We Need to Do Something!

I stared all around me, amazed at all our house’s still clocks after I commanded all time to stop so I could finish my short story due just minutes from now. I crept into the kitchen— the steam from the pot was still. Tilting my head, I reached out, feeling it. Weird.

I studied the clocks, but nothing happened. I turned the right-hand right, but nothing would change. If I changed the left hand left, time would still be stopped. I don’t know whether I did anything. Is this some kind of trap? Am I in the twilight zone? Did everyone—holy cow!

My jaw dropped as I ran over and shoved the screen door open, staring at all the neighbors along the sidewalk and street. A teenager on a skateboard had frozen in midair, his arms extended. A woman to my right was bent halfway over, her watering can’s water not yet hitting the Hydrangea. A little boy’s hand stayed outstretched. He would forever remain on his knees, trying to catch his small dog, whose legs would stay in a galloping position with its outstretched tongue. I suddenly shivered, wondering what I would do in a world full of people who just would never move again. I was the only one alive. I bit my lip.

What would I do? Where would I go? I couldn’t steal. I couldn’t use the phone anymore. I took long, slow breaths and wrung my hands. Ok, Addy, get it together. You want to get back to normal. Better yet, prove yourself—that writing contest story won’t be missed, even among the bullies in my school. They’ll like it so much they’ll want me to write their very college application essays for them. Maybe I’ll get credit from someone in this world of people who think too highly of themselves. I mean, I go to school enough to think that’s all that’s that—bullies in school. Bullies here, bullies there. Bullies everywhere, even in my nightmares. I sighed. Hopefully not after I solve this time problem. I’ll stop them—with a simple word! Smiling assuredly, I returned to the pot of steaming vegetables my grandmother had put on the stove. I looked at the weirdly frozen steam. I touched it. It shifted at my will! Manipulating it, I made a little door. Hope this thing will help me get some friends around here. Don’t want to be found in my bullies’ clutches forever. I pushed it open. 

Awesome! Before me was a roaring fireplace. Teens, like me, roasted marsh mellows. They all laughed up to the chilly night air, and they were wearing lime-green and neon-colored hoodies, sweatshirts and sports pants. I excitedly stepped forward, smiling at them.     

“Hey, I’m Addy. Where am I?””

All became quiet. One girl stood up, leaped over a log that seated several high school-looking kids and handed out something bright and pink. “For you. Soon, the night will become pitch-black, and we will see nothing. You need to wear something so we can see each other. This is a hoodie.”

I grabbed it immediately, thanking her. She nodded cheerily and walked away, sitting back down with her friends. As some roasted marsh mellows, while others talked, someone quipped, “How’d you get here? Oh, look—the sun’s almost out. Let’s get ready!”

After exiting from a port-a-potty I found somewhere and sitting down next to that girl after she motioned for me to come over, I took my seat among them. Throwing my hoodie up over my blond head, I laughed as someone asked whether I liked this summer camp vacation. I turned to my friend and told her that in my world, all the clocks stopped. She stared at me like that was a horrible thing.

“You know?”

“Yeah!” I frowned. She was waving a hand like everything was so chill. “Sure. The clocks—”

“Look, I have this assignment due—” I panicked. “Moments ago! I need—”

“Why would you?” Someone hollered. “We live without time here. Why go back to clocks and stuff? . What’s so wrong about timelessness?” Some teens threw in some other lame puns, but the first one ignored them, laughing at someone who said the marsh mellows were time by tossing them into the fire.

I turned to the girl. “What was he talking about? I have powers now. I controlled time!”

She shook her head. “You think you did. But we’re forced here. Something—an authoritarian figure we can’t know about—forced all of us teens here to eternal summer vacation. The only way out is to change ourselves. How we use time is extremely important.” I hugged myself, and shivered, despite the bonfire feet from me. I didn’t like this campfire scenario at all. I got up to go. “I don’t understand.” I looked all around for the steam door, and went through it, only to find everyone still, well, still. . It was like they were in a movie set on pause. I was glad I wasn’t on pause, but I needed to find out why everyone else was. I searched throughout my small town, but to no avail. Everyone had frozen in time. That meant, I realized, I didn’t have to worry about my short story.

I returned to the campfire, a wide smile on my face as I settled next to the girl who beamed at me.

“See? You don’t need to worry. We’ll all having fun.”

I nodded, snuggling up next to the fire. I told someone to toss the marsh mellows my way, and they did, me putting it on a stick and roasting it. As night fell, it really did become pitch-black. I looked all around me, gazing in awe at all the neon colors vibrantly shining with color. “So what’s all this about? Are we going to explode into stars now?” I laughed. “Loud, bright ones?”  

“ “What’s it look like…what’s it again?”

“Addie.” I looked at my own hoodie. Pink was so bright the firelight looked so dull compared to it. I looked at the girl, and stood up. “Come on, let’s run around and show off all our colors. Besides, what’s your name?”

“Autumn.” The girl leaned over to me. "Right, but we can’t just play. We’re here to prove ourselves.”

I took a deep breath. “ Okay. So let’s do that. I mean, we own the night, right? I would think we could do whatever we wanted.”

“No!” Autumn panicked, throwing her hands in the air. “You don’t understand—”

I balled my fists. “What I don’t understand is that I don’t see how the clocks in my world stopped. How did everyone else freeze but me?” I backed away. “I want to go home. I want to live a normal life again. I don’t want to be in an eternal summer campfire camp forever. Please—I know you guys don’t care, but—”

“We don’t care?” Autumn threw her hands about. “We’ve been trapped here. We don’t know how we got here, but something or someone has put us here. they’ve stopped the clocks. They’ve stopped time. They’ve halted our lives.” She grabbed my arms. “Addie, please trust us. we’re your friends. We’ve been here a long time! Please—if you know how you came here, please save us!”

“Then why are we all standing around, with these hoodies on?”

“These hoodies represent our lives. We shine—in one way or the other. But they’re also like prison suits—they’re how they know we’re here. .. the brighter they glow, the more talent we have. But I don’t care how talented some of us are. We’re—”

“We’re here to demonstrate our talent. So what if we can’t?”

“Then we’re here until we prove ourselves.” I looked all around. “Am I the only writer around here?” A hand shot up, I assumed, from its lit-up arm. Another arm waved. “Okay—so, let’s…” I stopped talking. It seemed the more I talked, the darker this world got. Then I started screaming. “Guys—it’s getting really dark! Guys—help me… I think—”

"Hey.” Autumn grabbed me into a hug, squeezing my arms to my side. “It's okay, Addie! It just wants you to think that. You’re fine.” I calmed down. Then I told everyone to show off—the sooner we’ll prove ourselves, the faster we’ll leave. Someone spun and kicked around—a dancer. Another acted out a scene and then burst into song—a performer. Then the two writers drew words in midair, and I read them. Smiling, I told them to write us out of here.

 “We can’t. We tried. It doesn’t work—”

I wrote words into the air that reflected on our desire to leave this eternal summer fire camp world. No matter how adamant my words were, my words didn’t do justice. I blinked. I put my hand in front of my face. Nothing but sheer blackness covered me. I almost hugged it. But it wouldn’t love me. Someone threw up an idea. We all formed a huge circle by grasping each other’s hands. I felt really safe doing this. The only things we saw were our lit arms and legs. As we watched, we soon cheered and whooped. We even held a contest. It seemed for every group of dancers, there were a small group of actors and singers, writers, painters, street fighters, street jumpers and karate performers. I tried resisting thinking that we had to just stay here forever, performing to each other. What else would we do—eat marsh mellows and tell jokes that grew stale over time? Host eternal sleepovers, where we’d go to bed and then wake up yesterday morning only to go to bed last night? It was weird. But, like the bullies in my world, I tried not to change anything.

Once everyone had won at something, we just stood in the circle. I blinked—it was getting brighter. Was this the morning? I shook my head, tears coming to my eyes. Daylight yawned in front of me, and we all clapped and cheered. I also noticed the fire pit had died out. We all headed away from the campfire, rejoicing in the daylight. Then we all found ourselves suddenly transported to a classroom. A teacher gave us a sheet of paper.   

“Write one paragraph about what you did last night, and tell us why.” She went over to her desk, plopped down and started working on her computer. I looked down at my paper. One paragraph, huh? About what I want?

I used a pencil that seemed to just be there and started jotting down bullet points. Then I started my essay. Before I knew it, the teacher had called time. I looked down at my writing. A sentence blurred before me as tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t get it done. I’m here for all eternity. The teacher, I looked up, looked down at me.

“You have your essay?”

I shook my head, tears streaming down my face.

“Come on, Addison." Autumn whispered from one seat over. "Yeah--you got this, girl!"

As the teacher collected the others’ papers, I got right on it, writing a satisfying conclusion before she had appeared at my desk again. Snatching up the sheet of paper, she threw it up in the air and drawled, “This is sheer laziness. Let’s read it!”

I sat there, throwing my hands behind my head and kicking back in my seat. I also wiped the tears off my face but found that they had all disappeared. But I waited, bouncing my leg under my desk. Come on, lady. Just read it—and send us out of here. I bit my lip, inhaling slowly as her eyes darted from word to word. Then she looked up and announced, “All right, class. You’re dismissed.”

I got up, flicking my eyebrows up and down. That’s right! Next time, maybe you can read it aloud so everyone knows how talented I am at writing. Bet I even won this class over. Don’t think anyone’s going to become a bully when they hear my essay. If only I could take it into reality and read it aloud to the bullies. They’d stop forever. As I exited the room, I headed towards the school’s double door entrance where a bus sat running outside in the roundabout. Shoving myself through the exiting crowd and catching up with Autumn, we walked towards the bus together. I bet they have a new world that’s exactly like the one I left. I bet my parents are there, and my sister. Maybe we’re here, but we’re together. It's just our original world—but better. No bullies, right?

I dashed, madly escaping the school. As I lunged for the bus, I heard someone call my name. I heard her call my name again and again. Now I was being shaken. “Addy! Addison, wake up.”

I shot my eyes open. I scrambled out of bed. I looked at the clocks. They were ticking. Then I was being shaken again. “Addy!” It was my friend, Autumn, from before. She was shaking me. I shot my eyes open again. “Addy. The teacher wants to see you.”

I picked myself up off the sideway—I guess even wanting to return results in thinking you’re waking up in reality only to return to the fake world—and proceeded to head into the building, my mind full of confusion and a desire to punch this time-controlling thing’s lights out. Once I entered the room, I walked up to her. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Your essay was the best out of all of the writings. I didn’t even like some of them. Now, as your reward, I will do this.” She scribbled an A+ on the paper and gave it back to me. “Nice!”

I looked at her. “Ma’am, I don’t want a great grade. I want to get out of here! To go back to my life.” I narrowed my eyes. “Did you stop the time in my world?”

“No.” Her eyes flickered with truth, and I sighed.

Then who did?

“That’s for you to decide.”

I stared at her. “You can read minds?”

“Yes! Yes, I can. So I can help you get out of here. I’ve been trapped here, too. Because I was so immersed in teaching. Teaching seemed like the dream come true. It isn’t—not for all eternity. Now I must find a way out.”

“Then…” I furrowed my brows. “I’m here because I don’t want to really do anything. I’m always procrastinating. Always putting things off to the last second, snapping at others when they tell me to get it done. Hurting others when they just want to help. They care whether I get it done or not—except me. I want friends. I don't have anyone. I need a better life!”

“You’ll be here forever if you don’t do as you’re told!” The teacher snapped angrily.

I jerked a nod, and walked out. That bus wasn’t going to take me home. It was going to just drive and drive, the bus driver turning onto roads and letting students off only to keep driving and driving again. He or she would stop. But the bus’s wheels would keep spinning. I sucked in a huge breath and went over to a seat. Writing something down onto a sheet of paper the teacher gave me, I spent probably hours, if there was time. But I turned it in, telling the teacher I was done. Then I walked out, quietly exiting. Hopefully forever.

Let’s make things that last, last. I smiled as I threw open one of the doors. Heading towards that bus, I walked up the stairs and told the bus driver to stop at every student’s house. And then retreat back to where the buses are dropped off. “Please!”

“Yes, ma’am!” He did so.

As I rode it, I felt every wheel stop with the bus. Then I saw every kid perform, like they were made to by some alternate force. They couldn’t stop! I rushed out, telling them they didn’t have to conform to a never-ending world of performing—they could change that perspective. They didn’t have to just be led to believe anything told of them. As the day went by, I saw more and more people listening to each other, fleeing from their eternities. They were all realizing they didn’t have to stay where they were forever. They could do a million other things the way they should.

Maybe I should stand up to the bullies. No more wasting time thinking I can’t. If I can write an A+ essay, I can defend myself and win forever! I found Autumn, and told her this. She agreed, and waved me goodbye. I gritted my teeth, hating the departure. I wouldn’t have her—or any of them—in the real world. I’d be lonely again.

I stopped and looked all around me. The clocks had returned. The people everywhere had returned to life. Life continued. I checked myself—I was still wearing that hoodie Autumn gave me. Then I took it off. She had been so kind to me. I missed her. And everyone else in that high school group. I wanted to be their friend again.

I wished I could go back and take them all home here to celebrate escaping—

A knock on the door. I ran to open it. There stood all the teens in their hoodies! Autumn broke through the crowd, telling me to keep my hoodie on because they were all going to the movies. “Want to come?” Then someone piped up, “Let’s go. We’re free now. Let’s go celebrate our successes!”

I nodded, promising myself I’d get my short story written. 

I did. And handed it to that teacher the following week. She grinned and wrote something on it after the awesome grade.

Thanks. I have a life now. Now go enjoy yours!