Explanations

"Wait... what?" Tim was almost speechless.

The old woman studied him through squinted eyes.

"I thought you mortals were quicker than that," she said, poking him in the chest with a gnarled finger, "What is it you don't understand?"

"Um, everything? Like, who was she? And who are you? And where did she go? And what's going on? And..." the questions spilled out of him hard and fast. He'd never seen the world put on pause before, nor had he ever experienced a woman vanishing in broad daylight. Maybe someone had slipped him some acid, or maybe he was having a psychotic break, or maybe...

"We made a deal," the old woman said, "you do remember that, right? At the flea market?"

"Yeah."

"Good, so you understood something at least," she muttered, "Alright. Here's the sum up: That was my sister. One of my sisters. Triplets. Could you see the resemblance? Of course you could. Anyway, she's a bitch. She was gorging herself on your bad luck. I just saved you."

"Saved me? Luck?"

"Yes," she crossed her arms, "A thank-you would be nice."

"Um, thanks..."

"You're welcome," the grin returned, "Anyhoo, she's the avatar of all luck in the universe, and I'm the avatar for justice. I'm obviously much better. You running into your best friend and his new girlfriend? Bad luck. After your sister crashed your car forcing you to take the bus, which just so happened to arrive at the exact moment so you could run into each other? Double bad luck. She would have had a great big meal of your misery, and I'm tired of watching her pick on you. That's why we made our deal."

"So, this is all real?!" Panic had crept into Tim's voice, "Like, all the magic and vanishing and..."

"Of course it's real!" she leaned forward and looked hard into Tim's eyes, "maybe I picked the wrong mortal. I think you might be broken."

"But what am I... I mean, everything is frozen! Do I do something? What's this deal?" Tim felt dizzy. He sat down on the sidewalk and took some deep breaths, "I'm sorry, it's just a bit much."

"You can't escape Luck, nor can you escape Fate, my other sister. But you can trade. That's fair. That's Justice. That's me!" she giggled a wheezy giggle, "I'm going to give you the power to make some changes, some trades. When the world paused like this, it's to stop my sisters from eating you alive. I'll let you make a deal to save your butt, save you from some heartache. I'll be around to make sure that you trade something fair, that way my sister's can't touch you! See how nice I am?"

"I'm not sure I understand everything. This is all so much," Tim was trying to keep up, but it was difficult.

"Let's make this easy," she said, pulling him up with surprisingly strong hands, "look in the car. Check out that bullshit. Your best friend snatches up this woman that you love. Then he has the walnuts to flaunt it in front of you like this. That's garbage. You need to trade something. What do you want? You can take it from either one, just make sure that it's something that'll make things better for you."

"Anything?" Tim asked.

"Anything."