Just Dropping By (Shin, Kealey)

Shin stood. He just stood. Time passed. It passed slowly, for him basically not at all. In the bubble, people spoke, but he was outside the bubble.

It was kind of terrible, being blissfully unaware of the conversation going on between his wife and the mystery man right in front of his eyes. If he were aware of it, that'd annoy him. But he wasn't. He was outside the bubble. Which was kind of even worse.

Being outside the bubble meant while they spoke, and thought complex thoughts, full of intrigue and wonder, he burbled and did nothing. There was nothing to do about it.

Nothing. Silence. Caught in mid-thought. Struggling. Listening. To absolutely...

...

.......

Nothing.

If he could have filled up paragraphs with the nothingness he experienced, he would have filled at least one paragraph.

Can you imagine being present for a conversation that's happening faster than your mind can parse? There isn't really a voice distortion that happens with the time bubble. It doesn't make the participants conversation sped up like the comical effect in movies, all sped up high pitches and helium. You don't see people moving in fast forward, because your mind isn't tracking time moving any different. At most, when the conversation is finished, you might hear a single click like a 'duh ' as all the words blend together into a singular sound your mind tries to make sense of, and valiantly fails. Or maybe several clicks, to account for silence. Duh duh duh. Guh.

It would have been funny if Shin had stood there dumbly, doing nothing. Frozen. Maybe a fly would land on him and sit there rubbing its legs. He wouldn't swat it. He wouldn't swat anything. He would do... nothing. But conceptually, the fly would be out of place. Spitting in the face of physics. Which is disgusting, if you know a thing about fly spit. The fly would move at the same pace as every other thing that wasn't in the bubble. If the fly was in the bubble, and exited it, it wouldn't stay sped up. It might even disturb the bubble, as something passes through it to break the barrier seal like opening a vacuum packed package of snacks. Or Tupperware.

Yes, Tupperware is good for musing. A shame no such musing had happened. Because Shin had been vacuum sealed in time. The thing about Tupperware is, if you close it property, it sucks. And that was kind of like the bubble situation, metaphorically. Or wait, does Tupperware suck? Or does it blow? It didn't matter. Nobody was wondering about it, anyways.