Time Stops 3-27-22

 

The Day the Clocks Stopped

By: Ryanne Leavitt

You know those days at school when you are just so bored that your mind wanders and you stare at the clock willing it to be the end of the day?  Yeah, that was the kind of day Lacie was having.  She was vaguely aware of the teacher droning on as his fat head bobbed up and down.  After staring mindlessly at the clock for several minutes, Lacie realized she could no longer hear the endless blah blah blah of Mr. Fathead, and that the clocks hands had all together stopped moving.  

At first she thought the battery had died, but then Lacie looked to her table mate, Jim, hoping to complain to him that even the clock was so bored it had given up hope that this class would ever end.  That is when she realized that it wasn’t just the clock that had stopped, everything and everyone in the room seemed to be frozen in time, or paused!  

Jim’s arm was straight up in the air, no wavering and his mouth was contorted in an odd way, as though he was stopped mid word.  The teacher was frozen mid bob, his wispy hair at a 45° angle to his mostly bald head.  The annoying boy seated behind her had a spitball protruding from the end of the straw in his mouth, and next to him was Lucy.  Her eyebrows were raised and eyes were wide as dinner plates.  It appeared she was trying to stifle a laugh for her hand was clasped firmly over her mouth.

Sure that she had just gotten so bored in class she had fallen asleep, Lacie tried the time tested method for checking, she pinched herself.  If she had been worried that her sharp intake of air followed but a loud yelp would disrupt class, she needn’t have.  The room and all its contents and occupants remained stubbornly statuesque, including her pencil that was suspended mid fall.  

She slowly stood and began walking around the room.  She took the straw out of spitball boy’s mouth (she could never remember his name) and his hand remained suspended in the air.  Lacie reached out a trembling hand to grab her pencil, but just as she touched the eraser it fell to the ground and Mr. Fathead’s droning voice was once again going, as though there had been no time lost.  Jim’s arm began waving back and forth and the words, “Ralph isn’t listening again” in true Jim fashion!  At the same moment the spitball whizzed past where Lacie had been sitting and splatted against the whiteboard. 

Lacies eyes were drawn to the clock, whose hands were whirring around rapidly, as though they knew they had missed something.  The bell rang and all the kids sprang from their chairs and dashed toward the classroom door.  With one last glance at the clock, she too got up to leave, only to find it had happened again!  Someone or something had seem to pause her entire class.  Lacie weaved her way through her class mates and out the door, determined to see if the whole school had been affected.

Lacie rushed from room to room, and found kids partway through doorways, frozen hands on doorknobs.  The eerie sight continued as she headed toward the entryway.  Out of the corner of her eye, Lacie caught a blur of movement.  That had to mean someone or something else was animated still.  She diverted her course and the chase was on.  As she turned a corner, Lacie saw and heard the gym door click shut.  Throwing caution and reason to the wind, Lacie ran in after.  

There in center court was a boy, probably a junior or senior, but one she didn’t recall from any classes or activities.  He had wild green eyes and wavy blonde hair, and was holding a strange device in his hand.  He stared at Lacie as she advanced on his position, just as she reached out to grab him, he pushed a button on the thing in his hand and the world snapped back into action.  That is when Lacie realized too late they were not the only ones in the gym.  A dodge ball came zinging her way, smashing into her face, knocking her to the ground.  That was followed by a cacophony of shouts and arms all over the place reaching down to help her off the ground, “where did she come from!  Are you a wizard? Are you all right?  How did you get here!  Get an ice pack!”  The coaches whistle blew and the next thing she knew, Lacie was walking out into the crowded hall with an ice pack in one hand and a screaming headache, and the green eyed boy was nowhere.

It seemed to Lacie that this day was completely impossible, yet it had still happened.  The clock in the hall had racing hands, desperate to catch up with reality and Lacie’s mind was racing just as fast.  There weren’t any real answers to this puzzle and her head screamed all the more.  With the deftness of a motorcycle in rush hour traffic, she worked her way through the passageway that was filled to bursting with the hustle and bustle of teenagers trying to leave school.  Lacie just wanted to get to her locker, get her stuff and go home before more craziness happened. Time just wasn't’ running right and no one was the wiser.  They all just acted as though the last 15 minutes haven’t even occurred, which to them, she surmised hadn’t.  

As she reached her locker and was just getting the dial turned to the final number, she spotted the young man again, only this time he wasn’t running from her, but deliberately and resolutely walking toward her.  Lacie could clearly see their ages were similar and that he knew something she didn’t.  

Feeling as though this was the right moment, Lacie headed toward him, cutting the intercept time in half.  He grabbed firmly onto her forearm and then, before she could ask him a thing, they were nowhere and everywhere, no-when and every-when all at once.  Images, words, thoughts, concepts  and understanding poured into her mind and heart.  Comprehension dawned as the school hall began to once again move all around her and Derrik (for during that time even all about him had filled her).

That day, the day of Lacie’s boredom beyond belief, the day she was tired of all the things around her, became the day of her new beginning, the day she was given purpose and understanding.  It was the day the fixer Derrik  found her, as was his mission.  He had been sent through the everywhere’s and every-whens to locate the one in his path that would not be frozen, the one who was to be his all-ways partner and fixer companion.  

Lacie would now, with Derrik, her Derrik be sent to fix the breaks and folds in time and place.  

Time Stood Still

By: Carrie Keiser

It was dead silent in her room, it was never completely quiet, ever!  Jill bolted upright, flinging the covers off and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed to stand up.  She had moved so fast that she was a little dizzy and off balance, Jill reached out to steady herself by placing her hand on the bed.  After a moment she had regained her equilibrium. 
Why was it so still?  Jill looked around the room, not really noticing anything out of the ordinary.  She strained her ears, listening. Suddenly she knew what was wrong, the ticking of the clock was not present. In fact, she could hear nothing electric.  Had the power gone out?  Jill searched the room for her phone. It should have been right there on the bedside table, she must have knocked it to the floor in her sleep. Jill got down on her knees to look on the floor and reach under the bed. Her fingers brushed the edge of the phone, it had indeed fallen under the bed at some point in the night.

Jill tapped on the screen, it came to life, well the screen lit up but there was nothing on the display.  What had happened?  Usually when the power goes out, she can still use her cell.

She threw on her sweats and headed down the stairs, she’d go next door to the Churchill’s and see if they had any idea of what had happened.

When Jill stepped out onto her front porch, it was eerily quiet. She lived in the suburbs, but this was not normal the silence she was experiencing. She was beginning to freak out a little. What could have caused this? She walked across the lawn and up to the Churchill’s door, raised her hand to knock when the door flew open and she was standing inches from Mr. James Churchill’s face. A scream escaped both of them and she jumped back a step. The shock registered on his face was the mirror of Jill’s. He said, “Jill, what is going on?”

“I was hoping you would know that, James?” Jill replied as the rest of the Churchills crowded around the open door.

They all looked out on the neighborhood, nothing had changed but yet everything felt different.  Jill wondered if her vehicles would run. She had an older manual Chevy truck, that should run it wasn’t high tech. Too bad Jill hadn’t kept a bigger supply of gas on hand. The little she has would quickly run out and she be forced to walk, if this has been some nuclear electromagnetic pulse that took out the clocks and everything else. What or who had caused this?  

While these thoughts scrolled across her mind, she noticed that the other neighbors were all coming out of their houses wandering around with looks of confusion on their faces. She joined them and casting her eyes around, Jill noticed some smoke lazily rising into the sky. Panic rose in her chest, was it a house or had a plane fallen from the sky in the night. Again, Jill wondered what time it was. Why were none of the clocks working?  

Jill was drawn back into the present when she heard the voices shouting. Her head jerked up and she saw the neighbors making their way towards the smoke. Like a zombie she followed along. One foot in front of the next into this new world.

Stop Watch

By: Aaron Leavitt

I didn’t even notice it when it happened. Not right away anyhow. The clocks said it had to have been some time just after I stepped off the train and exited the subway station. It was already late though, and I brushed past the few people that were out without much thought. I’d walked into my apartment and set down my keys, made myself a sandwich, and settled myself into my usual place on the couch. Sitting there thinking about my frantic day, it was the silence that first worked its way to the front of my mind. It was never quiet here, always some car, or machine or person going noisily about their business. I stood and rubbed at my ears, and stepped to the window. A few things got my attention, sparse as the street was from this many floors up, a pigeon leaned into the start of flight, but suspended there. Cars sitting still in the middle of the street, and a pedestrian or two not shuffling slowly, just stopped. So I walked to the kitchen to check the time, it seemed broken though, there was no way I was home that early. I tried to turn on the TV, or pull up my phone to get some sort of re-assurance that I was just being paranoid, but I got no response. 

After a few minutes talking myself into and back out of a series of possibilities, there was nothing for it but to walk back out there, and confront whatever was happening. I put my coat back on, grabbed my keys and stepped back out into the hall of the building. Descending the stairs there were other things I’d missed in my routine of trudging up the stairs. Around the 4th floor there was a fly, halfway through a flap, just suspended in the air in the middle of the stairwell. On the 2nd floor, one of the other residents had apparently been in the process of entering their home, and there they were, halfway through the door, holding the knob, one foot in mid-air a few inches off the floor. I walked back and forth noticing the way his clothes had bunched in that step and then just stopped, hanging there in small ways that felt stranger and stranger the longer they stayed static. 

On down to street level. Now that I was looking for it things were stopped everywhere, halted in ways that were so absolutely everyday, but felt more than a little bizarre when examined in a frozen moment. Apparently a light drizzle had been falling, and the tiny drops sparkled in the air. One of the cars that refused to continue passing was halted in the middle of a puddle, a small arc of water cascading off the tires. Without movement, it looked like some sort of surrealist sculpture. 

I’d walked back and forth on the street for what seemed like an hour, but was quite obviously no time at all, then I settled dejectedly on the steps at the front of my building. The words “Now what?” pulsing loudly in my mind. Then mid-blink, reality with all it’s fascinatingly mundane details, sprang to life again. The cars proceeded, the people meandered, the small drops pattered this way and that, and I released a long breath that I hardly knew I’d been holding. It felt like I should do something momentous, but completely unable to fathom what that might be, I wandered back up to my living room, and my couch, and my normal. With a keen awareness that at any time I could step out of a moment and could only hope that somehow the world would find itself able to begin again. It’s certainly changed the way I look at my day.