Watched Pots

part of The Twilight Zone Substack Edition

Nov 24, 2024

The Twilight Zone redefined storytelling, drawing audiences into the unimaginable. Now, 66 years later, top writers, artists, and musicians are stepping into its eerie glow with a fresh twist. Ready to see where they’ll take you?

Consider, if you will, the watched pot.

Consider it atop a roaring flame.

Consider how we’re told so long as our eyes claim it, it shan’t boil.

We’ve all heard it; we know it to be nonsense…so long as there’s flame, water will boil, yes?

So, why watch?

If our gaze has no bearing on the boiling, why are we warned not to watch? What would we see? What is the danger?

The time is now, the place, the Starbucks down the street—here, our little Jenny (or just “Jen” to the regulars) is about to understand the perils of watching…

It isn’t clear how it all started.

The most popular wives’ tale suggests it began with a construction worker who took a leak in the Starbucks bathroom. When washing his hands, he—so the tale goes—looked into the mirror and found tiny, bonfire orange numbers tick tick ticking over his ovoid hardhat: 02:12:43…42…41…

The worker chalked the whole thing up to caffeine deprivation and laughed it off. He dried his hands and got in line for some joe, mucking about the numbers with his pal. Some folks overheard and claimed they, too, had seen the numbers. A curious few broke out of line and sauntered to the bathroom to see for themselves.

It was a Barnum-esque novelty at first, but it became something else entirely, something sinister, piquing the interest of dark tourists, when, on that very day, about two hours later, the construction worker—now back at work with his joe on the twenty-third floor—lost his footing, fell, and spilled his guts on the pavement.

His pal spread the word about the bathroom vision, how his pal’s clock displayed two hours and change, and waxed poetic to anyone who’d listen—isn’t it funny he fell two hours later? Poor bastard, what are the chances?

After that, the dreary bathroom became a point of pilgrimage, first for the community and then the world.

The day after the splattered worker, the Starbucks was packed with curious faces waiting in line to tread upon the sticky tiles and gaze into the dirt-frosted mirror—its glass smudged with polka dots of swirling fingers belonging to a cavalcade of oily bodies—all who stood where they stand now, watching their numbers ticking, flickering candle-like, dwindling with every x mississippi, y mississippi, z mississippi…

All the commotion was good for business and didn’t bother the green-clad baristas, one of whom happened to be our dear Jenny. At first, she didn’t know what the fuss was about. She thought it was odd that people would storm out of the bathroom crying, but she didn’t let it distract her work. She’d heard something about numbers (the numbers! What are your numbers? etc.), but no one seemed to know what they meant. One of her coworkers said the whole thing was a marketing hoax; some customers claimed the numbers counted down to a pivotal life moment (one regular claimed when his countdown clock reached 00:00:00, his daughter gave birth)—but most people believed the numbers counted down to death.

Jenny didn’t entertain this gossip; it didn’t concern her; she never used the work bathroom anyway, so why start now? She kept her head down, burning her fingers in the name of the morning fix, taking time to pour elaborate milk ferns, tulips, and (on occasion) swans into drinks that would soon be sloshed into storm cloud soup by the commute, obscured under a black lid, Etch-a-Sketched into piss by strange kidneys—she was okay with this, content even. She made sure to hand the customer their drink without a lid so they’d see her fern or tulip or swan, even if it was just a quick peek—this is what’s important, not the bathroom, she’d think.

One day, she spilled syrup all over herself, and the coffee bar sink was on the fritz. She held her sticky hands out Frankenstein-like, humming Muzak and cooing excuse me as she weaseled into the bathroom.

She closed the door behind her and washed up. When she looked into the mirror, she fell silent. She let the warm water wash over her still hands when she saw 16013:18:54 flickering orange just above the flyaways of her bun.

She watched, open-mouthed, as the 54 became 53….52….51…

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

When she re-opened, it was still there: 16013:18:48…47…46.

She wiped her hands on her apron and hightailed it back to the bar, breathing deep and long, feeling an itch settling in her crown.

As she passed the Mastrena, she caught her reflection in the chrome. Nothing. No numbers overhead but she still felt the ticking, as if the orange digits had become her new bio-clock, panging relentless mississippis in her teeth: 16013:18:05…04…03…

It was tough, but she put her head down and got back to work: asking folks how they were, etching ferns, and listening to music…the music quickly became a problem. As a pop connoisseur with a near-photographic memory, she remembered the duration of each song, and when it’d finish, she’d find herself compulsively subtracting the song’s duration from her overhead clock:

16010:53:13 - “Stitches” = 16010:50:26
16010:50:26 - “1, 2, 3, 4” = 16010:47:08
16010:47:08 - “Bad Day” = 16010:43:15
16010:43:15 - “I’m Yours” = 16010:39:13

She couldn’t hear the music anymore; songs became tuneless harbingers of used-up duration. She didn’t hum and couldn’t stop itching her scalp, so much so that her manager had her put on a hairnet.

She’d search for hovering countdowns above the crowns of the caffeine-starved Joe or Jane across the counter as she took their order, feeling her own numbers tick as they barked, “yeah..um, hi—lemme get a venti mocha frap with two pumps…”

The day felt long, every second a razor. Home was no better. Drinking didn’t help. It just made her sleep, and when she woke, she’d subtract the hour of fitful slumber from the running total. That week was more of the same; itchy scalp, tick-tocking teeth, sensitivity to song durations:

15992:21:43 - “She Will Be Loved” = 15992:17:26
15992:17:26 - “Cleopatra” = 15992:14:05
15992:14:05 - “Run Away With Me” = 15992:09:54

The days piled up. She developed purple rings under her eyes and a sour odor (her hair came off in clumps when she showered, so she stopped showering altogether.) She started snapping at the customers if they took too long and rushed through the drink-making process, resulting in weak lattes with sloppy clouds of milk art.

Her coworkers—who, despite frequenting the restroom, were not bothered by their clocks—had complained to the manager.

She’s come to suspect she’d lost count, yet the phantom ticking persisted, accompanying her throated heart—it made her want to go outside, sit in the sun, call her parents, move back home, throw the ball with the family pup, travel the world, never sleep, sleep all the time, sleep around—something, anything…

Her manager told her to take the day off, but that made it worse. It had been a week without a wink of sleep. She got in bed to recharge, but the ticking clattered her teeth and pulsed her temples. She tossed and turned, putting the pillow over her head. Didn’t help. She turned on a white noise machine. Useless. She sprung out of bed, frazzled, at her wit’s end, digging through her closet until she found her old softball bat. Forgetting she was only in her underwear, she sped over to her Starbucks, stormed in, and waded through the pilgrims, bat in hand.

She pounded on the door, shouting at the occupant, throwing her modest frame against the wood. Pilgrims tried to hold her back, but she’d raise the bat and yell at them wide-eyed. The occupant opened, cursing her, but she rushed in, going right to the mirror, bucking like a bull with each swing of the bat. Swinging again and again, not resting until the mirror was sparkling shards on the floor.

When it was done, she collapsed.

She woke up in the hospital, surrounded by family. The first thing she heard was her heart making the machine beep. She had no idea how much time had passed and, for the first time, it didn’t bother her. The ticking was gone, her scalp calm— her heartbeat was enough.

She started back at work a few days later. Everyone was weird around her, but she didn’t mind. She focused on the milk swans and humming the Muzak, ignorant of duration and unworried by the less-than-busy cafe.

Months turned to years, and everyone forgot about the bathroom clock; there was never a consensus on what it meant or reports of clocks reaching 00:00:00, and the lack of confirmation made interest in the whole thing peter out.

One night, Jenny was closing. She was on her own, listening to music and swiping through her phone in the last minutes of her shift. When it was time, she flipped open to close and started cleaning the machines.

When she finished, she tied up the trash and headed to the parking lot dumpster, humming the day’s earworms as the acrid stench of spent grounds made her eyes water. She tossed the trash and got into her Hyundai.

She sat digging through the center console for her phone charger when her window shattered, spewing glass into her face and on her lap. Before she knew it, the door had opened, and a pair of hands were dragging her from the car. She screamed as the hands threw her to the pavement. She looked up to find a man in an orange hoodie standing above her, a bat in his hand. She became hysteric, crying and crawling away on all fours. The man kicked her belly, and she collapsed by the Hyaundi’s rear tire. The man stood above her, motionless, looking at his wristwatch with absolute stillness while Jenny lay on her side, heaving. Then, the man removed his gaze from the watch, put both hands on the bat, and smacked it upon her itchy crown over and over with a strict secondhand relentlessness.

If Jenny hadn’t lost count all those months ago, she would have felt her clock ticking: 00:00:04…03…02…01…

…00:00:00, goose eggs, zilch, nada, bupkis—our symbols that gesture toward nothing…the words we use when our pots empty.

But they’re full now, and watching the boil blinds us. As the last drop turns to vapor, we’re given sight and realize we’ve seen nothing at all.

So, my friends, train your gaze outward…leave the pot be…appreciate the ferns in your latte, and call your mother—the bubbles lapping against steel will call you when you’re needed…