Wasting Time

This is getting ridiculous. The repair shop is closing soon and we're still sat in this stupid cafe! All because Max just had to use the restroom, and they had a "paying customers only" policy. He was sure taking his sweet time with the beer he ordered. I watched as he took a large swig, his face twisting into a disgusted grimace as he forced himself to swallow the amber liquid. I shook my head in pity. "Why do you keep drinking that when you clearly hate it?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I paid for it, and I don't want it to go to waste. It's not like I can give it to you" he laughed.

"You didn't have to buy it you know. You could have got a coffee, or a cola, or a bottle of water even"

He scoffed and replied "Of course I did. Grown ups drink beer, and I'm a grown up so that means I should drink it. I'm sure I'll grow to love it". He took another gulp, pulling a disagreeable face. 

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. "We're wasting valuable time here" I said, stressing my words for urgency. "Aren't you worried?". Max shrugged his shoulders, leaving me to worry for him. Why did it come to this?

Several months back, I found a broken watch abandoned in a thrift store and figured I would give it to my younger brother for his birthday. He loved to fix broken things, it was his hobby. He had a real knack for it too. I didn't think anything of it until today, when he bounded downstairs and proudly showed me the ticking watch while I was doing my homework. "Wow, congrats. You really did it" I mumbled, not really paying attention.

"That's not the best part. Look what it can do!" Max yelled excitedly. He pulled out a tiny, fragile key from the large, baggy shorts he had on. "I found it hidden under the clock face. Watch!"

He inserted it into a minuscule hole on the side of the watch, turning it clockwise. I stared at the watch waiting for something interesting to happen, but nothing. Not even a music box melody. "I'm not seeing anything special..." I said, hoping he'd leave me alone. 

"It's not the watch, it's me!" he said. His voice sounded weird.  Squeaky and cracking. I was about to question it until I happened to glance at his hand. It looked swollen, possibly twice the size it should be. As I watched, I could see each individual finger pulse and lengthen. The hand turning the key was in a similar state, yet the watch didn't show signs of snapping off his thickening wrist. A wrist which was now attached to a large forearm that was sparsely dusted with small hairs. I was confused, my brother was way too young to be going through puberty yet his arms were suddenly massive. And his voice, it was definitely breaking. What was going on? I looked up from his arm to ask, only to get the surprise of my life.

I screamed and fell off my chair in shock. There was a teenage guy around my age standing before me with the biggest smile on his face. He looked a bit like me, he was even as tall as I was. But there was no way this kid was Max. He had to be playing some elaborate prank on me. The resemblance was uncanny though. And as I stared at the stranger, I could see that his whole body was pulsing much like his hand was, growing bigger and stronger. It was like watching some sort of time-lapse video. I couldn't believe it but there was no denying it. I was watching my former little brother surpass me in height, in weight, in age. I stared in awe as he reached further towards the ceiling, his limbs lengthening and his torso widening, his stance growing ever more imposing. His round face had grown more angular and longer until he no longer looked like a child. No, standing before me was a man. He had a broad, muscular chest with a small patch of black hair that gathered in the centre. The patch was slowly spreading outwards, circling around his pointy nipples and up towards his collarbone. Likewise, his flat stomach had its own sparse coating of hair that slipped down into the shorts that now fit him comfortably. I was glad he had the forethought to wear dad's shorts. I didn't want to see my brother naked, especially as a man. If only he had put a shirt on too...

Even though he was clearly an adult, probably in his mid twenties, he kept on turning the key. It wasn't long before white hairs pierced through the dark beard that now coated his strong jaw. More greys cropped up at his temples, spreading throughout the lower half of his hair. His somewhat impressive figure started to get a little flabby, becoming a prime example of a dad bod. His pecs softened and sagged, while a small belly curved out his stomach, slightly denting the waistband of his shorts. Dark bags faded into view underneath his eyes while small wrinkles crept out from the corners, and grew across the growing expanse of his forehead. 

In the end, I had to slap his hand away from the watch. "OK, that's enough! I get it, the watch makes you older! There's no need to milk it. Why'd you make yourself so old anyway? You look like uncle Mikey with a beard now"

Max stroked his face, a puzzled expression plastered on it. He ran over to the mirror in the hallway and yelped. "Ahh! You're right! I didn't know how old I'd gotten, it's hard to tell if you're not watching yourself at the same time... But don't worry, it works in reverse too!". He quickly grabbed the key and turned it anti-clockwise to make himself young again. He managed a few turns before there was a small crack. "Uh-oh..."

We both stared at each other with fear, surely it couldn't have been... But as Max held the key up between us, it was missing its tip. It had snapped inside of the watch. There was a moment of silence as we processed the situation. Max couldn't turn himself back into a boy, he was stuck as a 40-something year old. He collapsed onto the sofa and stared off into space as I tried to reassure him that things would be alright. It's not like he couldn't fix it himself. However, it had taken him weeks to get the watch working in the first place. He's only 10 after all. Was, anyway. It was hard to tell how old he was now... Luckily, Mom and dad wouldn't be home until late, and there happened to be a small repair shop on the other side of town. Max raided dad's wardrobe for some better fitting clothes, I mapped the quickest route to the store, and we set out. 

Things were going fine until Max suddenly decided he needed to use a restroom and abruptly dragged me into the nearest cafe, which is where we've been sat for far too long. I think Max is enjoying his newfound adulthood a bit too much. He's drinking beer, he keeps talking down to me, and he kept assuring the man serving us that I was his nephew for some weird reason. It's like he doesn't want to fix the watch... 

Tired of waiting, I stood up from the table. "If we don't leave now then that shop will be closed and you'll have to figure it out yourself as I've done all I can"

"Yeah yeah" he mumbled, picking up his glass again. "I'm almost done see?". He took a deep breath, pinched his nose and downed the last dregs of beer.

"You'd better not become an alcoholic after this"

Max slammed his empty glass onto the table and gagged a little. "I don't think you have to worry about that..." he mumbled. "I can't see how dad drinks that all the time..."

"Because he's an alcoholic. He's bad enough without adding another to the household. Now come on!"

Max looked at his watch and sighed. He leaned back in his chair. "Maybe we should wait until tomorrow?" he suggested rather meekly. "The store's still a good half hour away by foot. Maybe if you had let me drive there like I wanted to..."

"You don't have a licence!" I yelled a bit too loudly. "Come on, we can't just give up now! If you fix it now, you can always use the watch another day!"

"I know, I know. It's just... When will I get the chance? At the end of the day, I'll always have to go back to being a kid. Can't I just enjoy it for a bit longer?"

"But we've come all this way! What'll we tell mom and dad? Because they sure won't believe the truth!"

"They pay so little attention to me, I bet they wouldn't even notice I was gone". He expected me to laugh, but I didn't. This was serious. He made an annoyed noise. "Well, tell them I'm at a sleepover or something. They're so forgetful, they wouldn't think twice. And Ryan would be able to lie about that, he owes me for finding his dog when it ran away. There's a cheap motel near here that I can stay for the night and I'll try to get the key bits out of the watch myself. Please? I'm not a kid any more. I can do this!"

Max took off his sunglasses, and made his cutesy, 'let-me-get-my-way' face, which wasn't as endearing or effective coming from a craggy, middle aged man. But I had to reluctantly admit defeat. What was I going to do, drag his hairy butt to the shop myself? "OK, OK! But you better have that key fixed by tomorrow afternoon, and be waiting outside Ryan's house as a child. And you have to buy me one of the crazy milkshakes they serve here. The one with birthday cake and cotton candy"

"Deal!" he shook my hand with a big grin before grabbing his wallet, or rather dad's old wallet, and entered the cafe again while I waited at the table. It was weird but watching him from a distance, you'd never be able to guess Max was only a timid, sky kid just this morning. Now he was overtly friendly and chatting up a storm with the young man who served us earlier. Maybe the watch did more than just change him physically. He seemed more intelligent, and knew things he definitely didn't know before he changed. He also had an air of maturity and confidence about him that he lacked previously. Maybe a little too much confidence, I thought as I saw him pass a paper card to the guy, who put it in his pocket with a blush. Max winked back at him and did he just growl? It can't be what it looks like... Had he been planning this the whole time? I hope I made the right decision here...