1 moment out of 26 Hours

In this world there is always the question of whether or not you should share a single thought or feeling with anyone else. Not only this, but also whether or not you’d like it to matter. There weren’t that many days in Bethany’s life that left her any assurity either way.

There was something of a core memory that proved her point, when she started to distrust the veracity of that perspective.

It was decided some time before her twelfth birthday, no relation, that the year, it’s days, it’s hours, it’s minutes, it’s months, should be standardized. Disagreement regarding the mathematical relevance of ‘imaginary’ dates stopped up any real discussion regarding the number of days there should be in the full calendar or its months. The historic record of the names of those months wasn’t discussed as they were considered sacrosanct.

So instead they made do with adding one measly hour to the clock, to wit they argued for a fortnight on whether this extra hour should be dubbed the thirteenth or the zeroth.

After that it was decided that in the coming sestercentennial, they’d change out all of the current clocks for new thirteen hour ones.

It was only when Big Ben had been turned off, that anyone took this odd decision seriously. The world in all its speedy disinterest really hasn’t changed since.

The trouble, mind you, of the gross difference between twelve-zero and thirteen hours had never come up, would there be a true new hour, or would the rest be shortened for the wonderland-esk aesthetic?

Really it was no matter to Bethany, as she saw it, it was just one of many oddities that happened in the green-gray static of her early life, silly clocks with all sorts of additions, soon twelve hour clocks will serve the same novelty as randomized event predictions.

Life would go on. The fact that she still used and owned that clock was beside the point, and whether or not it chose this New Year's Eve to show a 100% upon the hour it believed was morning wasn’t going to change anything.

“Why do you have to be so creepy?” she said out loud to the decade old duodecad-clock, Bethony didn’t let most things touch her and really that included the shame that kept people quiet all by themselves.

People would certainly know if she disappeared, though that only accounted for strangers.

Goodness, things become weird by oneself. 

What was funny about the switch was how far off the old clocks became, even in the first month that two hour addition to the day had nerfed the utility of older systems, and of many actual people, that issue of aesthetic over substance was answered in only the most sensible way.

The extra hours were true, but that didn’t change anything about how the sun moved. So in that way that these things often do, the logistical answer to things was to simply avoid the responsibility of a stupid decision.

A thirteen hour clock made for an auxillery month also, which also instated Undecimber, an old name but a fair enough addition. She forced herself into the role of a host, on this the 0-13th month, currying this ever present confusion.

“I was so happy when you decided to host the party this year. I just know that nobody here could’ve pulled it together like you.” that was her cousin, with shallow praise to a hollow stomach. She could’ve eaten her own weight in fondue and shellfish, but she’d still be queasy come midnight.

Bethany doesn’t even feel it when that countdown reaches, or how her thoughts, and the very memories proceeding disappeared.

Those thoughts split in the darkness of a room once filled with people and light, she was alone in the confusion of a year missing from her head. The luck of her phone bright in her hand wasn’t lost on her, the 0th, What a lark.

It had to have been a joke, but she could barely understand the punchline in that case. Fool enough if she believed it, what could she do?

She thought again about whether or not she wanted to hand off this thing called perspective, but really it was no different from throwing a stick at a dog. Whether such and such an animal catches the stick is wholly dependent on his grace.

“Well, thanks a lot,” he says, realizing that he is in fact the ‘graceful puppy’. Holding that thing that bound the tale that was now existence was odd, as in the world he’d stopped there should be no one else.

But now with the right to say so, James knew what he’d done.

He’d stopped everything and in a sense had invented his predicament. That is seeing the fem sort of eccentric endurer crossing his path from across the bright white roads, she wandered in the same fashion as a ghost, on the thirty-give and thirteenth hour of this first Undecimber.

January 0th, what daring he lacked, the wicked cur of this last quarter-century. He should have been done by now.

With the undue passage of this one stick perspective, he sees only a witness to his crimes unfinished.

“Hey over here!”, she says to him. Not even seeing his flinch, she runs up to him, “I was so scared, everyone's disappeared. Do you know why?”

“Why would I? I was just taking a walk, is there really no one?” James lies cooler than the air touching his breath.

“I suppose that makes sense, maybe I was- I’m sorry, this would be a bit much to blame on anyone.” there was this horrible stricken self in front of him, what door did she cross to hold a shade so true in her expression? 

“What day is it?”, she asks, like she should know already. But he was the only one there, so he feels he should tell her.

“I didn’t check, what day do you think it is?”, he asks back, he knew what day it was, what hour, what moment. He sees her face fall.

She looks around the thick white mush beneath their feet, from his path, a slick gray, white from where she’d walked. To the sky, where there should be snow falling.

“Who even thinks about that?”, she asks, spearing him in the heart with a near literal sensation. James was a terrible person, she may’ve been a witness to his strange goals, but frozen or not, that moment was cold.

“You should go home, just wait if you can,” he didn’t know how long he’d need, but it shouldn’t be so. This was the first time he’d pulled anyone else into the moment with him, and while he wasn’t sure, “think of this as a dream.”

“Alright.”, She looked away, and made to walk back to her home. From where she’d been walking, back to an apartment.

He went back to his task, the interruption had been deafening, and the buzz of the atoms of the world kept measure in his thoughts. 

He was a thief and however unintended he’d stolen the ephemeral, long before he’d made it to the bank.

The only thing James could hope for was the safety of the girl who’d proven his grace. Though if he were being honest, it was still just a lucky catch.