is met by a snowstorm more severe and debilitating than any his hometown of Buffalo, NY has ever experienced. The ungodly amount of snow renders him almost completely blind, unable to discern any point of reference, any indication of distance or any other living thing aside from that mysterious old lady walking past his house at the moment: the "Woman In White," a sort of mythological creature who roams the city streets day after day with no apparent origin or destination, speaking to no one and somehow never stopping to rest.

Determined to reach the local dive where he has home field advantage in his daily war with the ghosts of his past, John decides to brave the storm. But a walk that should have taken just a few minutes will end up spanning the course of his woeful 28 years on earth, for what appeared to be just a storm is actually something far more heinous: a personal hell without end where all he has lost manages to find him once more. The disorienting whiteout John finds himself in has not only confused his sense of direction but altered his understanding of time itself and as he wanders alone through an empty world with no sun nor sign to guide him, John is confronted by the vivid manifestation of every memory he has desperately tried to repress, the boundary between what he recalls and what he sees in front of him becoming more vague with every aimless step.

Here, in this place of infinite absence, the things John thought true become conflated with all he foolishly dared to hope for. Now, forced to reconcile his memories with his perceptions, his past with his future and his self-deceit with his reality, John begins to understand that the only thing worse than never truly seeing is never truly being seen.