still.

when they first find it, they are just a bunch of feverish kids with the wildest of dreams and uncontrollable fires in their eyes. five of them. three boys and two girls, nameless. the youngest, 8 years old, finds it half buried under the rough sand of the beach right in front of his family cafe. it’s a big discovery for sure, a rusty pocket watch that seems to him like it has went through millions of years, strangely still ticking. a strong wind messes his hair up. upon the call of his uncle, he hurriedly stacks the watch in the pocket of his dusty yellow hoodie and rushes back to the cafe.

that night the five of them huddle close under a dim street light as he shows off his discovery. the watch is handed over to the oldest, and she gently cleans the watch with the hem of her tunic. the light flickers, curious eyes inspect the phenomenon in front of them, wind makes them shiver, small hands tap on the watch, a cat rushes out of the bushes of the adjacent park as it chases what seems to be a frog, one of them pulls the crown and at that instance, the world comes to a halt. the cat is frozen halfway through a leap, the old street lamp is no longer flickering, the wind licking their skinny limbs is suddenly gone and all sound ceases to exist.

their world starts to spin faster.

it’s a cold autumn day two years later, and a boy with thick black rimmed glasses is rushing through the empty pathway of a public park with a coat too big for him and orange leaves stuck to his curly black hair. he is clutching something in his hands as he’s dashing to the assigned meetup spot. they decide to bury the watch that night. one of them is leaving for high school to a big city nearby, another is being sent to live with his grandparents in a town 4 hours away on train – his parents died on a car crash two months ago.

that night their hands are covered in dirt and they have dug a hole as deep as the length of their elbows with plastic shovels. they drop the watch in the hole, some of them shed tears, the boy who lost his parents is ever so silent, and there they pinky promise to never individually come back to take the watch. because it has too much power in such a small existence and it’s too dangerous for a single person to bear.

because they are scared of what it can do, because when the world stops spinning, it’s only them. only the five of them have the power to exist when the world cannot handle the immense power of the watch.

because they have seen a car advance to a couple using the crosswalk on a red light for cars and they have seen it advance faster than anything they have ever seen and never, ever slow down. they have watched a scene so tragic, blood on cold concrete on a colder september morning, and the crown of the clock was never pulled.

they understood the pressure of having so much power in their hands and not bearing the courage to use it.

they drift apart then. the three try to hold onto one another upon the departure of the others. they try to chase the future together, futile hope of reuniting with the other two, but the equilibrium has been disrupted and there is nothing to stick them together anymore. their pasts stick to the alleyways like barely-heard whispers.

they walk, backs against each other. no one knows which way is forward.

years pass too fast to count. the boy who lost his parents sets his cheap apartment on fire when the whole apartment complex is away on their jobs. the firefighters arrive before the fire spreads further from his own apartment, he spends two years in three different psychiatric hospitals. the youngest finishes high school a year early and pursues a career in chinese literature. the young girl gets a scholarship to a fancy school but drops out halfway through for reasons never told, starts working full time at a local library. the curly haired boy graduates from classical composition, starts working as a producer in a mediocre music company. the eldest graduates from law school and locks herself in her apartment.

yet somehow, they keep gravitating to the place they started from, as if there is something calling them, pulling them towards itself.

they reunite on a cold summer night.

the eldest suddenly visited the city two days ago, walked through its dirty alleyways, chain-smoked in front of a shabby 24/7 supermarket, ended up on the beach. the next day they found her dirty white nike sneakers on one of the large rocks sticking out of the dark sea. they were pointing to the horizon, just like a compass of her soul.

the rest arrive the night her body is found. as if arranged beforehand, they find themselves standing on the exact same spot they parted years ago. it’s 2:35 am and there is a nearby street light that keeps flickering and a cat rushes down a tree as they dig with their bare hands for half an hour.

the watch is still there, just like how they left it. they are silent for a moment, staring at the glint down the hole, and they all know they are thinking about winding it backwards, not two days but years, until they are back to when the watch lied submerged into the sand.

instead, they pick it up and walk to their old elementary school. it was closed down upon the beginning of the summer break, but the deconstruction hasn’t started yet so they climb over the fences and find their way into the building and up, up, up until they are at the roof.

at that exact moment, on the rooftop of their old elementary school, they are younger than they have ever been. because at that moment they are once again pure, untainted, with laughs that make their ears ring, loud, nostalgic, sad, hopeful, sad, sad, sad-

for that moment they are immortal, and once again five, running through the wind together towards the edge, and in the whole vast world only the five of them exist once again.

because hope is a lie and future doesn’t exist. because they can’t hold onto yesterday or tomorrow and time slips from their fingers and they are stuck in one moment and they redefine forever in a world frozen and still.

because all is silent and they stop chasing the empty wind and the watch is sitting on the ground with its crown pulled.

their world stops.