[18,421 : 07 : 33 ]

I turn my collar up against the wind and step out of the station entrance, leaving the screams and the sirens behind me. The noise of the tragedy fades, swallowed by the greater, indifferent roar of the city.

I step onto the main road, and the world explodes into red.

To you, this is just a busy intersection at rush hour. It is a sea of grey coats, honking taxis, and people glued to their phones. It is chaotic, sure, but it is life.

To me, it is a blinding forest of neon.

Hundreds of timers bob and weave through the crowd, a glowing, chaotic ticker-tape of mortality hovering six feet off the ground. It is dizzying. If I don't focus, the numbers blur into a singular, bloody streak of light.

I weave through them, ducking my head.

[ 613,200 : 04 : 12 ] floats above a toddler in a stroller. Seventy years. A full life. He has time to learn to walk, to fall in love, to have his heart broken, to grow old. He is a billionaire in the currency of time.

I pass a young couple holding hands, laughing at something on a phone screen. They are planning dinner, maybe a movie. They are talking about next summer.

Above the boy: [ 48,900 : 12 : 01 ]. Plenty of time. Above the girl: [ 336 : 06 : 30 ]. Two weeks.

Two weeks.

I can see the unseen tumor, or the drunk driver, or the loose wire waiting for her. It’s hovering right there, counting down with terrifying precision. He is looking at her like she is his forever. I know she is just his temporary.

It takes everything in me not to scream at him. Take a picture. Say the things you’re scared to say. Do it now. But I keep walking. I am a ghost in their machine.

[ 175,200 : 11 : 00 ]

[ 20 : 00 : 00 ]

The numbers swarm. An old man smoking a cigarette on the corner has another twenty years. A fitness instructor jogging in place at the crosswalk has less than a day. The irony is suffocating. There is no logic to the distribution. It is random, cruel, and absolute.

I stop at the crosswalk, surrounded by the ticking. The sound of the city isn't cars or voices to me; it's the collective grinding of gears, the whirring of the cosmic clock.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I adjust my gaze to the pavement, trying to filter out the red glare. It’s easier to look at the ground. If I look up, I see the debt. If I look down, I can pretend, just for a moment, that we are all walking toward the same infinite horizon, rather than our own scheduled cliffs.

The light changes. The herd moves. I move with them, careful not to touch anyone, careful not to look them in the eye. I don't want to know their names. I already know their expiration dates.

The crosswalk stalls, trapping us on the edge of the street.

Red light. Wet asphalt reflecting the city’s grey underbelly. The crowd holds its breath the way it always does—impatient, vibrating, muscles coiled and ready to surge the moment the electric permission is granted.

I stop with them, but I keep my head down. I let the cracked pavement absorb my gaze. It’s easier that way. Safer. If I look up, I have to see the inventory. I have to see the mother with three days left standing next to the student with sixty years. I have to see the math of tragedy. So, I look at shoes. Leather oxfords, mud-splattered sneakers, high heels trembling with the strain of waiting.

Then, I notice the anomaly.

It isn’t a sound; it’s an absence. Amidst the fidgeting, the checking of watches, and the shifting of weight, something beside me is unnaturally still. There is no tapping foot. No restless glance toward the light. Just a pair of worn black boots rooted to the concrete.

I look up.

There is a timer above his head.

That alone shouldn’t matter. Everyone has one. But as my eyes lock onto the red digits hovering in the mist, my own heart skips a beat.

It isn’t changing.

[ 18,421 : 07 : 33 ]

The numbers hang there, sharp and defined, searingly bright against the gloom. But they are frozen. The colon—that rhythmic, blinking heartbeat between the minutes and seconds—is dead. The last second doesn’t fall away. It just sits there, defying the fundamental law of the universe.

Time has stopped for him.

My breath stutters in my throat. I blink hard, rubbing my eyes, convinced this is fatigue, a hallucination born of too many hours counting other people's debts. But when I open my eyes, the impossibility remains.

[ 18,421 : 07 : 33 ]

Still unmoving.

In all my years of cursing this sight, no one has ever had a paused clock.

He stands with his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, staring straight ahead. He is standing too close to the curb—dangerously close. Cars roar past inches away, their tires spraying dirty mist onto his coat, but he doesn't flinch. He doesn't even blink.

I watch the digits, mesmerized, waiting for the glitch to correct itself.

Nothing.

Then, he shifts. It’s barely a movement—just a subtle adjustment of posture, a muscle remembering the pull of gravity.

The numbers jerk violently.

[ 18,421 : 07 : 32 ]

They resume. The colon blinks. The universe rights itself.

Cold spreads through my chest, a physical chill that has nothing to do with the wind.

He settles again, redistributing his weight until he is perfectly balanced, perfectly still.

The countdown freezes. The colon stops blinking.

I tear my gaze away like the numbers are burning me. I look at the traffic, at the sky, at anything else. But the image is burned into my retina.

"Hey."

The voice is quiet, conversational. It cuts through the roar of the traffic.

"You okay?"

I look back. He’s looking at me. His face is pale, angular, with eyes that look like they’ve seen the end of the world and found it boring.

"Yeah," I say, the word tumbling out too quickly. "You were... you were about to step into traffic."

He glances at the roaring road, then back at the red light.

"Was I?"

"Yes."

He considers that. He doesn't deny it, nor does he defend himself. He weighs the accusation like a coin in his palm.

"Maybe," he says finally. "I tend to stop in inconvenient places."

The light stays red. Cars keep screaming past, a blur of steel and glass. He doesn't move. The timer doesn't either. It hangs above him like a portrait, static and unchanging.

"You shouldn’t stand so close," I add, my voice dropping. "It’s dangerous."

A faint smile touches his mouth, thin and tired.

"Everything is."

The crowd around us shifts, restless. A businessman exhales sharply behind me, checking his Rolex. A phone vibrates against a thigh. Life is impatient with pauses. Life demands momentum.

But he remains a statue.

I don’t look up, but I don’t have to. I can feel the static pressure of his halted time.

"You’re not in a hurry," I say. It’s an accusation.

"No."

"Why?"

He thinks about it longer than people usually think about small questions. He looks at the horizon, where the buildings meet the grey sky.

"I don’t feel chased," he answers softly. "And I don’t feel late."

The words land harder than they should. They rattle around inside my head, colliding with everything I know to be true. Everyone is chased. Everyone is late. That is the design.

The light flickers green.

The dam breaks. The crowd surges forward, a wave of bodies brushing past us in a sudden rush of movement and noise.

He doesn’t move.

The timer stays frozen.

A horn blares—too close, too loud, aggressive and violent.

I react before I think.

My hand closes around the rough wool of his sleeve, and I yank him backward just as a taxi tears through the intersection, running the light. It misses us by less than a breath, the wind of its passing slapping our faces.

The world inhales sharply. Someone shouts. Someone laughs nervously. The moment collapses back into motion.

He looks down at my hand gripping his arm. His expression isn't shocked. It's curious. Then he looks up at my face.

"Thank you," he says.

I let go immediately, stepping back as if I’ve been shocked.

"You didn’t have to do that," he adds. Not accusing. Just stating a fact.

"I know," I say. My heart is hammering against my ribs, terrified of the silence he carries with him.

He studies me—not my face, but my posture. The tension I haven’t let go of. He looks at me like he can read the debt hovering over my own head.

"You look like someone who notices things too early," he says. "And pays for it."

I don’t answer. I can't.

The light turns red again. The street empties, leaving us stranded in the sudden quiet between movements.

"I’m not trying to die," he says, gently, as if comforting me. "In case you were wondering."

I hadn’t said anything.

"I just don’t mind stopping," he continues. "The world feels loud when everyone’s in a hurry."

He pauses, and for a second, the silence of the city seems to wrap around him.

"I like seeing what happens when I don't cooperate."

I risk a glance upward.

[ 18,421 : 07 : 32 ]

Still frozen. Defiant.

"How long can you stand there?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

He shrugs. "As long as it takes for something to matter."

The light changes.

This time, he steps forward.

The numbers lurch.

[ 18,421 : 07 : 31 ]

Time resumes.

I feel it like a punch to the ribs. The gear turns; the machine grinds on.

He crosses the street at a normal pace, blending into the crowd on the other side. He is just another grey coat in a sea of grey coats, except for the secret he carries above his head. Halfway across, he pauses and glances back.

"You coming?" he asks.

The question sounds casual. Like he’s asking if I want to share a cab. But I know what it really is. It’s an invitation to see the glitch.

Every instinct I have screams no. Run the other way. Ignore the anomaly.

I don’t follow him.

That’s the first thing I do right.