Stopping the World

I continued to look into the frozen paparazzo’s eyes. When I stopped the world, I honestly didn’t know what was going to happen, so it probably wasn’t wise on my part to do it, but… if I did have any idea, it wasn’t this.

“Is everyone frozen?” I asked Nick. He shrugged. “Where are your parents?”

“I… by their car, I guess,” he said. I quickly made my way out of the alleyway, with Nick close behind. I ran the distance back to the bowling alley, toward where the Jonases had parked. I was surprised to find that they were frozen too; all of them in the car, still in the moment where they were about to drive home. Surprisingly enough, Mr. Jonas, Mrs. Jonas, and Frankie just seemed like a normal family; for some reason, there weren’t any paparazzi around them at all. I guess they had all been following us, because at another some distance away, Joe, Kevin, and Danielle were all frozen mid-way to getting into Joe’s car in peace.

“I don’t get it,” I said to Nick, looking back at him. He had a sad look on his face; most likely at seeing his family’s state. “Why didn’t you freeze too?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because, I held onto you,” he said, finally glancing away from his family to me. I thought about that for a moment before I remembered something.

“Wait a minute… where’s the earth?” I asked. Like before, he shrugged. I quickly ran back to the alley way; to find the earth somehow floating in the air. I found it weird that it was spinning now, or even glowing for that matter since I had stopped it. And this time, when I put my hands at the bottom of it, instead of staying floating like it had always done, there was a slight whoosh sound as it fell into my hands.

“Oh my God,” I said, as I nearly fell to the ground as I tried to hold it up. “Geeze… why is it so much heavier now? I kind of miss it when it was floating.” Now that I was holding it, it felt like it was fifty pounds.

“Well, think about it: how much do you think the actual world weighs?” Nick asked. My eyes widened at the thought. “This is just a smaller replica in comparison.”

“You have a point,” I said. I was starting to adjust to the weight now. I looked at Nick before looking back down at the earth. “I wonder… hm… try touching a spot anywhere on here.”

“Anywhere?” he asked. I rolled my eyes.

“Well, as long as it isn’t an ocean, river, lake, or other water area, yes,” I pointed out. “Just… like, touch somewhere in Europe, for instance.”

“Alright,” he said cautiously. He did as told, and touched the country of Spain. All of a sudden, our surroundings changed. We were now on a street somewhere in Spain.

“Damn,” I said, hoping this wasn’t doing what I thought it was doing. I struggled to hold the earth in one hand as I told Nick to make sure he was holding on to me. He grabbed my shoulder before I touched a random spot in Australia. Our surroundings again changed to a deserted town, which I assumed was in Australia. I groaned in aggravation.

“Well this is just great,” I said. Nick raised his eyebrows at my remark, so I clarified, “It’s not letting us get specific when we touch our locations. So whenever we touch the earth, it isn’t zooming in like it normally should, and it’s just taking us to whatever is in the area where we touch, instead of letting us know what all is there.”

“What?” Nick questioned, clearly getting lost in my explanation. I waved it off.

“Well, generally, our main concern is… if we want to get home, it may take us a while,” I said, trying to sum it up. He slowly nodded. I gently placed the earth into my bag, feeling the now enormous weight begin to weigh down my shoulder. I tried to adjust my purse; if this was going to last a while, I may just need to get a backpack. “Look, Nick, I’m sorry this happened. I don’t really have any idea why I did… what I did, but it’s just… the paparazzi wouldn’t leave us alone, and then the one pap kind of freaked me out when he grabbed my bag, and it all just… happened at once, before I could even think about it. I… I honestly don’t know what to do. I mean… I honestly don’t know if the earth is going to permanently stay like this, or what, I’m just… I’m sorry that all of this has happened. I honestly don’t blame you if you hate me right now, because I saw the look on your face when you saw your parents, and well…”

“Marley,” Nick started, trying to interrupt, but I kept going.

“I mean, I honestly don’t know how this situation should be handled,” I said, spotting a bird perched on the ground in the distance, noticeably frozen. I sighed, and pointed, “I mean, look, whatever has just happened has even frozen animals too, not just people, so I don’t get-”

Nick placed his hand over my mouth to stop me from going on. It worked, because it got my attention and shut me up. He held up his index finger in a ‘one-moment’ gesture on his hand after he took it away from my mouth. He then, started to walk over toward the bird.

“Nick, what are you doing?” I asked, not exactly getting what he was doing. He held up his finger again before soon enough, he was standing directly in front of the bird. He then started to reach toward it, and I knew what he was going to do.

“Nick, no! You don’t know what’s going to happen!” I exclaimed, seeing that he was going to touch it. I stepped backward, not really knowing what to expect next.

What happened… honestly shocked me.

When Nick touched it, the bird somehow gained more color than it had had before; it now turning a brighter brown than it had been before. And right after he touched it, I jumped because, it twitched.

And then, a moment later, it full on moved, and was here, just like we were.

It seemed to give both Nick and I a menacing look, before it hawked at us, and hurriedly flew away.

I gaped at Nick, not really believing what just happened.

“I…” I trailed off… not really knowing what to say. Nick laughed.

“Look, Marley, as far as I’m concerned about all of this, I think we should just… enjoy it,” Nick said, shocking me even more. I was about to object, but he stopped me, “Look, as far as this being concerning, you saw what just happened. When we want things to go back to normal, we can just touch them, right? And yeah, it may take a while to unfreeze everything, but… look, you may have done this out of panic, but… I actually think we have an advantage right now. We can do whatever we want, go wherever we want… and there’s no on, here exactly, to stop us.”

“I…” I repeated, not really believing that this was coming from him, the always serious Nick Jonas, but always a softy at heart. And to be honest, I really couldn’t find a reason to object to what he said. Nick was right, what really was unfortunate about this situation? In fact, if anything, it was good, because finally, after all this time we had been dating, we finally had true alone time, publicly, without anyone here to interrupt us. Then I thought about the only disadvantage, “But, um… where will we go? I mean, the earth isn’t even working properly, so we can’t even go exactly where we want to.”

“So it may take us a little while to get to some places… so what?” he asked. I actually gaped at him; this coming from a guy who was always particular when planning things? “Look, Marley, be honest: other than that, is there really anything bad about this situation?”

“Well…” I trailed off. I couldn’t believe the situation had changed; I, Marley, was being the cautious one, while Nick was being the courageous one. Once thinking that, I quickly changed my mind, “You know what? You’re right. I think, well… let’s just go do something. I think this is something we’ll want to enjoy while it lasts.”

“That’s the spirit!” Nick exclaimed, like he was some inspirational coach or something. I laughed at the look on his face, before hugging him. I, then, took out the globe, and we were on our way to where we wanted to go first:

That, my dear friends, being another country in Europe: France.