FIRST SNOW ▷ INVADER ZIM

Time Control

Time Control

Time is strange. It can speed up, then slow down, still it flows at a same rate.

…play, stop, rewind…

Is there such a thing as time control?

Snow was falling down. Professor Membrane held his children’s hands on their way to their favourite restaurant.

The three of them stepped inside.Three seats were occupied. Foods were served in plates. Drinks, poured in crystal prisms, glittered as moonlight beamed. Gaz sat next to his father while Dib sat next to the winter wind on the opposite chair. They began to eat.

Gaz did not like mushrooms, so she gave some of hers to Dib. He gobbled them all up, all too fast to mess up his face.

“You know what, Dib? All that sauce is making your large head look stupid!” Gaz waved her pizza in the air like a Japanese fan. “Wipe them!”

“Wipe your face off them, son!” The professor chuckled behind his lab-coat collar. Dib grinned. Sometimes, he couldn’t help himself. Moments like this are rare.

Dib continued to eat.

“Your ugly, messed-up head is ruining my appetite!” Gaz pressed a sheet of tissue paper to Dib’s face. Dib squirmed. A minute later, the painful ordeal ended. His face was clean again.

“Thanks, Gaz.” Dib smiled, yet she replied with a grunt.

“What?”

The look on Professor Membrane’s face changed. He rose up from the seat, his visage ashen. “I got an emergency call. Sorry, kids, but I have to return to the lab now.”

“Dad!” The children groaned in unison. And it was supposed to be a family dinner.

“Finish all the meals, kids. We can still have dinner together next year, can’t we?” With the rhetorical question asked, the professor left the restaurant.

The disappointed children exchanged stares. “At least we still have our pizza!” Dib tried to coax his little sister. Gaz nodded, but her eyes betrayed her anger. The amber in her eyes glowed like fire embers. Dib could not extinguish that. Hence, he continued to finish his meals and reached for the bottle of pepper.

In its last act of obstinacy, the bottle of pepper slipped from his hand that his elbow knocked Gaz’s glass of soda. The drink splashed onto her dress. Her eyes widened.

“It’s just an accident, Gaz. I’m sorry!–”

Gaz grabbed her father’s half-empty glass of soda and emptied its contents to Dib’s face. The spikes of Dib’s hair hung limp to his face. She was contented. All too contented.

Suddenly, a foreign noise entered Dib’s ears. A girl’s laughter. Dib backhanded his limp hair and saw that Gaz was smiling and laughing at him.

“Are you laughing, Gaz?”

Gaz crossed her arms, her countenance tightened. “No, I’m not, Four-Eyes. Your four eyes are filled with soda.”

“I swear! I swear that you were laughing just now!”

“Shut up!” Gaz grabbed Dib’s glass of soda and spilled it on his shirt. The winter was cold, and Dib felt colder as the winter wind cut through his drenched body.

Still, Dib had let time froze long enough to behold Gaz’s second laughter.

Rewind.

…a foreign noise entered Dib’s ears. A girl’s laughter. Dib backhanded his limp hair and saw that Gaz was smiling and laughing at him.

Stop.

…Gaz was smiling and laughing at him.

If only time could be controlled. Dib knew that sometimes he would miss moments like this. If only he could stop time so Gaz would stay smiling in endless bliss.

Play.

So, he’ll live every second for that moment to come.