The Time-Hosts

Well it only took until day 3 for me to write something I didn't love. Whatever. It's about finishing.

Prompt: As a child, you found you had the ability to stop time for 30 seconds a day. However, there has always been a dark figure just out the corner of your eye that gets closer and closer every time you use your ability. Now, as an adult, the figure finally reaches you.

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When your elbow bumps the wineglass off the table, you use your ability without thinking.

Shit.

The world pauses, as it always has since you figured out how to use your ability as a child. The glass has halted in the middle of its fall, its cabernet sauvignon contents frozen in a midair splash. Carefully, you pluck the glass from the air and collect every drop of wine, then place the glass in the middle of the table. No more accidents.

Just like every time you’ve used this ability in the past, you can’t help but notice the dark figure in your peripheral vision. But this time, they’re close enough to touch you.

And as soon as the world comes alive again, they do.

You spin about, slapping the person’s hand away, and find yourself face-to-face with a woman about the same age as your mother. You’ve been wondering about this person all this time, thought that maybe they would hurt you, maybe they were coming to take your soul – who knows, your brain always came up with the most ridiculous things as you were trying to fall asleep – or maybe they were coming to kill you. But this woman grins with something like relief.

“At last,” she sighs, seemingly willing to overlook the fact that you were honestly kind of rude to her just now. She takes a deep breath. “It’s done.”

You narrow your eyes.

“What’s done? Who are you?” you demand.

The woman gives you a serene smile, then wanders off to touch everything in the room while she speaks.

“I was like you. I could stop time whenever I wanted for thirty seconds. And so I did.” She picks up the wineglass, swirling its dark contents, mesmerized by the streaky legs the liquid leaves on the glass. As she holds her arm aloft, you notice a sort of scar around her wrist, a ring of something like a burn. “I used it to cheat on tests. I used it to hold on to images of fleeting things for a little bit longer. I used it to stop things from breaking,” she adds, then smashes the wineglass on the floor.

You jump back as shards fly in all directions. Maybe this woman isn’t quite so harmless as she seemed at first. You inch toward the knife block in the corner of the kitchen as she continues to speak.

“But the thing is, those seconds have to come from somewhere,” the woman goes on. She gently places the jagged stem of the wineglass on the table and picks up a stress ball you got for free from the bank. “And the thing is, I stole them.”

“Wh-what do you mean, you stole them? From who?”

“A time-host,” she says simply. “Someone else like us who had done the same thing to someone else. And once I’d used up my day’s worth of thirty secondses, it was someone else’s turn to steal time from me.” The woman looks up at you, squeezing the stress ball between her hands. “That was you, dear.”

You shake your head. This is crazy.

“I didn’t steal anything from anyone,” you protest.

The woman wags a finger at you, tsking.

“I assure you, you did,” she replies. “Every time you put your world on pause, I lost thirty seconds of my life. Don’t remember them. Nearly three thousand times, you stole bits of my life from me. And every time, I saw you a little clearer.”

Your hand bumps into the base of the knife block, but you don’t dare to raise your fingers to grab a knife.

“So what do you want?”

The woman cocks her head.

“I don’t want anything. I’ve come to terms with what I did, and I understand the consequences. Fair’s fair. No, my dear, I’ve come to pass it on. It’s your turn to be a time-host.”

Before you can react, the woman darts toward you and grabs your wrist in her fleshy hand. For a brief instant, a searing heat burns through you, enough to make you cry out and try to pry her fingers from your skin, but just as quickly as it started, it’s over.

And the woman is gone.

You glance around the kitchen, your heart pounding. The shards of the wineglass still litter the floor. The stress ball, which you had left of the table, is now on the counter beside you. And around your wrist, there’s a faint ring like a burn scar. When you gingerly press a finger to it, it doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t entirely feel the same any more either.

What just happened?

The stress ball catches your eye. You push it off the counter, then let your ability well up inside you.

The ball hits the floor with a pff. Time keeps marching on.

In a haze, you grab a broom and dustpan. May as well sweep up the glass before you get hurt. But even as you start to do so, it seems as if time has jumped. The shards are in the trash bin. The broom is back in the closet, along with the dustpan. For a moment, you see the shape of a little boy before you, a hazy outline like you’re viewing him from far away through rain-streaked glass.

And you realize that your tenure as a time-host has begun.