Time skip
“I know I am not crazy, but how does the world?” I wrote on the top of the blank notebook page. It had happened again, this time I was spending time at my mothers eating, talking like I had so many times then right in the middle of it all things stopped. As if the world was taking a huge breath and I alone was privileged to watch it. All my family sitting around the table, paused like a video cassette and I was the only one who could move and watch it. Outside of the window, a leaf was falling, or more to the point on its way falling but it had stopped mid air and was sitting mid air for the world to start again. This was not the first time I had witnessed such a thing, It was a regular occurrence, the problem was that I could not tell anyone about it. I guess I could try telling someone but I was afraid that if I did no one would believe me and in truth why should they? Sanity was based on the way that the world saw things. If I saw something behind the world that no one else did then it was perfectly true to be judged that I was insane. The problem was that if I did not meet the status quo or thought I saw things that no one else did I would be forcibly medicated until my “delusions” went away, or I became sedate and didn't start any more problems.
I don't remember the first time things stopped for me, it had to have been happening for a long time, as it did not bother me much anymore. If I had gone to a doctor to tell them about it here is what I would describe as the side effects: Usual disorientation when time had resumed as a result of being thrown back into the middle of a conversation or a situation after being “out of it” for a little while. The “pauses” as I had liked to call them never happened for longer than a few minutes though it was hard to measure without a working clock. Usually, I had a moment or two of disorientation when the pause began and as such could never really gage the length. It had no rhyme or reason as I could tell, it seemed pretty erratic. It was no more likely to happen during a particular season or when I was surrounded by family or or not. It also did not seem to happen in particular when I was in time of great emotional distress when I often wished that it would for a time. There was the other problem being that usually shortly after it happened I had pretty strong headaches. It was likely that they happened sometime in the night but since I was asleep I could never know exactly.
These things were normal as saw it. The disorientation did not seem an unusual problem as it came as a result of the stopping of time and the restarting of it and usually had to do with the social implications of that. This was the thing that I was most concerned about was the headaches, but since I did not want to talk to a doctor about it, I took a couple pills to make it go away. This was of course a common solution to problems anyway I felt. Rather than looking at the source to fix it, it had become far to common place to numb the pain and go on doing what was being done before.
It was a few days until it happened again. This time I was standing in line at the grocery store off in a world of my own thoughts and suddenly the back ground track fell out. The normal background noise of music paused and when I looked around everyone it seemed had stopped. The man with the overly large belly in front of me, his large cart with 3 or 4 things in the bottom of it had stopped mid groaning over to grab them and was hanging there like some kind of a ridiculous picture. The cashier with her smudged lipstick had her hand paused mid-wave over the scanner which was giving her face a demonic glow. I looked around and others had stopped too. The kid who was mid tantrum in the lane next to me was being grabbed by his mother on the back of his 2nd grader sweater and it looked like was in the middle of trying to either run away from her or to grab a candy bar on the shelves at the checkstand. It was always strange when it happened in public, seeing faces that were in fact mid facial expression often looked angry or distorted. It was also very easy to see the things no one wanted you to. The man discreetly trying to pick his nose, or the woman who was biting her nails who often did it so quickly it was hardly noticed. (both of which would be denied later, somethings were unconscious.) Every little thing people did was caught in this snapshot moment. Preserved by only my eyes, a true look at the way the world was. Pretentiously no one did any of these things, and could I have a camera that worked in the middle of it I could get some very candid snapshots as proof that everyone did them.
I turned my head and grabbed my handbasket with the same amount of things being pushed by the man in front of me and decided I would take a walk for a bit. I knew that when everything started again that the lady with the boxes of hair color (red), cheap hairspray, and reading one of the tabloids behind me would not notice that I was not there anymore. I usually figured the even if she did, since I was not there now, she would write it off as being wrong, never believing the truth of it. I passed the child a bit ruffling his hair (another fact that would not be understood but would definitely be written off) and headed back to the dairy section of the store.
It could be easy, I always told myself, to make a profit at times like these. An open cash drawer could be pilfered without anyone knowing or noticing until the end of their shift, or I could always play the good Samaritan and catch the woman with a bag full of cds who intended to leave without paying for them before she walked out the door. Of course I could also do things to mess more with people than I had before, untying shoes, moving wallets, that sort of thing. It was simple to think of doing things that would make people ask the question of whether or not they were going insane, but I always figured it was better karmically not to do any of it. As I headed towards the back of the store walking down aisles of potato chips (NOW LESS CALORIES!) I caught a glimpse of someone running out of the corner of my eye. Was that movement? Was that someone running through the store, and moving like I was? I quickened my pace and turned the corner only to see the same shape duck into an aisle a few rows down the way. I had to catch this person, I had to know if I was insane or if I was not alone in being able to move in such a situation. Running hard and dropping my basket I turned the corner only to come face to face with a boy, not much younger than myself wearing an ill fitting black sweater, a pair of tight black Jeans tucked into a pair of army surplus boots that were untied and loose fitting. On his head was a Black knitted hat that did not cover the stringy blond hair it covered. He stared back at me smiled then seemingly out of nowhere the music started and the world was back to the way It had been before.
“you smiled at me!” I said standing there feeling stupid about the whole thing for the first time in a long time. I had more or less gotten used to most of what happened during these episodes, but for the first time now I felt strangely uneasy staring at someone else who may have the same secret life that I did. “I did?” he retorted in a voice that was deep and growly and seemed as though it did not belong in a body of such a slim fellow. “when, did that happen?” he smiled again. I was beginning to hate that smile. “just now, you know when...” “when what? I have never seen you before in my life.” I knew he was egging me on, trying to make me explain what had happened. “you know when, don't be a prick.” “No really tell me, I am curios to hear this.” “well, you know, when time stopped” after I said it realized how insane it sounded. “Are you saying,” he smiled that ugly yellowed grin again between his cracked lips “that when you saw me time stood still? do you have any idea how queer that sounds? Look dude I don't roll that way, so if you are hitting on me you are wasting your time.” “You know full well what I mean, so knock off the charade.” I knew my face was red by this point and my voice a little louder than usual for a nice conversation. “ woah dude chill out. I think it would be better to discuss this somewhere less, um... Populated.” I turned around for the first time to noticed everyone the Aisle was staring at us. “alright meet me outside in 10 minutes.”
“Hurry up they won't be open for ever.” The lady shouted across the parking lot. It was funny to hear such a cosmic thought from her until I realized that she did not mean what I did. They would only be open for so long, eventually everything familiar would melt away. For me it was a little different with all the stopping and starting of time I had a little longer than the rest, a minute here a few there, but nothing more than anyone else in the grand scheme.
