120: Stuck

 The pocketwatch seemed to be stuck. I was holding it in my hand, but as soon as I pressed the button on the side, it became stuck. I couldn't move it. I slowly opened my hand and lowered it. The pocketwatch hung in midair where I'd left it. This shouldn't be possible. I stared at it. It was no longer ticking. In fact, it was quiet. Everything was quiet. I couldn't hear the traffic outside or my family downstairs shouting back and forth to one another. I listened, but there was nothing. I reached out to the watch again, prodding it. I wrapped my fingers around it and pulled. Very slowly, with much effort, I was able to bring it towards me. But as soon as I stopped, it was stuck again. I pressed the button on the side a second time and the watch dropped into my hand and I was knocked over by the sudden overwhelming sensation of sound - the cars, the kids, the ice cream truck, a plane overhead, my dad downstairs yelling to my mom. 

It couldn't be, right? I had read a book about a magic pocketwatch when I was a kid, but now here in my my grandfather's house, going through his old things, I had to be imagining things. Pocketwatches that could stop time were a thing of fantasy, right?

I dropped the pocketwatch into my pocket, climbed down the ladder from the attic and headed downstairs to where my mom was inventorying furniture and my dad was looking through my grandfather's file cabinet.  I ran past both, threw open the front door, reached into my pocket, pressed the button. 

and.
everything.
stopped.  

Well, this was going to be fun.

"120" is the umbrella under which I place my creative writing (it's been a long time! Again!) - it refers to one of the practices: writing for 120 seconds on a single topic with no chance to go back and edit - there may be mistakes, typos, embarrassing spelling errors.  Such is the nature.  I might continue writing after the timer ends, but it's about sitting down and writing something. (This one didn't go according to plan, I kept getting interrupted. Oh well, at least I wrote something.) Click here to read more 120s.