Nicholas was seventeen years old and walked home from school every day through an old street. He would stop by the watchmaker's workshop because he liked to look at the wheels and springs. On that rainy afternoon, old Mr Dmitri handed him a watch with milky glass. On the dial, instead of the date, a thin line pulsed, like an inverted lightning mark. The signboard swayed in the wind, and in the shop window flashed stripped alarm clocks like metal hearts. - 'I'm not selling it, I'm entrusting it,' he said quietly, as if afraid of the walls. 'The watch ticks backwards but leads forwards, do you understand this malice of time? Nikolai feigned courage, although he felt his hands were too hot for November. The hands moved smoothly to the left, like a stream reversing water uphill. His friend Lena was waiting in the city library, where the computer lived its own whimsical life. For a week they had been talking about the competition to map their home district, about the traces that were disappearing. Last year they'd messed up the deadline and were still joking that it was a cosmic mistake. Lena raised an eyebrow, seeing the seconds receding like a film played backwards. There was one clue engraved on the back: shoot the date, think about the place, hold tight. They thought of the square where the stone pump once stood, demolished without a grand farewell. Nikolai's finger tightened the lace to the date of a year ago, the day of their late start. The sky outside the window thickened, as if someone had reminded him of his heavy duties, and it grew quiet. The air suddenly smelled of dust from long ago, and the lamps twitched like intertwined dragonflies. The library bookcases arched, the letters moved slowly, folding into unreadable loops. The watch buzzed in a low tone, and the shadow of their street appeared in the milky glass. Nikolai recalled Dmitri's words: if you see yourself, don't touch the shadow, whatever happens. The watch clicked, the floor rustled, and the library parted like a curtain over a dark tunnel. On the other side blinked the same square, only fresher, with clear plaques and an unbeaten pump. He could hear the laughter of a year ago and the sound of footsteps he knew all too well. At the edge of the tunnel stood a boy in an identical jacket, holding the same watch and looking straight at them. Lena squeezed Nikolai's sleeve as the hand twitched once more, slower, as if waiting for a decision. The boy raised his hand warningly, and the clock in the library chimed an hour that wasn't on the calendar.