[ WP ] One day , time stops around you , but you 're not alone .

Sitting at my desk at work waiting for the clock to roll over to 5 I clock so that I can finally go home and watching the clock there until bed time. Until time to come back to work. 
 
 Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. 
 
 4:59 
 
 `` God damn it, Mike.'' I exclaimed `` it feels like time slows down the closer it gets to 5 o'clock. Ha ha.'' I turn to my co worker, Mike. He's acting as though he's moving in slow motion turning to look at me. 
 
 Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. 
 
 I glance back at the clock, the second hand is also going very slow. 51... 52... 53... 
 
 Tick. Tock. 
 
 As my eyes look back to mike, he's come almost to a complete stop. As the second hand hits 59 seconds, Mike is frozen. 
 
 Tick. 
 
 `` Mike?'' 
 
 I my eyes dart around the room. Everything has stopped. 
 
 My name is Joshua White. For me, I'm stuck in time. Alone. 
 
 I get up and walk from the office Mike and I share. I walk past an assortment of cubicles, whitish cubes of boredom where employees spend their spare time surfing porn and watching cat videos on YouTube rather than actually making calls and making sales. It's a mundane, dead-end job, who can blame them for not trying that hard? 
 I step up to the elevator realizing everyone is stuck in time. I slap the down button -whap- but nothing happens. I decide to take the stairs, my second choice. 
 
 It's What should be a cold November day. Looks like weather took the day off too. I look up and down the streets. The busy traffic in Atlanta, GA, forever buzzing by, busy people doing busy things in their busy lives have all stopped. Frozen in place. I choose a direction. The direction i choose is left, which is South. Walking, walking, walking. Everything frozen but me. I reach a low end residential area where I come upon a little blonde girl in a white dress frozen less than 2 feet from the front end of a car. Judging by the expression on the drivers face, he was not going to be able to stop in time ( haha ) to save this little girls life. 
 
 I try to move her but She wo n't budge. She feels cemented to the ground. I feel sadness swelling inside But accept there's nothing I can do. I walk in to an old friends home in the neighborhood. Her name is of no importance. All that matters is that at one point in time, she was my everything. In Her living room I see a photo of her on the table. `` I should have been there.'' I reflect. 
 She was stabbed in her way home from work one night in January. A botched robbery. She was never my girlfriend. Just a close co worker. I used to walk her home but I left early that night for reasons I'd rather not disclose. For the first time since she's died I allow myself a good cry. For how long I could n't say for obvious reasons but long enough. I compose myself, for who I do n't know, and I leave back to the street with the little girl. 
 
 This time something is different. The girl is gone. The drivers twisted expression is still the same. 
 Nobody moved that little girl. She could n't be moved. I hear a child's laughter from what sounds like directly behind me. I whirl around to find nothing. My feet start moving. Running. To or from what I have no idea. I'm scared but I'm concerned. Where is she. Up ahead around a corner I see her dress fluttering. I decide to chase her. I round the corner and see a door to some apartment buildings slam shut. I sprint there. Gasping from exhaustion, as I'm not very fit, I step through the door and walk cautiously down the main hallway. As I come to a stairwell I hear the laughter again. Up this time. I creep up the stairs checking every door on the way up. Locked. I reach the top to the roof twisting the door knob -click click- locked. I give up on my search and head back down defeated, until I pass a window that was closed on the way up, now open. I step on foot out and then another on to a rickety fire escape. Up or down? Then I see her, she's down on the other other side of the street next to a fire hydrant. A slow descent to make sure I do n't fall and break my neck and I'm finally grounded again. The only thing between us is the road sea and a flood of traffic. 
 
 She motions for me to come over so I step in to the street. Walking. I'm tired. So tired. A yard away from her I stop. Still in the road. `` Who are you? Why are the only other person who can move?'' 
 
 She says nothing. Her face expressionless. Then I hear the laughter from her again. But her mouth never moved. She smiles, waves, and turns to run off. 
 
 Tock. 
 
 5pm and everything resumes. I feel pain for a few seconds. I hear tires screeching, people screaming, metal bending. And then nothing at all. 
 
 Tick-tock Tick-tock Tick-tock Tick-tock.
