Time Flies

A short short science fiction story about the fleeting nature of time and the end of the world.

Nobody really noticed when the first minute disappeared. It wasn’t like the Earth started spinning faster. Or the clocks all magically changed or something. There was nothing to point to what had happened and where it had gone. One moment it had been there. The next -vanished. If a man-made concept can be said to vanish.

It was someone on Twitch that first noticed the change. Some kid was doing one of those 24 hour marathons playing Fallout or something and the time just didn’t line up. At that point I think we’d lost five minutes.

There was panic of course. Headlines splashed across every paper. It was the topic of every conversation. There were scared prayer vigils. A bit of looting. No one knew what was going on.

Then the panic subsided. It was just five minutes after all. And people still had to go to work. Things had to get made and bought and sold. We still had to eat. And life returned to normal -if just a little quicker paced.

Until we lost an hour.

I remember when it happened. I woke up early because of your snoring. I’d shuffled into my slippers, made myself a cup of coffee, and gone outside to watch the sun rise. One moment I was standing there in my Doctor Who pajamas enjoying the dawn. It is my favourite time of the day. When all is still and the birds seem impossibly loud. Just before the Sun begins to crest on the horizon and everything is muted tones of grey. Like the world is holding its breath. I love that.

And the next moment the Sun was well above the horizon and my coffee was cold.

There was speculation. Everyone had their own theories. You couldn’t turn on the television without some person with a theoretical physics degree offering their opinion on what was going on. Terms like “quantum web” and “temporal displacement” became common place.

We are adaptable. And hope flourishes in the darkest of circumstances. No one knew where the hour had gone. There was no reason to think that it wouldn’t just come back.

“Maybe all the hours will come back at once and we can finally take that vacation we always wanted to take,” you joked. And I smiled. I stared into your hazel eyes and remembered our first awkward kiss. And how truly awful it had been.

For awhile things settled. And people got back to binge watching Netflix. They got back to punching the clock. Never thinking that maybe the clock wasn’t finished punching back. Months went by. This was just the new normal. We printed new calendars. We designed new clocks and wristwatches.

My favourite conspiracy theory said that this was all being done by the Swiss in a bid to corner the watch market. People on the six o’clock news waving signs outside their embassy “Time to go!”

People were just scared. And who could blame them? But it wasn’t till the day shortened to twelve hours that people really began to freak.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

4 hours. 3 hours. Two. One.

I hold you close and kiss your lips feeling the flap of day/night day/night like a butterfly’s wings against my cheek. “I love you.” I said.

The kiss seemed to go on forever.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Excellent. Back when dinosaurs roamed, I anxiously awaited each week's new episode of "The Twilight Zone". Oh, how I loved those stories! This, my friend, would've made a great one. It seems you don't care much for commas, but the writing is still quite easy to read and understand.

[A. B. Hopkins]

This is everything that I love about about short sci-fi stories. You chose short, compelling sentences to encompass a theme that is almost beyond comprehension. Intriguing premise. Well done.