Time Flies

“Why me?” I ask myself again as my sneakers thunder down the sidewalk while my eyes search for an escape route.

I risk a glance behind and Derek and his gang of goons are gaining on me roaring threats of what they are going to do with me.

Why I didn’t just hand over my lunch money as I usually do? I know. Dad had told me I needed to stand up for myself and not let the likes of Derek control me.

So today when they shoved me against the tree in the yard I shoved back. Derek fell on his ass and the rest of the kids laughed.

While they laughed, I ran. While I ran, Derek followed.

Enough self-questioning. Here’s a store with an open door.

The bell tinkles as I dive inside and look for somewhere to hide. A junk shop, one of those over-filled Aladdin’s Caves where the lucky pick up a Renoir for the price of a comic book. I go deeper in past shelves groaning with the ancient and the useless.

A stuffed bear stands on its hind legs against the back wall. I squeeze in behind it as the white-haired shopkeeper shuffles out from behind the counter to see who has come in.

The bell tinkles again as Derek bursts in and calls out my name. I hear the shopkeeper welcome him. Derek shoves him out of his way and comes further into the shop. I hold my breath. I listen as Derek stalks me, getting closer, step by agonising step.

“Piss-Pants!” he calls out, “We know you’re in here.”

I have to breathe and feel the dust mote go up my nose as I do.

“Atchoo!”

Derek locks onto the noise my sneeze has made and I hear him laughing.

“You’re done for now, Piss-Pants.”

I don’t know why he calls me that. I have never once pissed my pants. I feel his hand grab the collar of my denim jacket.

In a panic I reach forward in a pathetic attempt to pull myself away from his grasp. My hand meets an object and I hear a click. The silence is instant.

With a jerk of my shoulders my collar comes away from Derek’s fist and I stumble out from behind the bear. I turn to look back.

Derek is on the other side of the animal, his face contorted with gleeful rage. But he does not move.

I look around the shop. The shopkeeper is by the door with Derek’s two henchmen but, like Derek, they are frozen. The only sound is of my laboured breathing. I take a tentative step away from Derek and the bear. No-one moves. I look at the bear.

A cloud of dust hangs in the air, each particle motionless. Astounded, I forget my predicament for a moment and pass my hand through the dust. The particles move to where my touch places them and stop again.

I try not to swear most of the time but cannot help the “WTAF?” that escapes my lips.

I crane my neck round the bear’s massive, clawed paw and retrieve the object that clicked this crazy, unmoving reality into being. It is a small, square box, lacquered in maroon with a black button at its centre. Two words are painted onto it in gold.

Tempus Fugit.

I know that from one of the cartoons I watch on a Saturday morning.

Time Flies.

I press the button again.

“…rip your balls off, Piss-Pants,” Derek snarls until he realises I am no longer in his grasp.

At the front of the shop I hear the shopkeeper remonstrating with the other two bullies who spout swear words at him in response.

Derek steps away from the bear, his snarl intact. He raises his fists and comes at me. I press the button again.

Derek freezes, his thrown punch four inches from my face. Silence has descended once more.

I stare at the box in my hand working out, however improbable it seems, what its function is.

Not trusting my luck I creep away from Derek, past the protesting shopkeeper and the goons and out the open door onto the street.

It’s the same out here. Time has frozen. The box has frozen time. I run back to school.

***

That was fifty-two years ago and now I lie on my deathbed wishing I had just got the thrashing Derek wanted to mete out; wishing I had never found the box.

Not that I haven’t had a great time. When Derek made it back to school that day, lunchtime was done and he was hauled up in front of the Principal. That not being the first time he had skipped class, the rest of us rejoiced at the few days’ respite we would have during his suspension.

Derek never managed to bully me again because every time he tried his trousers and underwear would miraculously drop to his ankles. He got tired of the exposure and the giggling. It even happened when he gave up trying to punch and resorted to spitting at me whenever we passed. It felt strange pulling the boy’s trousers down while time was frozen but it had the desired effect.

My self-confidence grew as a result of not having to check everywhere I went for threats of violence. The Tempus Fugit box was wonderful.

My exam results became excellent, a great improvement on the previous ‘mediocre’. Being able to freeze the test room and peruse the answers of the geeks and the swots during tests made scoring highly something of a breeze.

We all moved on to High School and my academics continued to be impressive. I resisted the temptation to score perfect marks as I made my way towards graduation. Too suspicious.

In our teenage years, as money became more of a necessity for social acceptance, a quick press of the black button while a till was open was all I needed to exude an air of affluence. By the time we reached our Senior year I had built up quite a stash of cash.

As teenagers desperate to explore the mysteries of alcohol, the desire exacerbated by its prohibition, I was everyone’s hero because I, with the help of my maroon box, could always be depended on to turn up with whatever beverages my friends requested.

My popularity, however, dwindled as my savings thrived. With my stellar test results colleges were falling over themselves to offer me places, while my friends and classmates struggled with personal statements and application demands. They said my attitude was childish.

I should have paid attention to that.

***

I breezed through college with my trusty box. Not only could I take the time (quite literally) to produce the same answers as the brightest and most gifted in my classes, but, in the case of more creative assignments, I could submit the worst piece of trash and then wait until the professors were inputting results. A quick click of the button and that ‘F’ became a ‘B’ or the occasional ‘A’.

I was still regarded as childish but flashing a bit of cash can convince people to forgive a character trait like that.

I did put the effort into mastering the basics. Even at that young age I had worked out the limitations of freezing time. There would be moments when I would have to actually know something. The effort was minimal but it was enough to see me through.

I graduated from college and landed a great job in finance, not because of my amazing intellect, that being an entirely fictitious quality, but because I could complete tasks set with such speed that it was almost unbelievable. This inspired some jealousy in my colleagues but the ability to complete my simple tasks while time was frozen for everyone else did give me quite the advantage.

That gave rise to promotion after promotion until I got to one of those wonderful jobs where you get other people beneath you to do the actual work while you smile in Board meetings and accept all the credit.

And then the issue with the box began to rear its ugly head, something that had not crossed my mind.

***

Time certainly flies, but temptation flies farther.

Despite my apparent brilliance, the promotions did not materialise at first. When I asked about this the same answer came over and over. I was considered too young for the big responsibilities. Many commented on how I looked older than my age but that someone in their twenties, as I was, was still considered ‘young’. After this discovery, the next time I moved companies I lied about my age.

Placing myself in the early thirties was the magic I needed. It seems that respect is not awarded until you reach that age range, however good you are at your job. The fact that I passed so easily for thirty-something was strange but I ignored it.

I put a lot of effort into behaving more ‘grown up’ than I was. My friends still remarked on how childish I seemed at times. It was like my physical maturity and my mental maturity were at odds with each other.

I should have paid attention to that.

I was still using the box. If anything I was using it more and more. If a deadline loomed I could relax and have fun, pause time and meet the deadline.

My earlier exposure to as much alcohol as I wanted led me to depend more and more upon it. My drunken states got on people’s nerves. If I noticed this coming I would press the button, go and lie down, let the inebriation pass and then return, refreshed and sober. Friends celebrated me beating the bottle.

With girlfriends my immaturity would often lead to a falling out. A press of the button allowed me to search through their diaries, their letters, anything that would give me the chance to do or say something I then knew they adored or cared about once I restarted time, something that usually melted their angry hearts and allowed me back into their beds. It wasn’t a permanent solution but it did give me a few more months with each one than I otherwise would have enjoyed.

On and on this went. More and more I appeared older than my age. In my actual mid-thirties it became so much of an issue that I relocated to a city where I was not known and began again, always finding excuses for why I couldn’t attend High School reunions, old friends’ birthdays, colleagues’ weddings back home. I had to isolate myself from the past but the greater part of me didn’t mind because I was wealthy and having a whale of a time, my Tempus Fugit box making all things possible.

I didn’t even return home for either of my parents’ funerals. I wanted to but I had changed so much and lived in a different world from everyone that, despite the heartache, I couldn’t face the questions that would have been asked.

I chose my easy life over the respect my parents were due.

***

Throughout the years I had been reckless and careless but had, somehow, been lucky until the day I made an error that would bring my whole magical life into focus.

I was stealing some doughnuts. With my wealth I had no reason whatsoever to do so except for the thrill I still experienced over the petty abilities the box afforded me. Did I mention I was childish?

The box was placed on the counter and the bill rung up. I pressed my button, lifted the box and walked out of the shop. I crossed the street, restarting time as I did. What I did not do was see the big, yellow taxi that, at the moment I had frozen time for the sake of six Nutty Chocolatta, was thundering along the road.

Nor do I remember being hit. I restarted time as the taxi’s fender was about six feet from me. As I grinned at my theft the driver could do nothing.

I woke in a hospital bed, both arms in plaster and one eye swollen shut. It hurt to breathe. Machines beeped and whirred around me. I had no idea where I was or why I was there. All I knew was pain throughout my body. Doctors came and went leaving me none the wiser as to what was going on, so loud was the ringing in my head.

Days passed as I slipped in and out of consciousness.

I began to feel better and understood the situation once it was explained again. The doctor who had managed to get through to my addled brain left and a nurse took her place by my bedside. She was old and wrinkled, looking well past retirement age, grey hair held back in a tight bun.

She checked my machines and looked at me. She drew something out of her pocket and held it up in front of my face. My box. It was a little battered and scratched but still intact. I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to smile.

The nurse put her hand in her other pocket and pulled out another box. This one was a dark green but still bore the legend ‘Tempus Fugit’ in gold lettering.

“This box is yours,” she said, raising my one a little, “And it found you when you most needed it.”

I nodded in agreement.

“But it is a dangerous thing,” she continued, “And you should let it go.”

“I can’t,” I croaked.

“Darling, I understand,” she said, smiling for the first time, “But it is not too late for you.”

“Too late for what?”

“What age are you?” she asked.

She looked at my chart.

“Because you certainly aren’t the sixty-four it says here.”

I began to protest until she waved her own box in the air.

“Forty-two,” I replied with a sigh.

“So it’s not too late,” she said, sitting down on the edge of my bed, “Give it up and enjoy what time…what real time…you have left.”

After she explained why she was advising this I let her take the maroon box away. I never saw it again. Apart from that crucial moment in the junk store when I was ten, I wish I had never found it at all.

My aging was one reason. She explained that every time I had pressed that button time had paused for everyone else. For me it had continued. I aged during the pauses while nobody around me did. What had begun as unnoticeable minutes in my adolescence had become obvious years of difference.

That was chilling but something I could have coped with, being as far into it as I was. It was the other aspect of my messing around with time that struck me more.

I had found success but it was hollow. I had lost my family. I had lost my friends. I had no connection with anyone. I had remained childish because I had learned nothing from the lessons life teaches us. I avoided all of the challenges that bring growth in a person.

Without struggle there is no release, without pain there is no joy, without hardship there is no success for without anything to compare release, joy and success to what are they?

Hollow in their ubiquity.

A life without struggle had separated me from the world.

A life without lessons had left me lonely.

I was discharged and, apart from a permanent limp, recovered fully.

For a while I lived on the fortune I had amassed while I had been missing out on a real life but it reminded me of everything I had lost or had never experienced. My regret and shame led me to give most of it away to charities.

I left the high-flying world of finance because, without being able to pause time, I did not have a clue what I was doing.

I went to work in the doughnut shop I had been stealing from on that fateful day. I set my mind to learning. I grew as a person and made some good friends. We laughed and joked about the trials of life. We supported each other when times were hard.

That sense of belonging became worth more to me than any of the easy pleasures I had experienced before.

I discovered a natural intellect within me that I had never tapped before.

The path of least resistance I had been on before had led me, alone, to an empty shore.

***

Beneath my new-found zest for the world with all of its difficulties lay the regret of my life unlived.

I try now to focus on these past few years as the clock on the hospital ward ticks ever onwards, as it should, counting down the time I have left. Even after all this time I feel the urge to press the button, even in the knowledge that it would not delay the inevitable for me.

I tell you this so that, should temptation ever present itself to you, consider for a moment what you would be sacrificing were you to fall under its spell.

Do not skip the difficult. The easy will bring no pleasure in isolation.

Yin and Yang.

Balance.

Take your time, because time flies.