Death Watch by Fitch Stona

Author:Fitch, Stona [Fitch, Stona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arrow Editions
Published: 2023-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

I took off my suitcoat, poured a whiskey, and sat at the dining room table, my ears ringing from the voices in the crowded gallery. The night may have been a complete bust for Death Watch, but it was always good to see Robert, the drinks were free, and Team Death took home an important insight—our would-be customers were societal unicorns.

That said, I had faith that the right early adopters would pull others along.

After the first sip of whiskey, I remembered talking with one of the other guests at the Okutama Institute, a Danish art dealer. Martin something. Even after the Death Watch demonstration—the shredded apple and eviscerated rabbit—he had smiled and said he would have no problem finding buyers. “Even if the watch is real?” I had asked him. “Especially if it’s real,” he said, explaining that Death Watch matched the dark fatalism of Danes.

I rushed over to my backpack and dug through it until I found the stack of business cards guests had handed me. I tossed them on the dining room table one after the next.

Here was his card, on heavy paper stock with his name and information embossed in an elegant typeface. Garamond, if I had to guess. Martin Sørgen, at Rare Elements, a gallery in Copenhagen. I opened my laptop and wrote a quick email, linking him to my Dark Roast interview and telling him in no uncertain terms what we needed—a customer, fast.

I sent the email and took a deep drink of whiskey.

My email bounced back almost immediately. I checked the address, which was fine. Then I searched for Martin Sørgen, art dealer. Nothing came up. I searched for his gallery. There was no Rare Elements in Copenhagen.

I picked up another card and searched, found that there was no Renata Stein at Artforum , though I sat next to her in the conference room, remembered her red notebook, her smoky perfume.

Another card, and another, then another.

There was no Niels De Vries, editor of Het Moderne Horloge in Amsterdam.

No Christopher Osborne, English watch aficionado.

I searched for the defiant Frenchwoman, remembering how deftly she had ridiculed Watanabe’s experiment. There was no Madame Helena Déprit at Chanel, or anywhere else in the fashion world.

I searched for the Okutama Institute and found no website, no mention of it. I remembered the quiet trails, delicate gardens and koi pond, my cedar-scented suite, the conference room with its low stage.

“Fuck. ”

I closed my eyes and gave a low moan as the truth came into painful focus. I had been played masterfully by an elaborate con.

When we picked you. I heard Yohji’s voice again, so nonchalant. I had been invited to Tokyo to audition, not to pitch. Would I be impulsive enough to put on Death Watch? Did I want the account and its plush billings enough to risk death? I had stumbled into Watanabe’s sociology experiment, not recognizing the doubleblind machinery running behind it. As its first subject, I was coddled and complimented then gaslit and manipulated.

Watanabe already knew that I could be the ideal first customer for Death Watch.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.