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It was the kind of day that just slips through your fingers if you're not careful. Rachael was sitting in a quaint cafe with Isabelle and Jasper, watching that perfect day escape her, when she let out a faint sigh.
“What is it?” Jasper inquired. His voice was, as usual, dull with a hint of impatience.
“Wouldn't it be nice,” Rachael began, absentmindedly stirring her coffee without taking her gaze off that clear blue sky, “if we could simply stop time?”
“What do you mean?” Isabelle asked.
“Just look at us, sitting her, talking about nothing. When there's a perfectly nice day, why do we just sit indoors?”
“What would you rather be doing?” Jasper's tone was bored; he'd already dismissed Rachael's outburst as another whimsical, childish tantrum.
She sunk so low in her chair that her chin touched the table. “I don't know,” she admitted.
Isabelle pushed the remainder of her strawberry shortcake to Rachael and smiled; it was her way of saying “cheer up.” As she and Jasper returned to whatever topic they were discussing before Rachael's interruption, she poked and prodded the cake but didn't take a bite. The thought that she was just sitting there not doing anything or getting anything done, simply wasting her time fretting about time quelled what little appetite she might have had. Suddenly, Rachael stood from her chair, just as if someone had kicked her out of it, with an air of what she imagined to be determination, Jasper viewed as indignation, and Isabelle saw as stubbornness. “I can't sit here any longer!”
Jasper and Isabelle looked at her, neither saying a thing, as if they were waiting for an elaboration. And Rachael simply stood there, waiting for a reaction. So they sat there as if frozen in time until Rachael snatched her jacket off the back of her chair and swept out of the cafe in that dramatic manner of hers. “Ta ta,” Isabelle muttered, two seconds too late.
* * *
The cathedral was tall and menacing, and Rachael had no doubt that that was the contractor's intent. The church was, after all, not a thing to be taken lightly. Which is exactly why this was the only place that could help her.
You see, Rachael was determined to stop time. If she stopped time, she'd be able to catch up on all the backed-up work that was probably spilling out her mailbox in the empty school. Jasper would actually have time to read all those books in his library. And, perhaps, if time were stopped, Isabelle would finish one of the many sweaters she began. Rachael had come to the conclusion that there was no one who could possibly not benefit from never growing old, never wasting another minute, another second.
With some effort, she pushed one of the large wooden doors open. Her heels clicked on the floor as she made her way up to the barren altar, and the sound echoed in the empty room. “Hello?” Rachael called out. “Anybody home? Father?”
No reply. They must've had the day off. No matter, Rachael decided. After all, her quarry was not with the Fathers or the Sisters, but with God himself.
She stood in front of the altar, wondering how one might go about this. She thought about praying, until she recalled just how unresponsive the Lord had been during her previous prayers. The had to be a more direct way. . .
“Oi,” she called out to the round window above. “Come on, come down. I need a word with you!”
She waited, but the only reply she got were her own, short-lived echoes. Her brows furrowed slightly; how rude! Simply ignoring her like this! Perhaps a more humble approach. “Um. . . Please come down? It's important.”
Still no reply. “Oh, come on! Are you really going to just sit up there?”
Rachael waited for a moment, but it was evident that he wasn't listening. With a sign of resignation, she turned to go back to the cafe when she saw a man sitting in the first pew. He startled her and made her jump. “W-who are you?” She was sure he hadn't been there when she'd arrived.
The man cocked an eyebrow. “After all that, you don't even know who I am?”
Rachael stared at him until realization dawned on her. She looked behind her, at the window, then once more at the man. “You don't mean. . . You aren't. . . Are you?”
“I wouldn't be here if I wasn't,” He pointed out.
Rachael smiled; nay, she beamed, positively saintly with the round window in the background framing her head. “Yes, I suppose you're right. Well! I, ah. . . I'm not entirely sure how to address you.”
The old man gave her a shrug. “God, Allah, whatever you wish. It makes no difference to me. Now, what could possibly be so urgent?”
“Oh, yes!” Rachael, in her happiness, had almost forgotten her reason for coming. “I have a. . . request, I suppose you could say.”
“Which is?”
“I need the power to stop time.”
Once more, the old man cocked an eyebrow, not missing a beat. “And why would you need that?”
“Because you made an oversight when you created time. There simply isn't-”
“I didn't create time. I created the world, your race. . . day and night. But time?” He shook His head. “That is man's creation.”
“But if you created man then it wouldn't be entirely incorrect to say that you created time as well. They come from the same source, don't they?”
“Certainly not!” the old man argued. “DaVinci's mother did not paint the Mona Lisa, did she?”
“Well, no. . . But we, your children, have made a bit of a hiccup with this whole time business and you, as the good parent, would be obliged to help us fix it, wouldn't you?” Rachael crossed her arms over her chest. “Where is your maternal sense?”
“All right, all right, say I were obliged to fix it. I don't see how stopping it would make it any better; in fact, it seems to me as though you'd be turning your back on the problem.”
“Not at all!” Rachael protested. “Simply giving us the time we need to fix the problem.”
The old man stroked His chin thoughtfully. “Fix the problem, eh?”
“Yes! And that's where you come in.”
He looked at the girl suspiciously. “And how am I to know you won't abuse your power?”
“Why would I, the only one who feels the need to fix the problem, be the one to sabotage it?” she asked, somewhat indignant.
The old man shrugged. “I've no idea; I've no idea what you people are thinking anymore.” He sighed. “It seems you've hit that rebellious stage where you just want to contradict everything I say. . .”
“Don't be silly. You're just being too sensitive. Man has evolved so far! You should be proud.”
He rolled His eyes.
“Besides,” Rachael added. “How long has it been since you last preformed some sort of miracle? I think you're overdue for one.”
“All right, all right already!” He sighed. “Just this once, all right?” With some grumblings about unappreciative children and a wave of his hand, time had stopped. “Happy?”
Rachael blinked. “That's it, then? Time has stopped?”
He nodded.
“Really? Oh, thank you!” She ran up and, like a child with their parent, threw her arms around his neck for a brief moment before dashing off. In her haste, she did not noticed the frozen people, stopped in whatever activity they'd last engaged in.
She ran as fast as her legs would carry to the cafe where she'd left Jasper and Isabelle and prayed they were still there. She threw open the door and failed to notice that the small bell didn't ring. She rushed to the table where she'd sat no more than an hour earlier, and saw Jasper, frozen in the middle of raising from his chair. And, finally, she realized what she'd done.
She shook her friends in an attempt to wake them up. She called to them and shouted at them, waving her hand in front of their faces, but they did not move. With a sick feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, she began making her way back to the cathedral. She was slow from shock at first, but with every frozen person she saw her fear grew, and with it her speed. Soon enough she was running, faster than she had ever run in her life.
Finally (for it seemed to take an eternity) she bounded through the double doors, and feebly made her way to the altar. “Hey,” she called out, desperate. “Lord! Come down, just once more!”
No response. She looked around, hoping desperately to find him behind her again, but to no avail. “Please; I've made a mistake! Start time again, I beg of you!”
But she received no reply. She called and she begged for hours on end, before finally dissolving into a pool of tears. God turned His gaze to the rest of the world. All of them, frozen in time, never to start another war or kill another creature. . .
“That takes care of that problem,” he muttered under his breath.
