7:43 in Maple Ridge

By: Nikhil Shah

On the morning the clocks in Maple Ridge all stopped, nobody noticed for at least ten minutes.

Mrs. Alvarez still shouted at her kids to get their shoes on. The school bus still sighed to the curb. The barista at the corner café still burned the first batch of muffins. Everyone’s routines were too loud for silence to mean anything yet.

Liam noticed first, but only because he was already late.

He burst out of his house with a piece of toast in his mouth, backpack half-zipped. His watch said 7:43. The big old clock on the church tower said 7:43. The blinking red numbers on the microwave in the neighbor’s kitchen window said 7:43.

He frowned and tapped his watch. It didn’t even pretend to stutter. Just a perfect frozen time.

Outside, everything looked normal. Birds hopped on the power lines. Cars rolled past. Mrs. Chen watered her geraniums like she did every morning, except the water from the hose fell in a smooth, unbroken line, like a piece of glass. It didn’t drip. It didn’t splash. It just hung there, shining.

Liam stopped walking.

“Uh… hello?” he said.

His voice sounded too loud in the quiet. Usually there would be a plane somewhere overhead, a lawnmower, a dog barking. Right now, there was nothing but the faint hum he only noticed when he was alone in his room at night.

He stepped closer to Mrs. Chen’s yard. She stood there, completely still, a smile half-formed on her face. Droplets clung in midair to the tips of the leaves as if someone had paused a video.

“Okay,” Liam whispered. “Either this is the weirdest dream or… no, this is just the weirdest dream.”

He reached out and touched the water.

It was solid. Cool, like glass from the fridge. His finger sank in slowly, leaving a dent that didn’t spread. Tiny prisms of light bounced off the surface.

His heart began to hammer in his chest, one of the only things still moving.

He took off running.

The whole town was the same. Cars frozen mid-turn. A cyclist hanging in the air, back wheel just off the ground. A spilled bag of oranges hovering in a bright, perfect arc.

The only things that moved were the leaves in the trees and Liam. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something else move.

Down by the duck pond in the park, someone was walking along the edge of the water, kicking at stones that hung in space. A girl in a red jacket, hands in her pockets, head tilted like she was listening to a song.

Liam sprinted toward her, slipping a little on the frozen grass.

“Hey!” he called. “Hey, you!”

She turned, startled, and he skidded to a stop a few feet away. Up close, she looked about his age, with dark curls pulled into a messy bun and a bandage on her chin like she’d recently taken a fall.

“You can move,” he said, breathing hard.

“So can you,” she answered. “That’s good. I was starting to think it was just me and the ducks.”

He glanced at the pond. The ducks were locked in place, wings spread, tiny drops of water suspended between them like beads.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

She shrugged one shoulder. “I was going to ask you that. You’re the local.”

He blinked. “You’re not from here?”

“Passing through,” she said. “Sort of. Name’s Nia.”

“Liam.”

They stood there for a moment, the whole town frozen around them like a photograph.

“How long has it been like this?” Liam asked.

Nia checked the phone in her hand. The screen was black. When she clicked the power button, nothing happened.

“Hard to say,” she replied. “I woke up on the bus, and everything was stopped. Driver, students, the girl in front of me chewing gum—” She waved her hand in front of her teeth. “All stuck. So I got off and walked.”

“You just… got off?” he asked.

“Doors were half-open,” she said. “Easy enough to squeeze through. You live here, right? Has this happened before?”

“No,” Liam said. “The weirdest thing we’ve ever had is when Mr. Jenkins’ goat escaped and ate all the mayor’s tulips.”

Nia nodded, thoughtful. He realized his hands were shaking.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s think. Time is frozen. Everyone is frozen. Except us. Why? Radiation? Aliens? A prank show?”

“If this is a prank show, they’re taking it way too far,” Nia said.

She crouched by the pond and flicked one of the droplets. It spun in place like a tiny planet, staying in exactly the same spot.

“I don’t think it’s all of time,” she added. “Just this.” She waved a hand around them. “A bubble, maybe.”

“A time bubble?” Liam said. “Like in those comics?”

“Maybe,” Nia said. “Or maybe we’re the ones in the bubble and everything else is fine. Maybe on the outside people are eating lunch and going to work and wondering where we went.”

The idea made Liam dizzy.

“How do we get out?” he asked.

Nia stood up and looked toward the church tower. The clock still read 7:43.

“Usually,” she said slowly, “when something stops, there’s a reason. A knot in the thread. Where’s the oldest thing in this town?”

Liam thought of the big oak tree behind the library, the farmhouse at the edge of town, the stone bridge over the creek. But one place felt older than all of them.

“The bell tower,” he said. “The church has been there since forever. My grandpa used to say the town grew around it like a puddle around a raindrop.”

Nia smiled. “Then let’s start with the raindrop.”

They walked through the silent streets. It felt wrong not to whisper. Liam kept waiting for sound to come back—the distant roar of a truck, the ding of a bike bell—but the only noise was their footsteps.

When they reached the church, the heavy wooden doors were already ajar. Inside, candles were mid-flicker, flames leaning but not moving. Dust hung in the air like little stars.

“Creepy,” Nia said softly. “Ten out of ten atmosphere.”

They climbed the narrow stairs up to the bell tower. Halfway up, Liam’s legs started to ache.

“I should skip gym less,” he muttered.

At the top, the old brass bell loomed over them, still as stone. Its rope hung straight down, stiff as if carved.

But something shimmered around the metal, a faint ripple in the air.

“Do you see that?” Liam asked.

Nia nodded. “Like heat on a road.”

She reached out and stopped a few inches from the bell, fingers hovering in the shimmer.

“This is it,” she said. “The knot.”

“How do you know?” Liam asked.

“I don’t,” she admitted. “But if time is a thread, this feels like where it snagged. Maybe the bell was supposed to ring at 7:44 and didn’t.”

He swallowed. “And if it rings?”

“Then it either fixes everything or breaks it more,” Nia said. “But staying here forever isn’t an option, unless you really love frozen ducks.”

They looked at each other.

Liam wrapped his hand around the stiff rope. It felt warm, like it had just been pulled.

“On three?” he said.

“On three,” Nia agreed.

“One,” he said, heart pounding.

“Two,” she echoed.

They both took a breath.

“Three.”

He yanked the rope with all his strength. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the shimmer around the bell flashed bright, like someone lit a match inside it. The sound hit them like a wave—not just the ring of the bell, but every sound at once crashing back in. Car engines, birds calling, distant laughter, water splashing, a dog barking frantically.

Liam shut his eyes against the noise. When he opened them, Nia was gone.

The rope swung gently in his hand, soft and easy, like any other morning. Down below, the town moved. Mrs. Chen turned, surprised, as water splashed onto her shoes. The cyclist finished his turn. The oranges finally hit the sidewalk.

Liam stumbled back down the stairs and out into the sunlight, heart racing.

Everything was normal again.

Almost.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed. He pulled it out and glanced at the screen.

No new notifications. No messages.

But at the bottom of his contact list, where there had never been anything before, a new name had appeared.

Nia.

No last name. No number. Just the letters, sitting there like a note left on his desk. For a second, he stood in the middle of the street, watching the world rush forward again. Kids yelling. A bus honking. Somewhere, the ducks complaining loudly. Liam smiled, just a little.

He didn’t know if he’d ever see her again. He didn’t know why they had been the only ones who could move, or what the bell had really done. But he knew one thing for sure.

The next time time decided to stop, he wouldn’t be late.