"LIKE LIFE, A WATCH PROVIDES COMPLICATIONS TO KEEP IT INTERESTING." Watanabe sat cross-legged on a low stage while we sat packed around him, students at the feet of a high-art Socrates, all leaning forward to hear his surprisingly delicate voice. 
 
His first name was Sam, but the world knew him only as Watanabe. Dressed in black, his long hair dangling in black-gray strands, he looked like an aging heavy metal drummer. Or he could be a mononoke, as Watanabe's many detractors described him—a demon spirit. 
 
Back at the agency, we had done some initial research on Watanabe. He was a political artist who worked with extreme materials, like decommissioned jets and tsunami debris. He wasn't as well known or revered as Banksy or Ai Weiwei. Watanabe was a relentless provocateur, a thumb in the eye of the world. Hearing him talking about something as tame as an old-school watch sounded out of character. But confounding expectations seemed to be Watanabe's specialty. 
 
A woman with pink-streaked blonde hair and red-framed glasses slipped into the Okutama Institute's conference room and slid into the empty seat next to me. 
 
"Flight from L.A. was late, as usual," she whispered, shrugging off her coat. "I'm Renata," she said, "senior editor at Artforum." 
 
"Coe," I said, "from Moriawase." 
 
She tilted her head. 
 
"Ad agency." 
 
She leaned closer. "What did I miss?" 
 
"Introductions. Green tea. Non-disclosure agreements. Awkward small talk. Watanabe just started." 
 
"So glad." She pressed her palms together in thanks. "His work is fabulous, don't you think?" 
 
Renata didn't wait for an answer, just leaned forward to get a better view of Watanabe. Her pale face blossomed with star-struck rapture. 
 
"The usual complications of a watch are actually quite uncomplicated," Watanabe said. "Phases of the moon. A chime on the half-hour. In this way, even the most expensive watch is still simple enough to be used by a child. They are all pretty little toys." 
 
He raised his glinting, obsidian eyes to scan his rapt audience. 
 
"Life can be seen as a plaything as well." Watanabe seemed to pause when he found me, an interloper among the invited guests from the art press and the watch industry. "But this perception ignores the—" 
 
He leaned over to Yohji, his handsome young assistant, who whispered in his ear.
 
"Ignores the verities," Watanabe said. "The unrelenting truths. Like the soul, truth, courage, death." 
 
He turned toward me, his eyes seeking mine—no mistaking it. "The advertisements for these expensive toys make it sound as if each owner is simply taking care of his watch for—" Watanabe's brow wrinkled. 
 
"For the next generation," I blurted, because I hated those ads and the long flight had left me jangled. 
 
Yohji turned and glared at the advertising guy who had broken Watanabe's incantatory spell with his American impertinence. Renata shifted away from me. 
 
Watanabe seemed untroubled. "Exactly. For the next generation. As if an object could be a legacy. But let me be very clear about this, my friends. No object is a legacy, no matter how beautiful and well-crafted. Not a watch or an expensive sports car." He gave a small smile. "Not even works of art. What is the true legacy that we will leave?" 
 
No one blurted out an answer. 
 
"The only legacy we leave is the memory of our actions," Watanabe said. "What we did each day and why we did it. For those who choose to remember us, we leave behind these small traces as our gift." He paused, shook his head slowly. "Or warning." 
 
He raised his hand and snapped his fingers as if summoning a waiter. The doors at the back of the conference room opened and the engineers wheeled in a metal cart. They raised a white cloth cover to reveal a glass case the size of a small aquarium. Inside it glimmered the mysterious watch that my agency was hoping to launch. The emails from Watanabe's team had called it the most revolutionary watch ever created. Having written plenty of hype during my career, I considered myself immunized. I came to Tokyo to be convinced. 
 
"Meet Cassius Seven, my friends. Years in research and development. Now revealed to you, the select few." 
 
Eager nodding among the audience. Renata stared with unrestrained enthusiasm. To me, Cassius Seven looked like any other elegant, understated watch. Its round case held a matte-silver face with tapered black hands. The hours were in delicate Roman numerals. The only unusual detail was a small red dot glowing on its band. 
 
"Looks like any other expensive watch, doesn't it?" Watanabe said, reading my mind. "It is intentional. We are hiding its light under a bushel basket." He spoke the words slowly, as if he had just learned the folksy expression and it delighted him. 
 
One of the engineers inched across the low stage, carrying a bowl of apples in front of him. Watanabe gave an appreciative nod, chose an apple, and held it up to us. 
 
"Temptation, yes? But this is not the Garden of Eden. And we are not innocents." Watanabe nodded and the engineers lifted the glass case. He plucked the watch from its stand and held it in the air, pivoting so everyone could see. 
 
Watanabe turned to the engineers. "Thanks to our team for years of exploration and hard work, leading to this first demonstration of the prototype." 
 
The engineers bowed humbly. 
 
Watanabe fastened the watch gently around the apple. "Once the watch is on, it cannot be removed." He pointed to the band, which had tightened around the apple, then to a small red I glowing on the band. "Our watch counts the days you have been wearing it, reminding you to be thankful for each." 
 
Watanabe put the watch-bound apple on the stand and the engineers lowered the case around it like a reliquary. He nodded to one of the engineers, bent over a laptop, who began typing furiously. 
 
Nothing happened. 
 
The engineer stopped and looked up. 
 
Watanabe gave a small smile. "Much of life is spent waiting." 
 
The engineer began slap-typing, but again, nothing happened. My eyes strayed to the conference room windows. In the formal gardens, a breeze set red maple leaves quaking. 
 
The laptop pounding continued until it triggered a brief whirring, then silence. I looked back at the stage to find that the case had turned white. Pulverized apple coated the inside of the case. A slow drip of juice trickled down, then another. 
 
I had no idea what had just happened. Unsettled murmuring rippled through the conference room. The engineers lifted the case to show us the gleaming watch, covered with clumps of apple pulp now, but intact. 
 
Yohji stood and shouted in Japanese. Watanabe's cohorts in the audience jumped up and applauded. We stood and joined the applause as the engineers bowed, then took away the case. Giving a watch a standing ovation seemed excessive, but again, I was unmoved by the fine-watch world. And I had no idea what the stunt with the apple was all about. 
 
Watanabe walked to a small table and waved his hand over a low black box, summoning up a hologram of Cassius Seven. 
 
"Let us take a closer look." He waved his fingers near the slowly spinning image and the watch enlarged. "Cassius Seven is an exceptionally accurate watch. Full-jeweled movement, titanium case, sapphire bezel, small ruby inlaid above each numeral. It has all of the elements of a great watch with none of the gaudiness of a Bulgari or Patek. Or the cloying attention demanded by a Rolex. It looks understated." As he spoke, Watanabe spun the image of the watch to reveal its ordinariness from all angles. 
 
"To be truly radical, you have to appear normal," he said with a smile. "So you can cause more trouble." Renata opened a small red notebook to capture this insight, as much about the artist as his latest creation. 
 
Watanabe spun the image to reveal the bottom of the shimmering titanium case, engraved with a series of numbers in a circle. "Notice that each watch is unique and numbered. A serial number is not unusual. But here beneath the watch, the singular beauty of Cassius Seven becomes dear." His hand hovered over the hologram to start an animation. The bottom of the case opened and a tiny silver crescent emerged from the underbelly of the watch, then another, then more. They spun slowly, then in a blur, as Watanabe watched, transfixed. 
 
"Here we see the seven blades, each honed until they are sharp as scimitars," he said. "One by one, the blades emerge from the underside of the watch and pierce the wearer's wrist without warning. At random." 
 
He uttered this incomprehensible detail without explanation, then looked up. "You see, the blades slip down between the delicate bones of the wrist, then spin to sever the ulnar artery, causing violent exsanguination. Or more bluntly, death. In seconds." 
 
The crowd turned silent, then burst into uneasy laughter. 
 
Watanabe smiled. "It might seem like a joke to you. But to us, Cassius Seven is a very serious business. As you will see." 
 
The laughter stopped. 
 
I texted Nathan back at the agency. 
 
Watanabe product demo jst got supr weird 
 
"Oh, come on," a woman shouted from the audience. "Why would you create a watch that does such a terrible thing?" The speaker stood and I recognized her from the meet-and-greet before the presentation—Milou Deprit, executive VP of a French luxury goods conglomerate. 
 
Watanabe smiled at her. "Because death is the ultimate complication." 
 
"A deadly watch? That's what you brought us here to see?" 
 
She glared at the gently spinning hologram of Cassius Seven, as if outraged by its existence.
 
"Your watch is absurd. Who would want it?" 
 
Watanabe focused his heavy gaze on the questioner. "There's a market and a price for everything. You certainly know that, Madame Deprit." He held up a long, graceful finger and pointed at Cassius Seven. "Here is something else that you need to understand. The soul of the watch, as it were." 
 
"So your monstrous watch has a soul?" The conference room turned hot and airless as the demonstration veered into uncertain territory. 
 
"Yes, this watch has a soul. Why should so-called sentient beings be the only bearers of souls?" A heckler can throw off a pitch, but Watanabe seemed to relish Madame Deprit's badgering. "The sun has a soul. The moon. Temples. Streets. Gardens. They resonate with all that has passed through them, all that they know." 
 
"What can a watch know? It's just a stupid little machine." 
 
"This watch is far from stupid, Madame Deprit. Only it knows the answer." 
 
"To what question?" 
 
"When will you die?" 
 
A moment of stunned silence from the room. 
 
Madame Deprit shrugged her narrow shoulders. "How can a watch know such a thing?”
 
"An algorithm, trained for maximum variability, determines the moment when the knives will emerge." 
 
"You mean the moment of death." 
 
"Or life." Watanabe paused, tilted his head. "You see, the knives may come out in a week. A year. Twenty years. Or they may not appear at all. The supposedly deadly watch may end up just being a beautiful toy, like its high-end cousins. The wearer never knows what's going to happen, or when. Just like we never know our fate." 
 
Watanabe's dark eyes scanned the conference room, drawing us all in. "When you go to sleep at night, will you wake to live another day? When you walk down the street, will you inhale a deadly virus? Or get shot by a fanatic? Do any of you truly know the answer?" 
 
Silence. Hoping was different than knowing. 
 
"In this way, the watch parallels our own precarious existence. Some claim to be able predict death—from genetic researchers to astrologers. But we must live with uncertainty. We query Google. We ask Alexa. Where should we travel, what restaurant should we go to? But the ultimate question, the one so rarely asked and never answered, is simple. When will I die?" 
 
"So we are supposed to believe that your ridiculous watch will determine the answer?" Madame Deprit was having none of it. 
 
"Instead of—?" 
 
She said nothing, not citing the usual suspects—fate, luck, God. 
 
"We determine our own destinies. And our own deaths." Watanabe wiggled his fingers like a puppeteer pulling hidden strings. "We court or repel death every day by what we do and how we live. Some put themselves at risk by racing motorcycles or base jumping from mountains. Or they smoke and eat too much, as I do. Others try to extend their lives with exercise and strict diets." 
 
"But that's our choice," Madame Deprit said. 
 
"It still is," Watanabe said. "We won't put the watch on our customers like a shackle. They will choose to wear the watch. Or not." 
 
"No one but a fool would decide to put on such a deadly thing." Done arguing, Madame Depth smoothed her elegant black skirt and sat down. Watanabe smiled. "Fortunately, the world is thick with fools." 
 
The secret preview of Watanabe's creation devolved into a technical session run by the unsmiling engineers. Somber in their black suits and white shirts, they turned even more serious, as if to distract us from the Cassius Seven's troubling complication. One of the engineers walked through the crowd, solemnly gathering our cell phones in a basket, lest we try to photograph proprietary technology. Then they walked us through the design of Cassius Seven, drowning us in details. I set aside the question of the watch's uncertain purpose and took notes on its innovations—the random timing of the emergence of the blades, the anodized beryllium that kept them sharp, for years if necessary. 
 
My work required understanding complicated machines and arcane tech, at least enough to sell them, so I was all too familiar with product demonstrations, trade shows, and R & D labs. But after listening to the monophonic voices of the engineers lecturing us—no questions allowed—even I was starting to fade. Jet lag set my mind adrift. I stared out the window at the gardens, raked with amber beams of afternoon light. Dragonflies hovered over plum blossoms and pale blue wisteria. I imagined how free they felt, flitting around the Institute grounds. Around me, the other guests in the overheated conference room were squirming like kindergarteners.
 
Sensing our escalating boredom, the engineers announced a brief break. We rose quickly to cluster around the tea table and started talking in urgent whispers.
 
The more litteral-minded in the group, including the outspoken Madame Déprit, considered Cassius Seven a dangerous toy. “If it’s real, it’s despicable,” she said. “If it’s simply a joke, it is not funny in the least.” The response from most of the other guests—half-smiles and whispers—hinted at skepticism. Niels De Vries, whose name tag identified him as editor of Het Moderne Horloge in Amsterdam, proposed that we were just part of an elaborate prank, one that Watanabe would explain at some point.
 
“I must say, even if it’s all just for a laugh, we need someone like Watanabe to shake up the watch world,” he said, eyes sparkling.
 
“Or to destroy us all.” Madame Déprit sipped her coffee.
 
“I feel as if we are witnessing something truly historic,” said Martin Sørgen, an art dealer from Copenhagen. “Even if it’s just a prank, the mere concept of a weaponized accessory is sublimely subversive.”
 
“Everything Watanabe creates is sublime,” added the besotted Renata.
 
Sørgen nodded. “He’s taking us into uncharted territory.”
 
“Dangerous territory,” said Madame Déprit, refusing to give in to groupthink. Her dissent did little to quell the excitement we felt as insiders in Watanabe’s latest art project. We huddled close, shocked by the audacity of Cassius Seven. A tagline popped into my head: The only watch that kills time. I would have to do better than that.
 
Watanabe walked back on the low stage, holding up his arms like a street preacher, waving us back to our seats.
 
He waited silently for our whispering to stop. “You have heard about the inner workings.” Watanabe shook his head slowly. “These details are important. But they are not what you will remember about this day.”
 
He nodded toward the engineers, who carried another case toward the low stage. They lifted the black cover to reveal a small white rabbit in the center of the case. Its eyes were red, its pink nose twitched, and a cinched silver watch glimmered around its neck.
 
A rabbit wearing a watch like a necklace. The sight of it was so absurd that we had to smile, to laugh even.
 
But we fell quiet, one by one, as we remembered the apple.
 
“Some in this room consider this project a prank intended to outrage, to get attention. Believe me, Cassius Seven is not a joke. Not at all.”
 
Watanabe nodded at one of the engineers and the inside of the case splashed red instantly, blood dripping down the glass in a slow rain. The watch gleamed at the bottom, its work completed, titanium clotted with dark viscera and pale bone.
 
The rabbit’s quick death left us stunned. Renata clutched my arm. Some shouted, others looked away as if they could pretend it didn’t happen. We all looked at Watanabe for an explanation. Was he a heartless sadist? Or just the latest creator to fall in love with his creation?
 
Watanabe’s hands were clasped together, head bowed toward the bloodied case in respect for the untethered soul drifting from its eviscerated remains.
 
Madame Déprit rose from her seat.
 
“You are unspeakably vile and cruel.” Her voice was loud, clear, angry. “I want no part of this désastre.”
 
Watanabe opened his eyes and watched Madame Déprit’s quick path toward the door, unconcerned by the disruption. He seemed to welcome it. A small smile played on his face, then faded.
 
“You sell beauty products that kill thousands of rabbits every year, slowly and painfully, during so-called animal testing.” Watanabe’s voice was loud and firm, eyes narrowed. “But you cannot witness the painless sacrifice of one well-tended rabbit?”
 
Madame Déprit turned at the exit but said nothing, silenced by Watanabe’s blistering gaze.
 
“Perhaps it is you who is unspeakably cruel.” Watanabe raised his hand, tallying her sins on his graceful fingers. “Fifty million euros in profit last quarter, yes? For handbags of leather, stripped from the carcasses of calves and goats. Clothing stitched in Indonesian sweatshops. Diamonds mined by shoeless slaves—”
 
The door slammed behind Madame Déprit like a rifle shot.
 
 
© Stona Fitch 2023.
 
This is an excerpt from the novel Death Watch by Stona Fitch, Arrow Editions, 2023.