Time to Remove the Webs From Your Life

As she ran along the path, she knew that it was hopeless, a fool’s errand but she had to try. Today was one of those rare days in which attendance was mandatory. If she left it to Sylvie then she may as well pack her bags and go home. This was life or death and she could not be late again.

Running was not an enjoyable activity. It was something that she always attempted to avoid but today, it was pain and gain. This would be the most important day of her working career. Nothing would stop her. Not the old lady by the station that asked her to repent her sins, or the coffee place that drew her in with beautiful smells. No. Today would be the genesis of her career and she would do anything to get on that train.

The problem was that she was five minutes late and could see the train in the distance. An alternative plan would have been great but as always, a contingency was not considered. It hadn’t occurred to her, as she had gone to bed an hour earlier than normal and set five alarms, yet still slept through, leaving no time to do anything with her hair.

Refusing all forms of social encouragement the night before, she had prioritised and now felt foolish for doing so. If she had then at least she would have been woken early by the pounding headache.

Her father always taught her never to regret or second guess, as ultimately you cannot go back and change things.

• Even if you could, would you?
• Where would you stop?
• Would you go back in time and reverse all the world’s tragedies? Kill Hitler before he is born, stop Stalin at school or even prevent the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
• Where would you stop and despite the cruelty of the thinking, you would have to ask yourself, would the world be a better place following these acts?

Right now, she didn’t care and would have given anything for the power to stop time. To reach out and prevent that bloody train from ever reaching the station.

She was on the path adjacent to the tracks and could it pull in. It would take her at least three minutes to get there and she was out of options, so she did something unthinkable. Picking up a stone from the ground she launched it at the train in the vain hope that it may catch the driver's attention.

Missing the train completely it landed pointlessly on the tracks. The only real reaction was that of amusement from those walking the path too. It was over and she knew it.

Stopping to wipe the sweat from her forehead, she took a deep breath. It was pointless to continue. She wanted to scream and hit something but it would not make any difference and probably end with a trip to isolation.

A few minutes passed before she realised that she could hear no other sound. Raising her head above her arms, she took a moment to look around. Everything was as it was before the moment of despair.

She could see the repented sins woman but it looked as though she was glued in place. Everyone seemed to be in the same situation, including the man next to her, whose breath contained the faintest smell of nicotine.

She could get this close to him, touch his beautiful golden hair and he did not react, merely remained frozen like most of her dates. Then the most random of thoughts occurred to her, ‘Had she stopped time’?

It was crazy but at that point, the fear of missing the train was the only one that mattered and so she pulled herself together and ran for the station. If she had stopped time then there was no way of knowing when it would unfreeze, so speed was essential.

Rounding the corner into the station she leapt onto the train quicker than a hiccup and found a seat. Nothing. The train doors remained open and everyone remained frozen. Much like her health, she decided to ignore the problem for as long as possible to see if it would resolve itself, yet it did not.

Five, ten minutes later and she was getting frustrated.

• What if the world remained like this?
• What if this was her new existence?

The thought hit hard like a hammer to the chest. She was terrible by herself, she needed people to talk to and confidently felt at that point, as though she would go insane by the end of the day.

She was already starting to make up names for everyone...

An hour passed and nothing had changed, so she started to walk up and down the train for any signs of life. Despite the lack of movement and time that had passed, she remained paranoid that as soon as she dropped onto the platform, then the train would begin to move.

Walking past, she saw commuters on their way to work, clutching overpriced coffees and snacks from home. All in all, it was a miserable but necessary existence with the cancellation of a train akin to murdering your firstborn.

Another half an hour and still nothing, the sinking feeling hit home again, this was her life from now on and there was no way out of it. The world had stopped at 08:00 on the 19th of June 2019 and would never log another sunrise. She would be doomed to spend the rest of her days here, lamenting the past and slowly losing her mind.

Refusing to believe what had happened she continued to sit. One hour, then two and three went by and still nothing. The panic was beginning to rise inside her, threatening to end everything and she was clueless as to what to do. Sitting there staring whilst everyone else was frozen was tantamount to madness but then again if you were sane enough to ask if you were crazy, then surely you couldn’t be mad, could you?

A spider halfway through spinning a web in the corner of the room caught her eye at this point. Its tiny legs were suspended in the air like a trapeze artist turned bank robber. It grabbed her attention and she was utterly captivated until the spider winked at her.

It brought her crashing back to earth with a bang. She left the train at this point with such speed that she nearly tripped through the door. Continuing along the platform with such speed, that a Cheetah would have been proud of her, this was until she crashed into a commuter on his way to the station.

Given that everyone was glued to the spot, she should have remembered him and consequently felt a little stupid. Not so much as she felt at believing a spider had just winked at her. That was impossible and she knew that but then again, stopping time should have been impossible but here she was.

Dusting herself down she headed home. That was after all a safe place to think of as it was stocked with more tinned food than she could ever eat in a lifetime and at that point, she thanked God for being born into a family obsessed with the end of the world.

She always found them embarrassing but at this point they were lifesavers. She would go home, cook some food and watch some TV. It always relaxed her and right now she needed to take a moment to relax.

Her flat was always a source of indifference to her but today it was home. A safe haven from the gathering storm and a place from which she could feel like her again.

Stepping over the worn mat into the green corridor usually made her feel ill with disgust as to how she’d let herself fall so far but at that moment it was like she had just been welcomed into the Ritz.

Before she reached her front door, she glanced sideways and saw the bike rack. A source of annoyance in her life that up until that point she had been unable to eliminate. People would constantly walk along to get their bikes and pull them out. All rather forgivable but the person that had designed the area had not considered the gap. As a result, every bike hit her door on the way out, making it look like it had been in a boxing knockout.

It was infuriating but a battle for another day as she could see another spider, suspended by its rope at the top of the alcove. It too winked and she opened the door quickly, locking it quickly behind her.

This was, of course, ridiculous as spiders were small creatures that could walk under gaps.

'It’s just a spider' she repeated to herself over and over until she had half convinced herself that was true. It couldn’t wink and once she had gotten some sleep, the world would look different. This would all turn out to be a horrible dream.

So she poured herself another drink and then another and another. After the fifth drink, she had entered that sleepy phase and walked into the bedroom, collapsing and sleeping through for the next few hours.

08:00. She woke confused and quickly went to get dressed but she was already dressed.

Remembering the bottle, she quickly drained the remaining dregs and looked out her back garden. She saw the neighbour’s dog, frozen, mid-poo. It was not a dream and this was in fact reality.

Before she could dwell on that, she remembered that she hadn’t eaten in quite a while and consequently went to the fridge. There were still a few eggs, slices of bacon, bread and beans, so she made herself a Full English. It was always her pick me up when she was down and this was the most down she had felt in a long time.

Each bite tasted better than the last but before long it was over, the empty plate left on the table like a forgotten puppy.

This plate, she thought, rather represented her world at that moment in time. She would never have sex again, at least in the traditional sense. The food didn’t seem to be as much of a problem as if she was the only one in the world operating on this time stream, so it should stay fresh.

She had no idea really. She was making it up but wanted to head to the supermarket to grab some items just encase. If most of the food out there was going to go mouldy in the next couple of days, then she wanted to enjoy the last lumps of cheese.

If there was one food substance that she would have a hard time giving up, then it would be cheese. Since she was a young girl, she had been obsessed with cheese, to the point where it was elevated above everything else, even money.

This obsession began when she was young and had popped around her Grandparents for tea, being served the four most amazing food items in the world. Baked beans, bread, cheese and pepper. Combined, they formed the most mouth-watering dish. One that was only ever pipped by a full English or Roast Dinner.

She realised that her food habits weren’t always the greatest in the world from a young age and consequently, made sure that she played a lot of sports. This helped to equal her diet out so that she didn’t look like a tomato every time she left the house. Some of her friends were not so lucky when that post-20-year bump started to form.

It was something that she had been able to avoid but then now, with the change in circumstances, it probably didn’t matter as much. Or, it mattered more as she would never again receive medical attention, which would make old age fun.

At that moment, she didn’t really care too much and just wanted to get to the shops, to get some cheese and some booze. She was going to have fun. Make the most of it before her mind scattered off to some unknown plain and she was left in the corner, speaking to a melon, naming it, Thomas. It was an unpleasant, yet also humorous thought, as in that moment, she could not have cared less.

She walked down the road briskly, like a lion chasing down its prey. Past the overhanging trees that always made her want to climb, the leaves full and green, making you want to get lost in them forever. Past the postbox that was always overflowing and yet no one seemed to care.

Stopping, she picked up the top letter and wondered why this had been allowed to continue, as it seemed like quite the oversight but then again, she was usually in a rush and didn’t give it a second thought.

Turning it over in her hand, she saw her name written there. Her current address was scrawled hastily, as though written in a rush but it was definitely her address.

Opening it, she found that there was nothing inside, apart from a dead spider, which she dropped quicker than Sam Allardyce as the England Manager. Standing there over the envelope, her eye was caught by the other letter and so she picked up another and another, seeing that they were all addressed to her and all contained a dead spider.

This was too much and so she turned and ran, telling herself that it was nothing, that there was nothing going on. Except that she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. It unnerved her endlessly and so she picked up the pace, wanting to get there to have a drink, as quickly as possible.

Around five minutes later, she arrived. The Asda logo stared straight back at her like a Cheshire cat in the distance, taunting her. The feeling of being watched intensified with each step and so she thought to herself that she would not go. She would not walk into this Asda and instead, keep walking until she got to the Sainsbury’s at the end of the road.

She had no idea why she did this but at that moment, she wanted to trust her instincts, unlike what they did in the movies. She was always the one to scream at the TV, to tell the characters off for being so stupid and so rather than being the stupid one, she decided to be spontaneous.

This made her feel a little more in control after the spider incident at the post-box. Truth be told that had really freaked her out and she needed something to focus on.

Like an alcoholic sent to rehab, this was her lifeline and it gave her hope that life could one day return to normal.

The journey took but a few minutes and then she was there, staring up at the orange sign, feeling calmer than she had done all day. Resolute and determined, she meandered through the frozen shoppers and in through the open door.

Inside was packed full of parents taking their time, following the dropping off of their children at school. They looked so peaceful, which made her wonder why people strived to birth them.

Single life with friends was much better. She hated being alone but the thought of being tied down with a baby sent shivers down her spine. It was lovely to be passed the children when she saw her friends but equally great to be able to hand them back as she left. Here the only thing that she saw being handed out was free samples and to be honest, they looked like they had been there for a while.

Reaching the cheese aisle with a smile on her face, she felt like a kid in a candy store. The selection was enormous and made her wonder why Asda had been her go-to supermarket over the last few years. They had half the cheeses and half the smiles. Here she could let her imagination run wild and instead of thinking practically, grabbed one of everything, neglecting all other food items.

Rather than heading to the checkout, she simply borrowed the re-useable bags from the woman next to her in the aisle. She didn’t think that she would miss them and walked to the exit with her head held high.

In the bags that she clutched was more cheese than she could eat in a year but she didn’t care. This was hope, a sense of normality lost when time stood still, it was her way of keeping things light and avoiding the seriousness of the situation.