High School Dayz

Prominent among them were that he wished he had this power in high school. Back when Karyn came back, that would have been the best time. He liked College, but still, it would have been nice to have this power a few months ago...

He did not realize that he had just created a parallel reality...

John sat on the wall after class, swinging my legs looking into space. It was the first day of school after spring break. He was waiting for Karyn, his best friend for longer than he could remember. In fact, he'd been waiting to talk to her for over a good while, but she had been dragged away for half a year by her dad's temporary reassignment. Now that they were back, John was really looking forward to seeing her again.

Finally, he spotted her strolling towards him across the yard. She was wearing her usual get-up, scruffy old jeans and her favorite worn out green jumper. Her short red hair was in its normal unruly state, and she displayed her quirky grin as she spotted john slouching on the wall. John thought the overall effect was pretty cute. He'd always thought she was cute, but he'd never wanted to risk telling her. There are some friendships you just don't want to complicate.

"Hey, John! How's it going? Long time no see?" she said, as if it had just been a few hours since we had last seen each other and not 6 months.

John grinned sheepishly. "Okay. You?" he asked, trying to be equally casual.

She shrugged, "You know, same-old, same-old. There's only so many shopping malls and train rides you can go on until it stops being all new and glitzy. Next time my dad gets sent around, I might give traveling a pass and just hang out with you."

"That'd be nice," John replied, grinning. "Save me from couch-potato-dom."

"Anything of interest to report while I was away?" she asked.

""As a matter of fact, not really..." John began to say, but then trailed off. Karyn had stopped moving, had stopped breathing, in fact. Everything had suddenly gone deathly quite, and as John looked around he saw a sparrow suspended in midair.

"Greetings, John of Brady," a voice came from nowhere, startling him. "You have been willed THE POWER, rejoice in your good fortune. You now have the power to do anything... anything at all. Time has been stopped so you might receive this gift at the designated time. Speak or think your wish and it will be done."

As suddenly as it had stopped, everything restarted again. The sudden onrush of noise was shocking, until John realized that it was just the normal noise of everyday life. Only its brief absence made it at all noticeable.

'Did that really just happen?' John thought. 'Nah, it must have been my imagination.' Karyn looked at John expectantly, and John tried to recover his train of thought.

"...Nothing much really. It was a bit boring without you around. Zoe's gone completely goth, Sarah decided to focus all of her anti-nerd powers on me while you were not in range, mom got a raise...All in all, pretty boring."

Across the yard, Sarah McMillan, head cheerleader and class-A bitch, was headed towards the parking lot, followed by her usual entourage of drooling, over muscled football players and other assorted testosterone-fueled flunkies. She didn't seem interested in them at all, which John counted as a good thing.

Karyn noticed John staring, and gave him a slightly annoyed look. "Can you explain to me why men are so shallow?" Karyn said, slipping into a conversation just as if she had never been gone. "Everyone knows that McMillan is a total bitch and yet, because she has blond hair and big tits, every guy in the school spends half his life dribbling down her cleavage," she said, lightly needling John in the ribs.

"Not every guy," John noted, although he had to admit that Sarah wasn't bad to look at.

"Okay, most guys," she caved, rolling her eyes slightly. "There's only one of her; why can't she just pick one and let the rest of us have a go?" She sighed.

"Got your eye on anyone in particular?" John asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

She scowled at me. "No. Just a general feeling. God, I wish I had long blond hair and big boobs. Maybe then I'd know what it was like to get some of the attention."

'I wish you did too. Yeah, that would be great,' John thought.