The Dip In The Road

There was a time of night he would always go out for a walk, a specific hour for his specific path, with a specific jacket to warm him from the imprecise breezes. Often these walks would last no longer than ten minutes, no less than five. There was never any real destination, he would simply step out in his specific jacket, walk up his street until he reached a dip in the road and hastily turn back. He never considered venturing beyond this dip, instead happy to remain a creature of eccentric habit.

One evening he had returned from one of his repetitive strolls and discovered a hole in his specific jacket. It was the pocket that normally contained his watch, and sure enough it had surely fallen out at some point. Instead of heading back out again to retrieve it, he was reluctant to disrupt his specific routine. He would wait until the next evening to search for it, despite the relative certainty that the watch would then be gone by then. 

The next evening, at the specific hour wearing his specific jacket, he set out on his stroll. He came upon the dip in the road after the usual allotment of time and a few metres ahead was something shiny by the curb of the road: his watch. Forgetting his habits, he went forward for the watch, stepping into a section of the street he'd never tread upon before. He picked up the watch and noticed both the hands were rotating erratically. Trying to wind it back did nothing, so he put it in the pocket of his specific jacket and turned back for his home. The watch fell through the hole in the jacket and landed back on the curb of the street. He picked it up again, saw the hands were still erratic, and put the watch back into the same pocket, only for it to fall through and land on the curb again. 

The watch never stayed in the jacket, the hour never changed, and he never left the dip in the road. He repeated this exercise of disarray for eternity, having broken one of his precious habits yet unable to break the other.