What If You Can Stop Time but for Only 1 Minute

Oh boy, you can’t stop seeing images of funny pandas on your final exam sheet. All those late night YouTube videos hit you hard, huh? You scribble down some words hoping that something makes sense. You look at your watch and realize you’ve got only 10 minutes to finish. Panic mode is officially on. But no one knows your watch has a pinch of magic in it.

You click the stop button on your watch and relax. Don’t worry, no one will turn to dust and half the universe won’t disappear. You simply freeze everything in time except yourself. With this ability, you can stop the time for 1 minute a [=1] day. So, after freezing the time, you get to one of your classmates, take a picture of the assignment, and head back to your seat.

You unfreeze the time and write down the proper answer. Phew! At least you can guarantee a passing grade. (Um I’m Steve from Legal: Wanna make sure you know that Bright Side does not condone cheating on a test. Okay, carry on...)

You walk out of the classroom with a large smile on your face. You check your watch, and it says you spent 10 seconds of time freezing. 50 seconds left. After that exam, you go and grab something to eat. You’re at the traffic light, waiting to cross the street. Hey, there’s a girl talking on the phone and a car is speeding up to her! Everyone sees it, but nobody can do anything, and the car is only a few feet away from her!

You click the stop button and everything freezes again. You run up to that girl and move her as fast as you can. Then you run back to where you were standing and click the button again to unfreeze time. Everyone is confused but at least the girl’s safe now.

The whole mission took you another 10 seconds. 40 seconds left. You enter the coffee shop to grab a quick bite. As soon as you get your coffee, you turn around and lose balance. Your drink is falling down and about to spill. You click the button [stop] instinctively and the drink is now literally hanging in the air. [play] You collect all the droplets and put them back in the cup and click the button again. You just saved yourself $5 and a dry-cleaner’s trip.

You realize you spent 15 seconds saving your drink. Argh, 25 seconds left for today. As you’re walking to the bin to throw away the cup, someone bumps into you. The buckle unfastens, and the watch smashes onto the ground. You pick it up and see a scratch on the display, plus some parts came off. You gather the parts trying to fix it. As you’re doing so, you see a fly next to you and shoo it off. Strangely, it doesn’t even flinch.

You look around you and see everyone frozen in time. The person who bumped into you is still in mid-motion. The pigeons eating bread crumbs are frozen too, so are the cars and people. Since the watch got damaged, it reversed the power. Everything is on pause, and now you’ve got only 25 seconds of regular time. If you waste it all, you’ll be frozen in time forever.

At first, you try your best to fix it, but don’t know what to do. You take out your phone to browse some tutorial on how to fix a watch, but it won’t load. You keep refreshing but nothing happens. The internet can only work in real time. And 25 seconds aren’t enough for anything.

There’s only one place now where you can learn how to fix watches in this situation: a library. You’ll have to read about it and learn it from scratch. You rush to the closest library which is at the campus. Turns out, there are only a few books on how to repair watches, but they have zero info you need.

You find a bike and pedal all the way across to the public library. It took you 4 hours to get there. Once you’ve arrived, you look at endless bookshelves. You could easily switch back to real time and ask the librarian where to find what you need, but then it might take longer than you have left. There are way more books than you expected. You pedal back home and grab some stuff to sleep and eat. It’s gonna be a long day.

When you’re back, you grab a few large books that seem to have the answer. No social media can distract you since the internet doesn’t even work. The time passed, and you finally finished 2 large mechanics volumes. But there’s just one problem: you can’t find volume 3.

Your only choice is to turn on time to do a quick internet search on where it is. You can’t download an e-book, since it will take much time and it’s impossible to print in frozen time. [play stop] You click the button and time resumes. Everyone looks confused about a mattress and food leftovers all over the library floor.

But you do a quick internet search and find out that you can order the book now and receive it the next day! Yeah, right. It turns out, the closest book is in a library on the West coast. Bad news, you’re in New York. And what makes it worse is that the only source was updated years ago. The book may not even be there. You freeze time again. It took you 10 seconds to get all the needed information. You have no choice but to go on a road trip that will take around half a year by bike — no other vehicle is available to you.

You find the best bike and gear, pack up some provisions and leave the town. You travel through the mountains, swamps, and dry lands. You bike through frozen waterfalls and cut across heavy storms frozen in time. You find indoor places to sleep since time is frozen during the day. But you actually took your time getting there and lengthened your trip to see all the sights around the country.

You spent a week at the Grand Canyon and a month in Yellowstone. You went up to bears and wolves, so you could actually see the details of their muzzles. You even decided to pedal all the way to Mexico to check out the amazing scenes and landscapes around. You visited all the cities and towns without worrying about money or a proper place to stay. (Steve from legal again: Bright Side does not condone using stuff without paying for it. Remember, this is a fantasy trip. Okay continue.)

After covering all of Mexico you continue all the way down through Central America where you got to witness even more amazing sights and landmarks. Hey, you’re already this far, why not continue pedaling down to South America? You can even visit your friend in Argentina. I mean, he wouldn’t know you’re there, but it would be nice to pay him a little visit.

After sunbathing in Brazil and mountain climbing in Bolivia, you end up at the southernmost point in South America and admire the journey you took. Right across the ocean is Antarctica. It’s impossible to get a boat and sail there. So, you decide it’s time to get back to business.

According to your calculations, it took you about 4 years to complete this journey. But you finally reach the library. You take out some water to drink but accidentally drop the watch on the ground and resume time. Everyone is in motion. Cars are honking their horns. Dogs are barking. People are screaming and shouting at each other.

You haven’t heard a human voice in such a long time. Some people are staring at you. You’re overwhelmed by all the energy around you but suddenly wake up from it. You fumble trying to find the watch. Here it is! You stop the time. [play stop] Only 3 seconds left.

You spend what seems to be another month in that large library trying to find the third volume. You’ve got no more time to do another internet search with those 3 seconds. After you’ve finally found it, you spend 2 more months figuring out how to fix your watch. When you’re done, all you have to do is click the button to bring everything back to normal.

But you decide to pedal all the way back home. You clean up all the mess in the library and go back to the coffee shop where it all started. You even return the bike you borrowed. This is it. 3 seconds to see if all that work was for nothing.

You click the button and watch time move on. You look at your watch. 3, 2, 1... Everything is back to normal. You go back home and lock up that watch in your drawer never to look at it again. Until next time...