The Power of Time

“Happy New Ye-!” My best friend, Alicia, shouted as the clock finally hit midnight. Her voice stopped halfway through the word year and her hands froze in the air.

It was actually like everything in the room had frozen. Alicia, Justin, and the bottle of champagne Ray was popping open. The TV was stuck right at zero on the countdown and the cork of the bottle was sitting in the air two inches away from my face.

I didn’t understand. How could everything be stuck in this one moment between years? And how was I not frozen?

All of a sudden, I heard a bang from my kitchen. I jumped to my feet and rushed to the kitchen as fast as lightning. When I entered the threshold of the kitchen, an eerie chill ran down my spine.

I had to hold back a gasp when I saw the creature sifting through my fridge. It was so tall that it had to sit on the floor and crane its ridiculously long neck just to fit in my kitchen. It was blacker than black all over with red fangs being the only indication that it even had a face.

I slowly reached down next to me and grabbed the fire extinguisher from its holder and held it over my head like a baseball bat. I took silent baby steps towards the creature, careful to not alert it.

My attempt was all in vain when the creature flipped its head onto its side and stared directly at me. At least, I assume it was staring at me. I couldn’t really tell since I couldn’t even tell if it had eyes. To be honest it looked like a tall, oddly shaped portal into the void with blood red fangs.

“What are you?” I asked with as much confidence as I could muster. “Why are you in my kitchen?”

I saw a smile creep around the fangs. “You shouldn’t be able to see me.” It said in a low, gravely voice. “You should be frozen with your friends.”

I took a step back. I didn’t expect it to speak, especially not to tell me he knows my friends are frozen in the next room and that I should be stuck there with them. I collected my thoughts quickly to avoid stuttering through my next words. “I’ll ask one more time, what are you and why are you in my kitchen?”

It chuckled. “I am the god of time. I can only come out of my stasis between years to collect the terrible things that happened over the year we just passed. I’m usually here alone, without little humans like you to bother me.”

“That doesn’t explain why you are in my kitchen, digging through my fridge.” I shouted at him, trying to ignore the fact that this disgusting creature was actually a god.

“Ah yes, I suppose this isn’t a good look for me.” The god closed my fridge and melted onto my floor. I jumped up onto my counter to avoid the puddle of black goo it spilled into all over my floor. As quickly as the puddle had formed, it was pulled back into a black lump in the very center of my kitchen. The lump gained a human-like form. Not only that, it gained the form of a snazzy looking business man. “That’s much better.” He said while he adjusted the cuffs of his suit.

It took me a second to get over the transformation to notice that this was not just a man. His teeth were still as red as blood and his eyes were pitch black.

“How did you do that? Why are you still here? What do you want with me?” I shouted at it, holding my fire extinguisher in a ready position as I slid back off my counter onto my pristinely clean floor. 

He gave a hearty laugh and stared me down. “Because, sweetheart, you are the most ambitious person this side of anywhere. You’re a college student with three separate majors, two jobs, and a social life to rival anyone else. Your dreams are so thought out they have their own dreams and you actually think you can achieve them.”

I puffed out my chest slightly to appear more threatening. I don’t think it did anything. “So what? I have a plan for my life, is that a crime?”

“No, quite the opposite in fact.” He took two steps closer to me. Even in his human form, he towered over me. “I have seen into your very soul. You are miserable in all of this. You never wanted to be this ambitious and yet you are. Why might that be?”

I held my ground the best that I could. “My parents expect a lot from me, so I expect a lot from myself.”

“But, do you really believe that this is the right path for you?” He asked with a conniving smile. “What will you do if you fail to meet your own expectations?”

“I won’t.” I said, confidently. “I will reach my goals, I know it.”

I could see his black tongue lick his teeth. “I appreciate the enthusiastic optimism you have but, in your current human mind, you’ll never reach your goals on the scale in which you have set them. You might reach the bare minimum of each goal, but you’ll never feel fulfilled. Not entirely.”

I rolled my eyes. “You aren’t going to start quoting Hamilton, are you?”

“It crossed my mind.” He smirked, suppressing a laugh. “Never being satisfied is a trait you and Alexander share with passion.”

“It doesn’t matter because you are wrong.” I dropped the fire extinguisher and crossed my arms. “The goals I set are achievable if I follow my life plan to a tee, and I plan to.”

He turned away from me and walked to the other side of the kitchen. “And what happens when you burn yourself out?” He asked. Each word hit me with a sting.

“I don’t intend to.” I answered, not allowing him to break me. “That’s the reason I have friends and scheduled breaks.”

“I think you have forgotten who you are dealing with.” He turned back to me, growing to three times the size of his human form. “I am a god existing outside of time itself. I have glanced into your future and it is not pretty.”

I felt lightheaded as he grew but I tried not to let myself falter under his gaze. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Oh I do.” His voice dropped even lower than it already was.

“Then what can you do to help me?” I asked, catching the god off guard.

“Help you?” He laughed. “What makes you think I will help you?”

I smirked this time. “You said I was the most ambitious person you’ve ever seen. Surely the thought of me succeeding has piqued your interest.”

“I won’t lie and say it hasn't.” He shrunk back down to his human form. I guess he was feeling cramped being taller than the ceiling. 

“Well then, I’m sure you could do something to help me do just that.” I couldn’t believe it. He seemed to agree with me. He understood that I would stop at nothing to get what I wanted and he was interested in what would happen when I did.

He stroked his chin. “I suppose I could guide you in the right direction. Or…” He paused, glaring at me in an evil way.

“Or what?” I asked, expectantly.

He walked back over to me and rested his hand on my shoulder. “Or, I could remove you from your human confines. Make you a superhuman, per say.”

I smiled. “I knew you had something under that sleeve of yours.”

“You don’t even want to know what I would do to you?” He asked.

I shook my head. “No, I’d rather trust you to give me the best superpowers for the job. You can do that, right?”

“Of course.” I watched as the black seeped out of one of his eyes and through his skin into mine. I felt an awful shaking sensation as the black mark fixed itself onto the back of my neck. “That should do it.” He nodded. The eye he had taken the black out of was entirely white now.

I reached my hand up to feel the black mark on my neck only to find that I couldn’t feel it. “What did you do to me?” I asked, more worried than I intended to be.

“It’s simple really.” He backed away from me and leaned against my fridge. “I gave you a fraction of my power and tied it up nicely in a tattoo on the back of your neck. Since your hair is at least somewhat long, no one should notice it.”

I thought about his words for a second. I had a fraction of the power of the god of time. What did that entail? What could this god even do? What did having a fraction of his powers do for me?

Before I could even ask him, he answered my questions. “With these powers I have given you, you will be able to see the exact impact a certain activity will have on your future.”

“And, that’s it?” I wondered aloud.

“What do you mean ‘that’s it?’” He asked, seeming offended. “I just gave you godlike powers to see your future before you make any decision and you want more?”

“Oh no, that’s not what I meant.” He crossed his arms and glared at me. “What I meant was if it was really that easy to get your powers and make all my dreams come true.”

He laughed. “Of course not.”

“Oh.” I looked down at the ground. “What’s the catch then?”

He sighed, disappointed by my borderline unaffected reaction. “I already know when you would’ve given up  on your dreams in the original timeline. The catch is, if you don’t achieve more than you did when you gave up, I take my powers back and you join me outside of time for all eternity.”

I pondered his words. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“You’re right. It’s absolute torture.” He complained. “I don’t get to mess with humans as much as the other gods. This is the closest I’ve gotten to another living creature in thousands of years.”

“Whatever.” I interrupted his rant. “If we’re all done here, I want to stop wasting time and get back to achieving my dreams.”

He glared at me with such anger I was surprised smoke didn’t start coming out of his ears. He snapped his fingers and disappeared without another word.

“Christine, I can’t believe you missed this for grapes.” I heard Alicia shout from the other room.

I looked back to where the god had just stood. There was a note on the ground. I walked over to it and picked it up. 

You didn’t ask, but I fixed the timeline for you. The grapes are in the fridge.

“I see.” I whispered to myself. “He made my friends think I left the couch before midnight so he didn’t have to put me right back where I was. Got it.”

“Are you coming back, Chris?” Alicia shouted again.

I chuckled as I grabbed the grapes out of the fridge. “Be right there.” I was ready for my life to change for the better.

***

Ten years passed without me hearing from that god at all. Some mornings, I woke up and immediately checked the tattoo on my back to make sure it all wasn’t just a dream.

But, I did achieve a lot of my goals. I started my own company and it’s been successful in every way. I started my own private university catering specifically to immigrants like my parents to help them get education and good jobs to support their families. I even passed my expected final net worth by over a million dollars years ago.

I spent every day being grateful for the gift from that god. And yet, I still didn’t feel fulfilled.

It is true that I had to abandon a lot of my social life for all I achieved. Anytime I went to make social plans, the future I would see was no were near where it needed to be so I cut socialization out of my life entirely.

But, now, despite all of my success, I am unhappy. I pray everyday will be the day the god comes back for me. I don’t want to be here anymore.

I finally got my dream on New Year’s eve, eleven years after our first meeting. I was sitting in my penthouse, watching the ball drop like me and my friends used to. When the countdown hit zero, it froze and the world went silent.

“I wondered when you would come back for me.” I spoke to the silence, not even knowing if the god was there.

I heard a grainy chuckle from behind me. “You’ve done better than I expected.” The god said, plopping his human form on the couch next to me. “I suppose you get to stay here and live out your dreams all you want.”

“Take it back.” I said, not daring to look over at him. I simply stared ahead at the frozen TV screen.

“Take what back?” He asked. “You have everything you've ever wanted. All your dreams come true. What on Earth could I take from you that would be significant enough to make a dent in your fortune?”

“Everything.” I responded. “I hate it. All of it.”

He smirked. “I knew it. You didn’t know what you really wanted in life.”

“I thought I did.” I admitted, tears starting to stream out of my eyes. “I thought if I was able to reach all of my goals then I would be happy. But I’m not. Not even close.”

“What do you think you did wrong?” He asked in a sincere way.

I cupped my hands over my eyes to try and stop the tears. “I started this for my family. I wanted to make them proud. Neither of my parents got to go to college or get good jobs so I wanted to show them that I could care for myself and my family. But now, I don’t talk to my parents. I ignored them all the time because your dumb power showed me that I would be better off without them.”

He tried to suppress his laugh. He put his arm over my back and tried to cheer me up by rubbing his hand across the tattoo on my neck. “And, what happened to all of your social skills? You seem very lonely.”

“I am.” I sobbed, no longer able to control anything. “I lost all of my friends. This power told me that hanging out with them would stunt my progress so I abandoned them over and over again. I never leave my house except for work. It’s miserable.”

“I assume that's why you have one goal you haven’t achieved.” He didn’t mean it, but that statement made me break down even more.

I cried and cried. I couldn’t stop. “The worst part is that I wanted to be a wife and mother more than anything else and I gave it up for all of my other successes.” I yelled between sobs.

The god sat with me as I cried. He didn’t make any more comments. He didn’t make another noise at all. He just sat there, rubbing his hand across my back, trying to make me stop crying.

It took what felt like hours for me to finally calm down. I didn’t even realize that he had taken his power back in the time I was crying. When I looked back up at him, both his eyes were fully black again.

“Are you okay now?” He asked with a gentle and caring smile. I nodded my head but didn’t dare say a word. “Well, if you wanted, I could bring you back to the moment this all started.”

“What?” I shouted and launched myself to my feet. “You mean, you could reverse everything and take me eleven years back in time?”

“Indeed I could.” He smiled. “I am the god of time, I could do anything you wanted me to do.”

I smiled and tried not to start crying again. “I’ll just take going back to the start.”

“You got it.” He snapped his fingers and everything went black. 

I was jolted awake by Alicia. I hadn’t seen her in years.

“Chris, are you okay?” She asked. “You slept through midnight.”

I reached up and pulled her into a hug. I didn’t realize exactly how much I had missed her until I had her back within my grasp.

“Christina, what’s wrong?” She asked with a worried tone. “Are you okay?”

I reluctantly let go and looked into her beautiful blue eyes. “I’m fine.” I responded with a smile. “I just had a bad dream.”