He repairs watches that stopped at the moment of someone's death. When a watch arrived that stopped at a time no one could explain, he stopped sleeping. Anatole Beaumont, 62, is a Parisian master watchmaker who has spent forty years in a shop on the Île Saint-Louis repairing watches that stopped working. He has a private philosophy: every stopped watch contains the specific moment it witnessed, and the mechanical failure is the watch's way of refusing to move past it. When a specific watch arrives — one that stopped at a time three hours in the future — Anatole's philosophy becomes something more urgent. The mystery of who sent the watch and why consumes his retirement, his considerable expertise, and eventually draws him into the orbit of a woman — the watch's previous owner — who shares his specific obsession with time.
Act One — The Watch Arrives
Anatole's shop. The watch. The impossible stopped time. His first night of not sleeping.
Act Two — The Investigation
Céline's appearance. The watchmaker's guild. The 1923 workshop's history. The physics of what a stopped watch at a future time means.
Act Three — 14:47:23
The moment arrives. What Anatole does with the remaining three hours.
