Carpe Tempus

by Daniel Adorno

as he sorted through a dozen more boxes. The only items Clayton found which might sell at the estate sale were an antique vase and some gold cufflinks with Granddad's initials on them. Everything else was junk.

  He checked the time on his new watch. 5:30. He cursed aloud. Maddie Bowen had already taken her walk and he missed her. She normally took her Corgi for a walk around 4:30, passing his house on the adjacent sidewalk. Today he wanted to ask her on a date, but it was likely she would have refused anyway.

  Clayton shoved some boxes into a corner of the garage and walked out onto the driveway. His heart leapt when Maddie strolled up around the corner with her dog.

  “Hi Clay,” Maddie called.

  “Hey,” Clayton said. He felt uncomfortable around her. In middle school, they spoke more often and walked home from school together almost every day. He wondered how many of her popular friends knew she loved Han Solo and despised the Star Wars prequels. Clayton missed their heated debates about the best science fiction novels and movies. He missed the way she laughed at his lame jokes. Now he settled for these Sunday afternoon walks where she actually acknowledged his existence.

  “See you at school,” Maddie said, walking past the driveway.

  “Wait, Maddie!” He ran over to her.

  Maddie’s eyes widened at the sight of his bloody shirt. “Clay, are you okay? Do you need me to call 911?”

  “No, no I’m fine. Listen, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Would you be interested in going to the Star Wars marathon at the drive-in on Friday night?” His voice cracked.

  Maddie smiled. “That actually sounds like fun, but homecoming is this Friday and I was planning on going.”

  Clayton’s stomach sank to the ground. “Oh, right. Homecoming.”

  “Aren’t you going?”

  “Meh, I hate school dances and all that…stuff.”

  Maddie offered a bemused smile and an awkward silence passed between them before her dog barked. “Well, I should go,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said. “Hey you were late today. Don’t you usually walk around 4:30?”

  “It is 4:30,” she said with a smile.

  “Oh, I guess my watch is wrong,” he said, looking down at his wrist.

  “That’s a nice watch,” Maddie said.

  “Thanks.”

  He pulled the small crown on the side of the watch and the second hand stopped ticking. The minute and hour hands rotated quickly around the dial as he spun the crown clockwise. He suddenly had a crazy idea. "Maddie, do you have a date for homecoming already?" He asked, carefully adjusting the hands of the clock to the 4:30 position.

  Clayton looked up when Maddie didn't reply and saw a blank stare on her face.

  "I mean, if you do, that’s cool." Clayton said.

  Maddie didn’t respond. Her face was devoid of emotion and still. In fact, her entire body hadn't moved at all. She stood looking at him like a statue.

  "Are you all right?" Clayton asked, suddenly annoyed at her. Was she playing a prank on him? "Listen, forget I said anything."

  Clayton walked back onto the driveway and stopped when he glimpsed something to his right. A woman jogging on the street near the house stood suspended in the air. The jogger's left foot stuck out in front of her a few inches from the pavement and her right leg was bent from the knee in a 45-degree angle behind her. She was fixed in a permanent running position.

  Clayton's heart pushed hard against his chest. For a while he couldn't pull his eyes away from the paused jogger. He turned to call out to Maddie, but the sound did not escape his throat. She stood on the sidewalk with her dog—unmoving and staring blankly at the spot where Clayton had once stood. His breath quickened as he searched for someone to help, but only found a still and quiet world surrounding him.

  A robin with wings outstretched hung in the air in mid-flight. Children further down the block sat motionless on bicycles with giddy expressions that didn't change. And a neighbor watered a flowerbed with water frozen in a downward stream, hovering above the soil. Clayton tried to control the rush of blood surging through his body, but it was a wasted effort. He felt dizzy and steadied himself against the side of the van. Time had somehow stopped.

  Time.

  Clayton looked down at his watch. The hour, minute, and second hands stood motionless in the 5:30 position--the crown had not been pushed down. With a quick press of his finger, the crown clicked into place and the second hand moved rhythmically on the dial.

  "How did you get over there so fast?" Maddie asked.

  Clayton turned to face Maddie. Her eyebrows were knotted in confusion as her eyes traveled from his last spot on the sidewalk to where he stood now. His mouth opened to reply, but he was mesmerized with the renewed movement around him. The robin flew to a tree in the front yard, the children laughed as they chased each other on their bikes, and the plodding sounds of a runner's shoes hit the pavement nearby. The world was right again.

  "Nevermind. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?" Maddie said. She turned and continued down the sidewalk.

  Clayton kept quiet, watching her from a distance. Something strange and wondrous had occurred. He looked down at his Granddad’s watch and pulled the crown again. Everything was still and quiet once more. Maddie and her dog stood still in the distance—like a paused scene in a movie. He clicked the crown down. She resumed walking and turned a corner, out of sight.

  Time was at his fingertips.

  He grinned at the thought and adjusted the hour and minute hands on the clock to two hours prior--hoping to access the past like in an H. G. Wells' novel. But when he pushed the crown, time and his surroundings resumed at the same point. He bit his lip and moved the clock two hours ahead. The same result occurred when the crown clicked into place. So I can only stop and start time? He pushed his lips into a frown, lamenting the impossibility of time travel. But he smiled when he pondered the many possibilities now opened to him.

  Monday morning didn't come quickly. Clayton had spent five hours after midnight in paused time reading through the large stack of comic books he'd amassed for weeks. Schoolwork and helping Mom on the weekends with Granddad's stuff had gotten in the way of his reading time. He only wished he could catch up on Doctor Who episodes, but the TV and internet didn't work when time was paused. He walked out of the house after breakfast and walked down their lonely cul-de-sac to the bus stop.

  The bus ride to Gladeway High was twenty minutes long. Clayton contemplated all the ways he could pause time today to his advantage until the bus pulled up to the school. First period Algebra was one of his worst subjects. Mr. Chee seemed to know that since he loved giving pop quizzes unexpectedly. When the inevitable quiz began, Clayton paused time and walked up to Chee's desk. He flipped through a black spiraled notebook Chee used to keep all his notes and found an answer key for the quiz. Time resumed once the answers were all copied onto Clayton's sheet. He couldn't help smiling at Mr. Chee when he turned in the quiz.

  When the school bell rang, Clayton enthusiastically jogged to Phys Ed, the worst class of the day. He hated Coach Turner, a smoker with intolerable breath who enjoyed barking out orders and forcing every overweight kid to do tough exercises. But Turner was the least of his worries in Phys Ed. Blaine and Tommy were also in the class. Together the two brutes made life miserable for an hour. Turner often chuckled at Blaine and Tommy's wisecracks, probably because he was once a stupid jock just like them.

  Clayton made his way into the locker room next to the school gym then changed into basketball shorts and a t-shirt. Erik Cratch, a thin boy with spindly arms and a fuzzy patch of chin hair, walked up to the locker beside Clayton. Erik was a fellow geek and also bullied by Blaine. Coach Turner often made Erik do push-ups on account of his frail physique.

  "Ready for torture?" Erik muttered.

  "Always," Clayton replied, suppressing a smirk.

  When the five-minute warning bell rang, they walked out of the boys' locker room with
the rest of the class and entered the gym, where Turner was giving some pointers on basketball to Blaine and Tommy. The girls in the class had already lined up underneath the basketball hoop nearest to their own locker room. Clayton glanced at the girls and caught a glimpse of Maddie. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, allowing the light to capture her perfect cheekbones and deep blue eyes.

  "Line up, it’s time for pushups!" Turner barked, interrupting his reverie. The guys filed into a line next to the girls while Turned paced the shiny basketball court. "Who's going to start us off today? Cratch?"

  Erik slumped his shoulders and stared at the ground.

  "I'll give you the day off today since I worked you pretty hard last week," Turner said, grinning like a fool. He turned toward Clayton. "Give me ten, Burroughs."

  Clayton winced at the sound of his name. Blaine and Tommy snickered as he got on the floor into the push-up position. The first one was easy, but once he reached the fifth, his arms trembled under his weight like leaves in the wind.

  "Go, Clayface!" Blaine blurted out, prompting chuckles from everyone including Coach Turner.

  Clayton was tempted to stop time, but he endured the last five pushups before letting his body collapse onto the ground.

  "Great job, Burroughs. Now back in line. Who's next?" Turner asked, scanning the line of students before him.

  Clayton stood up from the cold floor and looked to his right where Maddie stood. She shot him the