The steady ticking of the broken-faced watch sliced the moment into ever-smaller fragments of time - every one a possibility becoming past.
"Please," Andrey said, his voice like the first crack splintering the ice on a wintry river.
- the Goncharov novelisation (1976).
Novelisations of popular movies are usually garbage, but perhaps because it was released three whole years after the movie, the Goncharov pulp novel is unexpectedly good - though it's hard to get ahold of these days, since it was only sold in newspaper kiosks back in the day. A copy in good condition can run you several hundred dollars these days.
(hello I am several days late to the party but I'm joining in the Goncharov-posting)
