The Deal

            My name is Michael Clavier Jacobs. The middle name is more than a little irritating, but it was my great-grandfathers and it doesn’t seem right to get rid of it. At the time this story begins, I was fourteen years old and still going to school in our wasteland of a coastal town. A town that I can no longer even remember the real name of- we just called it the Dump. I am dark-skinned, and at that time I was tall for my age. I was a scrawny kid, but I was good at avoiding fights at school. It didn’t take me long to realise that you could laugh most insults off.

            It all started in April one year, not long after the holidays had ended. Life had been fairly normal for me, as normal as it ever was in the Dump. I went to bed early that night, I remember, and I awoke early as well- with a splitting headache. The digital clock on his bedside table told me with glaring red letters that it was five o’clock. From the silvery grey light that was filtering in through his window, dawn had just broken over the town outside. Groaning, I tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but to my surprise and then horror I found that I couldn’t actually move.

            My first thought was that I was paralysed, and I panicked. Then I found that I had control of my neck and my head, and the panic went a way a little. I had heard of this sort of thing, and I knew a guy who had it. It was called sleep paralyses- where you woke up but your body didn’t. But this guy had said that he couldn’t even move his head, and I could. I’d seen people in wheelchairs on TV, people like Steven Hawking who had almost no control over their own bodies. And there were people who broke their back and were paralysed from the neck down like I seemed to be. But my spine didn’t feel broken- it was just like it always was, as far as I could tell.

            And it was then that I noticed the ceiling. Turning my head back towards the roof, I nearly screamed. You would have too, if you’d seen the chunks of broken plaster and brick falling towards you. The house was collapsing! Only, as I’m trying to explain, it wasn’t. It was half way through collapsing, but the rubble just hung their in the air like gravity had just given up and gone home. I won’t ever forget it, the way everything just hung above me, like it waiting to fall. That panic came back gripping my heart and giving it a good squeeze, and then it drained away to that dull post-shock throbbing. I let out a long slow breath, and glanced back at the clock.

            It still read five o’clock, and the seconds weren’t ticking at all. I soon picked up the other signs after that, the way the shadows cast by the clouds weren’t moving, the way the edge of my bedroom curtains was mid flutter in a now dead wind. Incredible as it was, time seemed to have stopped, all but for the tiny area occupied by my head. But that rubble still hung there, and I couldn’t move. And when time started up again, I was dead.

            Now, it may surprise you how quick I accepted the whole clock-stopping thing, but then, I was more occupied with the possibility of imminent death. If time hadn’t stopped, then the rubble would have crushed me to death in my sleep. As it was, I got to wait under it and suffer the whole fear and panic thing. Unless you’ve hung over a cliff and watched your fingers slip, or stood in an oven where the temperature is slowly rising, then you won’t understand what I’m talking about. Trust me, if aliens attacked the Earth, then what you’d worry about was dying. You care about the how and the why afterwards.

            And then of course, I heard the voice. It was a calm, conversational voice, the voice of any man in the street. But it was also like a teacher talking to me, using that tone they use when they think that they’re treating you like an adult, but actually they’re being patronising.

‘Ah, Mr Jacobs,’ it said, and I turned my head to try and see the speaker, but failed. He was sitting just out of my sight, and all I could see was the edge of a lowered news paper and a grey suited knee. From that, I reckoned he was sitting in the corner of my room on the chair there, with his legs crossed and a newspaper on his lap. I had no idea what he looked like, but I knew that he was male.

‘Who are you?’ I asked, trying to keep calm. I wanted to ask what he was doing in my room, but I never got that far. He answered me almost straight away, as if he knew what all my questions were.

‘I am the man,’ he snapped, ‘who is preventing several tons of broken masonry from replacing your head. I am also the man who can tell you that the rest of your family have already made it to the front door, and that they will escape. And as for what I am doing here, which is no doubt the next thing on your mind; I am stopping you from dying. I suggest you keep that thought at the forefront of your rather irritating little mind.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Why are you doing it?’ I asked. I had no intention of asking how- it was pretty obvious that he wouldn’t tell me. If I could stop time, I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone how. Something told me that he wasn’t keeping me alive out of the goodness of his heart. And I was right.’

 ‘Because, Mr Jacobs,’ he replied, ‘I require your services. You and I must broker a little deal, a little exchange as it were. In essence, Mr Jacobs, I wish for you to work for me.’

I frowned. ‘What kind of deal?’ I asked. ‘What kind of work are you talking about? Will I get paid?’ Even as said it I was wondering if this was some kind of dream or if I had gone insane, but I dismissed it. It wasn’t a dream, I could tell, and I didn’t feel insane. Of course, I didn’t know how insane people felt, but I didn’t really care at that point.

The man laughed. ‘My kind of deal. The kind of deal you sign without seeing, the kind you cannot read the small print of, the kind where everything goes my way. And as for wages, Mr Jacobs, every second working for me will be another second of life. You could say that this was a once in lifetime offer. Turn it down, and you won’t be getting any other offers of any kind- or any more lifetimes. Do I make myself clear? Or am I not getting through?’

I swallowed a little nervously, for I really didn’t like the sound of this. Nonetheless I nodded as best I could. ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘But you haven’t told me what I have to actually do.’

Again the man laughed, and the edge of the newspaper ruffled a little, the crackle of paper seeming somehow a little creepy in the otherwise silent and timeless world. I wasn’t sure I actually believed what was going on, but it wasn’t as if I really had a choice. It’s a bit hard to say that no-one can stop time when there are several tons of what used to be your house suspended above you. And I was already realising that world where time could stop was a world where anything could happen- anything at all. It never crossed my mind that this could be a joke or somehow possible with modern science.

‘Mr Jacobs,’ said the stranger in that same pleasant tone. ‘I have no intention of making your life easy for you. Do you know what the true definition of a hero is? You don’t do you? It is the right person in the right place at the right time. I am hoping that the right person is you, Mr Jacobs, and as for the right place and right time…that is easily enough explained.’

I frowned, the word ‘hero’ conjuring all the thoughts of books I’d read and films I’d seen. ‘You want me to save the world?’ I said, with what I hoped was withering sarcasm. ‘Get real.’

The man sighed. ‘Who said anything about save the world? The world is a large chunk of rock that can take care of itself. What I want you to do, Mr Jacobs, what you will do if you accept my offer, is change things a little. I want a certain future to come about, and I think, if you could comprehend what I can, you would want the same. I used the word ‘hero’ as I hoped it would be easy to understand. Obviously I was wrong. Will you accept my offer?’

I hadn’t really got a choice, but I fought a little anyway. ‘Not without knowing what’s going on,’ I said. ‘Who are you? And why me? What’s to stop me doing the deal and then just getting on with my life?’

There was an impatient snort from the chair in the corner, and I cursed myself silently. Hadn’t my mother always told me not to annoy men who could stop time? Well actually she hadn’t used those words, but the sentiment had been the same. Never upset people who can make your life difficult.

‘I have explained why you. You are the right person for what I require. I have already explained that I am the man between you and death, and that should be sufficient for now. And as for your last question- you will not be able to just get on with your life. In a few days the fabric of time and space is going to be given a little shakedown. The world you come back to will not be the world that you left. This is quite a simple choice, Mr Jacobs. Live or die! Decide!’

I opened my mouth, and then closed it. One last question had occurred to me…well; actually a lot had occurred to me. What did he mean by a shakedown of the fabric of time and space? But there was one thing I really had to know.

‘You aren’t the Devil are you?’ I asked, half expecting the rubble to come crashing down on top of me, and he laughed again. ‘I am neither an agent of Heaven nor an agent of Hell. I have no more idea as to their existence than you do, Mr Jacobs. I am not Death, not Time, nor any other person from your pitiful mythologies. I am the man who can save you, that is all.’

I smiled faintly, and then tried to nod again. ‘Ok,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it. Whatever it is.’ I paused. ‘This is the point where the rubble disappears and you tell me everything, including who you are? Or at least a name to call you by?’

The man laughed again. ‘No Mr Jacobs,’ he replied. ‘This is the point where you disappear and I tell you nothing. The rules you have to remember are as follows. First, that you tell no-one about this little deal, second, that you tell no-one about me, and third, that you do what is right. As for the rest, I trust to your judgement. Goodnight, Mr Jacobs!’

And with that, the rubble descended like the wrath of God. I screamed, and the blackness swallowed me whole, mocking laughter ringing in my ears as consciousness slipped away….