text: It scared the shit out of me. I was 12, riding my bike home from school when a big dog jumped out in front of me on the sidewalk. I don't really remember how I did it, exactly, but I remember thinking, "No! Why now? I was going to bike all over with Billy until SUNDOWN!" In the midst of thinking that, I realized I was taking a very long time to hit the ground. I tried to look around and found that I could not move my head. 'I must be dead,' I thought, 'Or paralyzed, maybe'. Being paralyzed wouldn't be so bad. At least I'd be able to see mom and dad and my sister again. My head and my body wouldn't move, but my eyes could shift a little. I glanced in as many directions as possible and saw Billy next to me on his bike. Billy's bike was the coolest one in the neighborhood. It had seven speeds. Seven! I couldn't imagine riding a bike with seven speeds. I often thought that everything but the sidewalk must turn into a giant blur when Billy skidded around corners and flew down hills. I sometimes wondered how Billy was able to go slow enough to stay with the pack when we rode around the neighborhood. 'He must have really good control of that thing'. I would think. Billy's face wasn't moving. Actually, none of Billy's anything was moving. His mouth and eyes were stuck open in a kind of shock and awe. He was standing up on his pedals about ten feet away from me on the road. He was upside down, too. Or rather, he looked upside down. It wasn't until now that I noticed I was upside down. I was suspended in mid-air with my feet pointing to the sky. I could see my bike and the dog below me. The dog had the bewildered look on its face that dogs get when they realize something uncomfortable is happening to them and they have no earthly idea why or how it could have possibly taken place without them seeing it coming. The dog was standing weird, like it was halfway from lying down and standing up but couldn't make up its mind. It didn't look right. I thought it must be impossible for anyone to stand that way. It was like someone had pressed pause on a movie. We were in the movie, and we couldn't move again until someone pressed play. 'Maybe I am in a movie,' I thought, 'maybe this whole time I've been alive it's really just part of a movie!' at first I thought this was cool, but then I thought about how movies end before everyone's life is finished. If that happened, I might not get to ever see mom and dad or my sister again. That was no good. 'Please don't be a movie,' I thought. I looked back over at Billy to see if I could recognize him from any movies I'd watched. He didn't look like an actor, but something strange in front of Billy caught the corner of my eye. A shiny, metal thing was there. I knew it was shiny because it was reflecting the sun straight at me. I tried to move my eyes some more to get a better view, but it was no good. Whatever it was was just out of sight. It was definitely much bigger than Billy. The way it was shaped made it seem like it was just the tip of something; like there was a whole bunch more of it just outside my view. I squinted and strained to try and see more. I caught a glimpse of something round just underneath the shiny metal part. My heart dropped. It was a car. The round thing was a tire, and the shiny metal part was a hood. I tried to open my mouth and shout at Billy, but nothing happened. My whole face and body were stuck except for my eyes. I tried blinking. I could remember some morse code from boy scouts, but Billy never went to boy scouts. I figured it was worth a shot. Billy didn't blink back. He just kept staring at me with that shock-and-awe-gaping-mouth he had been since somebody pressed pause. 'pause' I thought, 'Don't un-press pause, whoever you are!' I thought this as hard as I could, hoping that maybe the people watching tv would be able to hear me. 'Do it for Billy!' I thought loudly, 'Save him!'. Then another idea struck me, 'Press rewind! Press rewind and I can tell him what's coming!' Nothing happened. I tried thinking to Billy: 'Billy! Billy look out! Look in front of you Billy! Look out for the car!' Billy's face stayed the same. I had no idea if he could hear me. If he could, he wasn't trying to think anything back. I wondered if he could hear me but didn't know how to reply, so I tried explaining it to him. It didn't take long before I thought about how stupid an idea that was. I stopped trying to do anything and just hung there for a bit, wondering why no one had ever pressed pause before. 'This is like the longest movie ever,' I thought. Then I thought about how I was twelve, and how no movie was twelve years long ever. 'That would be such a waste of time,' I thought. Nope, a twelve year movie didn't make any sense. It was too silly. And I was much too old for silly ideas. But then I had an idea that was not so silly. I thought about the feeling I had right before everything paused. I wanted everything to pause. I had wished for it, and it had happened. I looked at Billy, and tried wishing for everything to rewind. Nothing happened. I wondered what would happen if I wished for everything to play again. I wondered if I would be able to shout to Billy in time for him to move. I didn't like it, but I knew this was the only chance Billy had. All I could do was think about playing time again or we would be stuck like this forever. That would get pretty boring. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. I thought about playing time. I kept my eyes closed and balled my hands into fists. I could hear screeching tires and a honking horn. I opened my mouth to call for Billy. But just as I was about to shout, I hit the sidewalk with a crack. There was a sickening sound of splintering glass and crunching metal.