The Day and Hour Pocketwatch

In the Anthropological Time Machine, you can only communicate with other times and only to the extent the knowledge won’t change history.  Motto:–“At least you will know.”  A surprisingly large number of people are still able to use it.

A man from our time was chatting with a man from 20,000 A.D. 

“What’s that you are wearing?” he asks.  “It looks like a historical artefact from my grandfathers’ days, a mechanical time telling device for storing in pockets (they had already established that each knew what pockets were)”

“Yes,” said the future man.  “It is a Godwatch.  It tells the day and the hour that Christ will return.”

The man from our time was puzzled.  “I thought that was supposed to be unpredictable?”

The future man nodded.  “In a way, it is.  We have been able to establish by a very precise spiritual mathematics that the watch mechanism generates the exact day and hour of the return.  But due to an inherent quantum effect, the watch is only accurate so long as no one looks at it.”

“You’ve never looked at your watch?”

“Never,” the future man said proudly.

“Then what is the point?

“If you understood that,” says the future man, “you would understand us.”