First time it happened was at baseball practice, 1994.
Mark Farini threw the shittiest pitch in the history of the sport. It would have beamed me in the head. I dodged it and chalked the slow motion up to adrenaline.
Next time was weirder. 1998, walking home from school, Bobby Farini - that's Mark's dad, fuck the Farinis - comes home drunk in his pick up. Must've been going 60. Makes a bee line for 13 year old me.
There I am, back against a tree, about to die. I put my arms up and waited for death... and waited... and waited and then looked around and there's Mr.Farini, clear as day, asleep at the wheel, not moving but a millimeter a minute.
Be honest, I thought I'd died. I thought that for awhile. I actually sat down right in the path of the truck just to catch my breath. Took a couple of minutes, gathered myself, stood back up and there's Mr. Farini's truck still coming at a crawl.
Figured I was stuck this way maybe and started to run home - I'd seen "Ghost." But as soon as I got well clear of that truck and that tree - SNAP - time comes flying back together like a rubber band and Mr. Farini's truck smashes into that old tree, fast as a bullet, and explodes. Shit was crazy.
I'm an idiot, so I ran back to see if Mr. Farini was alright, and as soon as I could feel the heat of the flames - ZAP - they froze. Frozen flames. I touched it, cause I was dumb i guess, and they burned lile normal, but they were frozen in time.
So I dragged Mr. Farini out - took awhile - and by the time, uh, time sped up again, we were 200 yards away. From then on, I sort of got the hang of things.
The weirdest stuff will set me off - and it's not clear who's the judge of what's worth it and what isn't. Sometimes it'll overreact - spent an hour once in stasis trying to figure out there was a tack stuck in the heel of my shoe - but usually it's pretty spot on.
This most recent pause took me a hell of long time to work out.
Happened midday on a Tuesday. Everything froze. By now I tend not to over react to this sort of thing. Better to just take a minute and figure out what set it off.
But, for the life of me, I couldn't find my way to an answer. No cars, no animals, knives, guns, bombs - I must have checked a square mile, nothing. This had happened once before, when there was a small fire in a brush near my soccer field in High School. Only found out later, but just walking away solved it.
So, I start to walk. And walk. And fucking walk. I walked for a half day - maybe a few seconds real time. It tends to modulate the dilation based on necessity. I started to get worried.
Long and short of it, I walked for three days. It was only when I was about 20 miles inland that time started up again, and immediately I knew what had happened cause my phone went off.
It was a missile alert for New York City. Apparently I'd gotten just far enough to avert all harm from nuclear war.
But my family lives in the city. My friends live in the city. And a hell of a lot of other people too. And something just wouldn't let me run off without trying to help.
So I took a few steps back in that direction and time stopped flat again. I guess with nuclear holocaust, my guardian angel wasn't taking any chances. Which was good, cause I was about to test the upper limits big time.
First thing, I hijacked the biggest car I could find - a 12 person van in someone garage out in the suburbs - and drove to my parent's house. Took an hour or so - luckily it had only been a few seconds since the announcement so the roads werent packed yet.
I loaded up my parents and then headed off to my sister's place, got her, and then my brother at his office. Then i picked up several of my closest friends and drove out to the edge, right before normal time.
I unloaded them - and then had a thought. What was the limit here? I had all the time in the world - if I was methodical I could probably do a hell of a lot better than just one van full.
So I drove back into the city and took 12 more people. I was a little picky at first:distant friends; coworkers; passing acquaintances; eventually even ex-girlfriends. Finally, I ran out of people I knew and then basically anyone was free game. I'd try to empty out a starbucks or an Apple store. Did that for awhile. Learned to drive a bus, and then a sixteen wheeler. Slept when i was tired and ate when i was hungry.
It's been about three months so far, my time. The evacuation of New York City is at 13,345. I can't spare the minutes dropping them all outside the the danger zone so I just bring them all right up to the edge and leave them. It's been tough - stretching is important. Mostly, it's just the loneliness that gets me sometimes.
But then I dolly a family into the truck, or an old lady and her dog, an entire hospital ward once and, well, I think I've got another year in me if I keep at it like this. We'll see.
If you enjoyed this, check out my other shorts:
[Photo Source]By Daniel Schwen (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons