At home

I wound the watch and set the time. It seemed to function normally. As I walked to my car, I cursed myself for not asking the shopkeeper what the weird language on the watch was and what it said.

At home, I grabbed a soda out of the fridge and sat on the front porch. It was just after 5:00 in the evening, and my parents were not home from work. Dad was an accountant, and mom worked as a bookkeeper for a retirement home.

I took the watch out and noticed a button I had missed before. I pressed the plunger down.

Suddenly, everything grew quiet. Really, really quiet. The watch had stopped, and I looked up. I noticed something was off but could not figure out what until I saw a bumble bee frozen in midair above the azalea bushes in front of the porch. I got up and walked over to it. I could see the wings moving, very, very slowly. I looked up and saw a car in the middle of the street stopped. I walked the sidewalk and saw the driver, an elderly man frozen in the front seat. He was looking straight ahead. I looked up and saw the clouds and an airplane just sitting in the sky, not moving. I looked at the watch and pressed the plunger again. It popped up.

Sound came back, the elderly driver drove off down the street, the airplane moved across the sky, and the wind started to blow. "Holy fuck!" I said.

I heard a door close and turned to see my neighbor Ms. Woods standing on her front step. She wore a pair of dark green jogging shorts and a gray tank top. Her thick auburn hair was pulled back in a pony tail. She had her smart phone on her arm and earbuds in. I looked at the watch and pressed the plunger. Again, everything went quiet.

I walked over to my neighbor. Cora Woods was in her early forties, twice divorced with a daughter my age. I had fantasized about Ms. Woods ever since puberty. From my upstairs bedroom window, I could watch her sunbathe in her back yard. She was aloof and cold to me, though, as was her snotty daughter who had gone to Baptist private school. I smiled evilly. I pulled Cora's shorts down and lifted her up. To my surprise, when I let her go, she stayed in mid-air. I imagined she was falling slowly to the ground as time had not stopped but come to a very slow crawl. I removed her shorts and then her gray cotton panties. I put her back down. I admired her firm, bubble butt and smacked it a few times. I think smacked her ass as hard and as fast as I could until I noticed it slightly turned red. I opened her front door and turned the lock on the inside handle then pulled it closed. I tested the handle. She was locked out. I took her hair down from band holding it in the pony tail and put her hair all in front of her face. I then stuffed her shorts and panties into her mail box.