We're all running out of time. My cello teacher has no time. I have no time. My friends have zilch time. Everyone at my journalism class gives lame excuses for not being at layout or for getting their articles in on time. So, what if we bought time? That would be nice, but in the end, it's how you use the time, and what you make of it, not whether you have enough of it. If you have a bunch of time, you'll end up slacking off till the last minute and complaining. Hehe, I should follow my own advice. ^^;; Written for the Reflections contest and the literary journal.

Daniel sat hunched over a cup of coffee and a half-eaten muffin. He broke a crumb off the pastry and placed it in his mouth, chewing it systematically: up, down, up, down.

"Hey, Dan-o!" a voice shouted. Daniel felt his friend slap him on the back. "Where have you been? I've been looking all over for you and here you are in this coffee house. You left right after the meeting and I didn't see you in the cafeteria." He observed Daniel's rumpled gray business suit and whistled: "Oh. You look bad."

"Those temporal boxes ruined the presentation!" Daniel almost sobbed. "Whatever you do, never ever buy one."

His friend chuckled: "A temporal -- what?" He examined Daniel's coffee: "Did someone put drugs in your coffee?"

Daniel took his cup back from his friend's hand and swallowed a bit of coffee. "Well, I should tell you from the beginning, then…"

Daniel pressed as hard as he could on the steering wheel. His horn blared, sounding in unison with the beeps and honks of the other deadlocked automobiles on the freeway. The frustration slowly churned within him like water boiling in a kettle.

So little time, yet still so much to do. He had to complete the presentation for tomorrow. He had to finish unpacking the boxes at his new apartment. Oh -- and his wife's birthday was tomorrow, too! Daniel fingered his collar and straightened his tie in an attempt to bring some order to himself. Oh, but she would kill him if he forgot that!

Daniel patted the sweat off his head and laid back in his worn fabric seat. The endless lanes of cars and trucks moved at a snail's pace -- no, they didn't move at all. He shouldn't have taken Interstate 280. At this hour, it was more a parking lot than an expressway.

"Let's see what's on the radio," he grumbled, snapping the switch on the stereo set.

"…760 AM Bay Area traffic update, a truck jack-knifed on Interstate 280, stopping traffic for miles around…"

He changed the station.

"…the most frequent traffic reports on the FM dial. Yet another truck tipped over on the westbound…"

Daniel rolled his eyes: "Tell me somethin' I don't know." He left the radio alone and looked despairingly at the truck in front of him. Then his eyes flared and his fist smashed the steering wheel. As if that would do any good: the truck in front of him still blocked the way. He sighed resignedly and slid deep into his seat.

"…report brought to you by Time Emporium. Not just clocks -- time. On Lotus St."

The cars inched forward bit by bit, gradually revealing an "exit" sign. Better to drive somewhere than nowhere at all, he figured. He steered to the right, proceeded down the off-ramp, and turned at the intersection.

"Where is this?" he asked himself, staring at the petite, humble stores lining the street. Daniel scratched his head: "I've never been to this part of San Francisco before."

He pulled out a map and stared at it, rotating it clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise again. He then threw it onto the passenger-side seat and huffed: "I'd better ask around for directions."

Daniel parallel-parked his car, got out, and approached an antiquated pair of wooden doors. He turned the goldenrod knob and stepped in, hearing the bells jingle as the doors shut. A rosewood aroma struck him as he beheld endless shelves of timepieces: wooden clocks, wind-up clocks, cuckoo clocks, digital alarm clocks, and watches of all makes and metals. There were even stone sundials resting atop marble columns. All this ticking and tocking made him grind his teeth.

"Hello?" Daniel called out.

"What?!" Then came a muffled bump, and an "Ow!" Daniel heard a muted crash -- as if a man atop a ladder fell to the floor -- followed by the mocking alarm of a cuckoo clock. A short white-haired man stumbled out, rubbing his head. He looked at Daniel and grinned to himself.

"W-Well! A customer! I don't get many customers these days!" He stopped his aside and cleared his throat. "Welcome to Time Emporium, sir! I'm Roger Aris, the manager. What can I do you for?"

Daniel frowned: "You mean 'do for you.'"

"Yes, well, it's all the same, see, sir!" Roger waved a thick finger. "You understood what I meant!"

Daniel brushed aside the old man's idiosyncrasy. "I'm new to this area," Daniel said in his matter-of-fact tone. "Can you show me how to get to Burlingame?"

Roger nodded: "Oh, yes. Here, let me get something." He shuffled -- in an agonizingly slow manner -- towards a messy counter on which stacks of yellowed newspapers and clock parts were piled. He bent down and retrieved a map.

"To satisfy my curiosity, sir," the store owner inquired while he smoothed out the wrinkles on the map, "you needed directions, so how ever in the world did you happen upon my place?"

"Traffic jam on the freeway sorta forced me to take the off-ramp." Daniel looked at the metal watch on his wrist and snorted in disgust: "Great. I'm already half an hour late for my daughters's soccer match!"

The employee observed Daniel with beady eyes shining through frosted spectacles: "Sir, it looks like you'd like to buy some time."

"You bet. If only I could buy such a thing."

Roger grinned: "Well, you sir, are in luck!" From beneath the counter he took out a small red box. "The temporal box. One hour in one minute. Quite a bargain for just one dollar."

Daniel turned a cynical eyebrow towards the foreign object and came to the conclusion that the man was cuckoo. "Impossible. Ya know, forget it. This place is already weird as it is. I'll find my own way outta this."

He barely walked out the door when he felt a rippling sensation flow through him. Everything around him began acting in a peculiar manner, as if the "slow" button for real-life was pushed. The cars drove by sluggishly, making deep low grumbles. People moved down the sidewalk as if they were walking through a swimming pool. A few birds hovered in mid-air, almost frozen.

He stared bemusedly at the store's walls behind him. The clocks that once tocked happily now ticked reluctantly. Roger grinned, holding an opened red box in his pudgy hand. "Incredulity gone, sir? This is very real, very usable, very possible. And -- the icing on the cake, if I may say so -- it's a bargain."

Daniel sat in the living room, watching the television for the night's weather. His wife already went to bed in the master bedroom.

A beep from the kitchen signaled that the microwave oven was done. Daniel maneuvered through a maze of unpacked boxes, trunks, and suitcases, promptly retrieved his dinner, and sat down. He balanced a fork between his fingers, pulled up several strands of spaghetti, and brought it to his mouth. What a feeling! For the past few nights -- or weeks, he couldn't remember -- he had no time for dinner. This microwaved TV dinner made Daniel feel like a king.

After eating his meal, he sat in front of his notebook computer. Beside it lay one of the many temporal boxes he just purchased. He opened it and felt the temporal transition shifting time around him. Now to get to work. Daniel stared at the computer screen, mouth open, and fiddled with the pencil in his hand.

What was there to do? Add the last few slides. And maybe some pictures. Daniel yawned, rubbed his face, and forced his eyes to stay open. He opened his presentation file and waited for it to load.

Why can't you do it tomorrow? Go to sleep.

Of course! What a brilliant idea! He literally had a lot of time on his hands, he persuaded himself as he shut the temporal box and felt the world crawl back to normal time. He deserved some shut-eye, and besides, there would be time to finish the presentation the next morning. He patted the temporal box.

The tired worker trotted off to the bedroom and slipped into the blanket. He sunk his worn head into the softness of his rarely-used pillow and sighed in the darkness. Oh, beautiful rest. Daniel inhaled his first breath of peace in a long time.

Daniel glanced at the clock on the office wall. 7:40 a.m. The meeting starts in twenty minutes.

Daniel looked left, and right, for anybody watching him. He closed his office's door and shut the window blinds. He woke his notebook computer, took out a temporal box, and looked at it. He opened it.

The walls seemed to wave in and out as the temporal box changed time, and then the sound suddenly stopped. Daniel frowned and shook the box, hearing something rattle from within. How strange. He didn't use the box that much yesterday.

A realization slowly, coldly took over Daniel's body, but Daniel didn't want to think of it. He hastily opened another temporal box. Once again, the walls appeared to curve in and out, then gradually straightened out as the second box stopped.

What if the boxes don't work anymore? he thought. Daniel looked at the crimson boxes in horror, tearing opening each one; each started the standard temporal transition but then failed to successfully shift time.

What a gyp! was the first thing that came to Daniel's mind. Then he looked at the clock. 7:42 a.m.

Holy -- the presentation must be ready in eighteen minutes!

"I saved the presentation on my disk barely in time when eight o'clock rolled by," Daniel concluded his story in the coffee house. He took another bite of the muffin and took a deep breath of warm, coffee aroma. "I ended up havin' to improvise the rest of the presentation. Didn't ya see that?"

His friend shook his head: "I didn't notice anything at all. On the contrary, I thought you were the most prepared of all of us, myself included, you overachiever," he smirked.

Daniel groaned: "Tell that to the boss. Geez, ya know, Chris, I seriously thought I had all the time in the world to finish the presentation when I really had none."

Chris grinned: "I have no idea if you're right about your 'temporal' thing. You must have been on drugs or something." He shrugged: "But if it does exist, you certainly didn't make good use of time when you had the chance."

He chuckled: "That's why I use a pocket organizer, Danny, to sort my time out." He pulled a business card out and tossed it to Danny: "Here, I got it from this place. You ought to get one!"

Daniel read the business card: "Time Emporium. Not just organizers -- time."