The boy across the street is standing at the edge of his roof. The heavens fall onto his shoulders. He wails into the storm. The first scream he aims at the sky—the second into his own hands. The cockerels doom call wakes the street. Bedroom lights turn on. Some men walk out of their homes in pyjamas. The rain beats against their balding heads. Few catch a sight of the boy soaked in his plaid bottoms. They watch him escape into his bedroom window.

What would cause him to act in such a way? Couples discuss as others make their way to the boys’ house. No lights meet the thumping at their door. A trio of men surrounds the house; through the downstairs windows, they look. Any sign of the disturbance would have caused a commotion. The downpour persuades them to only briefly search, too much of a hassle for a weekday. These adults have to work in the morning.

The boy, I can see him. His window sits across from mine. A small TV on his nightstand plays an episode of friends. He sits in front of it, dripping onto his bed. If he turned around, he could see me. He sits for a while, then he sleeps. Why would he not get dry? He shouldn’t just leave the TV on. Where are his parents? They have work in the morning surely. He’s never done that before, and he may never again.

“Did you hear that screaming last night? I’m surprised no one called the police.” My dad said, toast crumbs falling from his mouth as he talked. My mother paced around the kitchen, phone in hand. She waits on the neighbours across the street to pick up. Four times back and forth.

“No answer, you know him, don’t you, sweetheart?” she says.

“I’ve seen him in school. He’s quite popular.” They both pause; They must have thought him to be a loser. Only a loser would scream like that in the middle of the night. Into the worst storm, we have had in twelve years. Only a loser would lose himself in the middle of the night, or so they think. He’s not a loser, though. He’s an athletic and popular guy. So, they pause there in the middle of their morning routine and wait.

They wait as I put on my shoes. They wait as I pull on my jacket. They wait even as I run upstairs with my shoes on to grab my bag. They wait as I open the door. My mother calls out,

” Have a nice day.” She still holds the phone and stands in the same place she stopped. My father mouth still chews the toast he talked through. Their faces freeze. My dad’s mouth stops chewing, and the food slowly falls out of his mouth. My mother’s arm raised to wave me goodbye stands firm and unmoving. The wrinkles that sprout from the corner of her mouth lock into place. Eyes unblinking for as long as I stare into them. Why won’t they move?

I move into the stationary room,

“Hello?” I say, waving my hand. I get in my mother’s face. She smells like lavender in a summers breeze. Her eyes don’t twitch, her chest doesn’t flinch, and her skin doesn’t sweat. My father is the same. Half-eaten toast masks his scent. His eyes locked on my mother. Did he notice? Was it too late? They have stopped, and I have not. It is quiet. The phone doesn’t hold a tone; the lights don’t buzz slightly.

A door slams from the other side of the street. I glance out the window and see the boy. He’s wearing his school uniform, a white shirt tucked into his trousers blazer sitting comfortably on his shoulder. I should go to him. He might know what’s happening, or maybe he could help. Can I leave them? Statues I would call my parents if they would move. If they could be brave enough to hold me. If they hadn’t stopped and could come to me. If they could do the things, I know they would want to do. If they could hug me while I cry and confess how scared I was. If my mother could run her hands through my hair and tell me it wasn’t real. If my father could promise that he’d never let something this awful happen ever again. I could stay with them until they came back. I know I should leave, and I do.

Tears are forming in the corner of my eyes. I lock the door behind me and rush after him. Water splashing onto my legs, I chase after him. He’s only walking; he has headphones on. I grab his bag and pull. Spinning and almost falling to the ground, he corrects himself. He seemed like he was going to yell. He looked me in my eyes, and his softened in return,

“Are you okay?” He asks. I guess he can see the stream of tears on my face; I wasn’t making them up as I thought.

” Are your parents, okay?” I ask after pausing for a second. He chuckles and replies with,

“They should be! They’re partying in Spain.”

For a moment, we look into each other’s eyes. The first time either of us stopped. The rain which had been falling had stopped. Vast lines of raindrops paint the sky and street. He takes his finger and pops a droplet. It forms a dozen smaller ones that fall a few inches then stop in the air. A handful of birds flying around the tree in some guy’s garden are frozen in time. A black cat is three feet up the trunk. The whole scene was motionless. He catches on and stands, marveling at what is happening. I try to speak, but the tears fill my throat.

“Your parents?” Pointing towards the birds, he asks. I knew what he meant, but how stupid can he be. “Yeah, my parents too.”

“They’ll know what to do at school,” he says. The panic in his voice betrays his hope. He looks to me like I should be sure he is correct.

“You have a phone, right? Could you call for help?” He asks. The only phone we have is the one in my mother’s hand. Will she break if we try to free the phone from her grasp? Was she holding it so fiercely?

“My mother is holding our phone. We will need to grab it from my house.” I don’t think he wants to. He’s going to, but I’m not sure how he will react to my parents, how they stand there. How they won’t move no matter how hard you yell. Will he be okay? He follows me back to my house. He stands there silently in the standstill rain. He watches me fiddle with the keys. He copies me when I move into the house and take off my shoes.

“Where are they?” he asks.

“Just through here. They were talking about you over breakfast.” I hope he doesn’t mind. He must know people would be talking after his performance last night.

“Right,” he says, cut off by the view of my parents.

I move over to my mother and check the phone in her hand. It looks like it’s still working. Four bars are a good sign. I look up at him and smile. He doesn’t smile back, but I can tell he’s relieved it’s working. I place my hand on my mothers and give a pull at the phone. It moves a little, but it causes a crack in my mother’s hand. From the corner of the thumb up onto her forearm. As if she’s stone. As if that stone hadn’t moved for five hundred years. It doesn’t spread any further. I can catch my breath.

“I can’t,”

“What other choices do we have? Can you push the buttons?” he replies. Her hand covers most of the keypad, but I manage to dial nine, nine, nine. The phone begins to ring. It rings and rings until it stops and the call ends. Are we the only two people left? Is this the end? He cries I cry. We are too young to deal with this.

“What can we do?” he asks. We could stop with them. We are not too young to understand that. We would decompose, and they would standstill. We could wait; one day, they might start again. We could live, go and see the world. Who could stop us from having the best life anyone has ever lived.

“I think it’s best to ask, what can’t we? This could end any second. Don’t you want to make the most of it? Why should we stop? Why would we? I love them, I do, but they would want me to live. They might be back tomorrow or the day after or never. Who cares? Will you join me? Will you live? Or should I leave you here? You can stay in your house and wait for the world to care that you are upset at it, or you could join me. What do you say?”

He pauses,

“Where would you go first?” he asks.

“I have no idea,” I say. We put on our shoes and leave. I lock the door and chuck the keys into the street as we walk away. We won’t stop for a while.