Chronos/Simon Tempus

Simon Tempus watched the boy as he walked into the catholic school with his sisters. He had waited a long time for this, and he wanted to make certain the boy was right. He patiently waited, nearly motionless sitting on the bus stop bench. Growing bored, he sped the passage of time. Forms of people and vehicles whirred around him, blurring in an almost indiscernible dance of color and light. Finally the children came flooding from the old stone schoolhouse like a tidal wave after an earthquake. He froze time.

Simon casually crossed the street, breathing the invigorating aroma of still time deep into his lungs. He drifted his hand casually through a high school girl’s force lines just to see them ripple. Soon he saw Garrett in the crowd of children. He gradually let time move forward until the boy had a respectable clearance around him, then stopped time again. Now was the test. If he could pull the boy fully into still time with him Simon’s quest would finally be over.

Garrett stopped in his tracks as all sound around him stopped. There was a quality to the air that was different . . . frightening. It was almost metallic or electric. He looked around him to see the universe motionless. Faded trails followed the objects like pictures taken with the shutter open. He sat his book bag on the pavement and started to take a good look around. His wildest dreams had come true. Somehow he had stopped time!

He moved quickly through the crowd looking for his oldest sister Mary. He found her motionless, frozen in the process of talking to her hot friends. She looked unbelievably hot in her short plaid skirt, knee socks, white button-up top with its black tie, and v-neck sweater. Her long, luscious, red hair frozen in place where it had been swaying in the breeze that no longer blew. Garrett focused on her breasts then, those perfect mounds he had so long wanted to kneed . . . to roll around in his hands . . . to suckle like a baby. He reached for them.

“I would rethink that, lad,” said a voice behind him. Garrett spun quickly trying to fathom how someone else could move in the world of stillness he had created. The man stood there, nearly as unmoving as those around him, but with no trailer of his image. No blur. Then Garrett recognized him.

“You’re the guy from this morning,” he said, “across from the gas station.”

“Very astute, young Garrett,” he replied, donning a pair of round lensed, smoky sunglasses. He had a wry half-smile on his face that seemed self-assured . . . no arrogant; everything about him screamed confidence. “You should be careful what you do in still time boy. You could have seriously hurt your sister there.”

Garrett blushed brightly. “I wasn’t going to hurt her. I was just going to feel her up a little. She wouldn’t even know I did it.”

“Oh I think she would have noticed when her breast exploded my boy,” he said as he walked to a steel light pole. Garrett’s eyes opened wide as the horror of the image sunk in.

“How could her breast just-“

“Come here Garrett,” said the Man, cutting Garrett off, “and I will explain.” Garrett slowly walked over to the man, his steps reluctant but determined. “Now press your finger lightly on this poll, and hold it to a count of ten.”

Curious, Garrett did as he was told, lightly touching the pole. “One . . . two . . .” Garrett noticed the slight blur on the pole become more pronounced, bending out slightly where he touched. “Three . . . four . . .” the blur became longer as her held his finger in place. “Five . . . six . . . seven . . .” the blur became darker and longer mostly focused where he had his finger. “Eight . . . nine . . . ten,” Garrett removed his finger from the pole. The blur was a long dark streak as though a painter had dragged his finger over a wet canvas; trailing out in a direction opposite the direction he had held his finger. “What the . . .”

“Those, my boy,” said the man as he clapped his hand on Garrett’s shoulder, “are force lines.” He guided Garrett, and the boy walked with him in a daze. “You can tell how an object was moving before still time by the force lines, and by interacting with objects during still time you can affect those force lines.” They came back to the place where he had been standing before time froze. A ghostly image that looked exactly like him stood motionless and transparent where he had stood.

“What’s tha-“

“Your force lines, of course. If you’re going to be using still time, you will occasionally need to get back into the exact position you were in before still time. This is a handy little tool for that. Step into your force lines, and try to get into the exact position it is in.”

Garret stepped into his image, and tried to adjust himself. It was an awkward position as he has been mid step when time froze, but the force lines seemed to support him once the position was right. He found himself in the totally unbalanced position with no problems.

“Now you stay there, and I will restart time,” said the man. “Watch the pole you touched.”

Suddenly the unearthly silence was shattered with the flooding return of the sounds of existence, along with a tremendously loud, sharp ping coming from the pole he had touched. A hole tore itself through the pole in the beating of an eye, and it buckled tremendously. The top of the pole began to fall toward the student body as the hole tore into a massive gash almost all the way through the pole. Garrett began to run to the pole, hoping to catch it, when the world froze once more. He took a few staggering steps, then looked for the man.

“Can you imagine,” the man said, “if that had been your sister?”

Garrett swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

“Why apologize? You didn’t know. I am here to teach you.”

“But why? Am I going to be able to do this?”

“That depends on you, dear boy. That depends entirely on you.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

The man smiled wryly. “You may call me Simon, Simon Tempus. Not my original name, but then again I have no idea what my original name was to tell the truth. So now that we know one another’s names . . . shall we begin?”

“Hells ya!” said Garrett, jumping for joy.

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