Tyme Is Stuck In Time

My Cellphone Is Dying

11 x 14, mixed media paper, watercolor, gouache, and ink

Tyme found herself stuck in her little towns Clock Tower, which was also the Town Hall. While looking out the clocks glass face she saw a owl fly away with the front door key. She was afraid to call their Mom and called her brother instead. Her call went to messages and now she has to wait for her brother to come rescue her.

Sean The Archer

One of Sean’s favorite things to do besides collect bugs, amphibians, and reptiles was bow practice. He liked to go out into the woods and target practice usually he went by himself. Not many of the his friends like to bow practice. He was 13 years old, almost as tall as his mother and she was 5’10. He was starting to look like his grandfather Fred with his straight black hair, honey brown skin and black brown eyes. Grandpa was a lean 6’3 and he would probably be just as tall. Sean had trouble walking because he was growing so fast his Mom would buy his shoes a size bigger so he wouldn’t grow out of them in two months.

There wasn’t any cell phone reception at the rock quarry where he liked to practice. The rock quarry was behind a small ridge of scrub forest near town up by the cemetery. The quarry itself was surrounded by tall rock cliffs that had been formed from cutting out limestone slabs for the construction industry. It was the perfect place to target practice with his .22 rifle or assortment of bows. There was no chance of hurting anyone hiding in the woods. Everything was perfectly clear and safe.

Today he had his Zombie Killer 80lb crossbow. It was a very small bow you could pack in a duffle bag and it was easy to use. The bow was too lightweight to kill anything unless you got up close. Getting at least 20 feet from a deer or rabbit was pretty near impossible. But you never know when you might run into a zombie. They are brainless and slow, that’s why they craved peoples blood and brains. They didn’t have any of their own. Sean looked up through the shadows of the limestone quarry and saw the sun was past noon and it was time to head home and feed his assortment of pets.

Sean placed his bow and arrows in his duffle bag and started walking out of the quarry. It was an easy walk to town. The roads were well maintained even through they were made of gravel. He liked the walk because the road was lined by young Douglas fir trees just planted by the Bureau of Land Management, BLM for short. All the old growth timber had been cut down by the Forest Service and the Federal government. The old trails used by generations of ranchers to run their livestock were locked up. No one was allowed into their citizen owned state woods anymore except by official permission of the government. Since only Douglas fir and Red cedar were planted there was very little food for native animals to live. The woods were very quiet, which made the crunch of the rocks as he walked very loud.

At least he didn’t have to look at clear cuts. Hills, creeks, and valley’s shaved of their covering of trees as clean as a balding man’s shaved head. Everyone had lost their jobs when the timber mills shut down. Before the Federal Government took over management of his counties forest people were able to make a living off of cutting a few trees per acre for at least 5 generations. He felt sad thinking about the loss of their forests.




Sean’s Phone Has A Message

Sean answered his phone and heard his sister frantic voice begging him to get her out of the old Clock House before her Mom or someone found out she had broken the town clock. Everyone used the clock to sync their own clocks, so time is running short! Someone is gong to notice! Sean grumbled to himself, “What a pain in the neck, can’t she stay out of trouble for one day? I wonder if she has been in the booze the old men keep in the fridge? I can’t believe an owl shut and locked the front door and flew away with the key.”

There Is No Way To Unlock Tyme

He loved the walk into town resented the fact he had to run. Running past the old broken down train station, grayed clapboard siding and broken windows, information sign hanging side ways of it’s post was depressing and it looked haunted. He always walked as fast as he could past the old train station. He felt as if ghost were staring out at him through the broken windows on both sides of the doorless front door.

Sean arrived at the clock house within 5 minutes of getting his sister’s message. Tyme had been stuck in the clock house for around 2 hours. The Clock house with it’s beautiful golden stained wood and well groomed lawn was reassuring and always gave Sean a good feeling when he saw it. One thing was always constant in the world and that was the clock house, it never changed.

Sean walked up to the front door and jiggling the knob to make sure it was locked. “Yup it’s locked, “ he said to himself. Sean wondered if anyone saw him talking to himself if they would think he was crazy. He looked around thankful no one was watching and he would have to explain himself. He looked through the keyhole and could see his sister sitting at the town halls round table. “Hey Sis!” he yelled through the door’s key hole. She didn’t hear him and she was sitting very still. Oddly still for a hyper active 8 year old red-head. He ran around to the back and tried the backdoor, it was locked too. He tried calling his sister with his cellphone no one picked up. He ran around to the front and looked at the clock face. It said 10am and he knew it was well past 1pm. He looked at his phones clock and it said 10am as well. “What the heck! If anyone finds out she broke the towns clock she is going to be in so much trouble. It looks like she stopped all our clocks, maybe she broke time. Oh she is going to be in so much trouble!” He thought to himself, mumbling curses in time with this thoughts.

Sean Runs Home

Home was only 15 minutes away an easy jog that shouldn’t take anytime, he needed his Phillips screw driver to unlock the clock house door. Old locks were easy to unlock if you knew which bolts to push. Old locks only had two.

Sean looked up as he ran up Broadway Ave. and noticed something odd. No one was moving. Everyone looked frozen in the middle of doing something, like loading groceries into their car. Or walking in or out of stores. Sneezing or blowing their nose. Did his sister break time? Everything was so quiet, not even birds singing. He ran faster trying not to freak out and start crying.

Oh look the Mayor is picking his nose while he is driving. Sean couldn’t help but laugh even though he was freaking out. He felt a little hysterical and laughing at the mayor frozen in the middle of pulling a huge green and yellow booger out of his nose. That was epic! He took a picture with his cell phone as he ran by. He was 13 years old and not a baby anymore no laughing or crying hysterically like his sister. It seemed to take only a few minutes to run home. Time seemed to be really out of wack!

Everyone Is Stuck In Time

Why am I the only one that isn’t stuck in time, Sean thought to himself as he ran into the barn and grabbed the tool bag. Running past the granary room he remembered his pets needed to be fed. He looked at his terrariums and saw all his pets weren’t moving as well except for Turbo the snail and Looper the frog. They were kinda his pets. Both were oddly large and would disappear and reappear when ever they wanted. Sometimes they were in their terrariums and sometimes they were gone and he didn’t know how they escaped.

Looper was bigger than his two hands put together, he looked like your normal Bull Frog except bigger.

Turbo was a huge golden snail Sean found in his Mom’s garden. He was bigger than Looper, bigger than any snail he had ever seen in his life. His mom was going to feed the snail to the ducks and Sean saved him. He told him never to go into the garden again or he would be duck food! He liked talking to his pets even through they never talked to him.




Looper and Turbo Can Talk

As Sean sprinkled food for the snail and frog in their little glass homes the snail said, “Tyme broke the towns clock didn’t she? Sean dropped the little bottle of food and stumbled back falling over several old bails of straw his Mom was curing for her straw bale garden. He felt as if he was going crazy and felt dizzy. That’s when things started getting really crazy. The frog croaked in hollow drum like voice, “Tyme broke time and you can’t fix it Sean. Turbo and I will help you!” Sean felt that his world had turned into a bad science fiction fantasy video game. He looked up over the bale of straw and saw both the frog and the snail looking back at him.

Escaping the Time Matrix part Two

Escaping The Time Matrix Part One

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