When Time Stood Still

Time stood still.
I’d never realised the power of that old cliché, not until that moment. I was amazed, but also not amazed at the same time. That is the trouble with living in a world where Science Fiction exists. I had read books, I had seen films, TV programmes, where the time froze, leaving balls suspended in the air, birds fixed in mid-flight, people with their faces contorted in mid-speech and with suspended gestures, their bodies becoming awkward ungainly statues.
It happened just like that… as expected, in a way. All as if someone, somewhere had pressed a universal pause button and nipped off to the toilet or to see what was in the fridge, or to let the dog out or the cat back in, only to come back after some unpredictable amount of time to unpause the universe and set the whole thing rolling again.
At the same time, though, I was amazed that it happened at all. I was, after all, living in a world bound by the rules and laws of science. It seemed impossible that suddenly all that could stop, that time could cease, that I could step outside time… and later, at other times - when I thought to check - that electricity could stop, with electrons – I presume - no longer flowing. Don’t ask me how or why it was everything but me that had come to a halt like that.
I carried on; as far as I could tell - biology, like physics not being my strong suit – the same as normal, while all around me the world came to a halt.
I don’t think, don’t expect, I was chosen. I may not know too much about science, but I do know enough about religion to know I have never suffered from that particular delusion.
All I know is that the world stopped and I carried on. Then one day I wondered if this happened to everybody, or to some others that I did not know about. I had never seen anyone else in those instances that time froze wandering through the crowds like me. But each instant is just that, the chances of time – if it was an individual thing – stopping for two people near to each other at the same instant must be pretty small, considering how big the world is, and how much time there is.
Then, one day, I saw her dancing towards me through the frozen crowd.