April showers had given way to May flowers and then May had come and gone as well. Now it was the warm, sunny days of June and none of the fifth graders at Fredrickson Elementary could stand it. Summer vacation was barely more than a week away and outside it already looked and felt like summer. How were they expected to stay cooped up inside all day when there was all of that to enjoy?

Twelve-fifteen to twelve-forty, recess. That was all the time they were given in the entire, long school day to be out in the sun, to bask in its wonderful warmth. They took full advantage of the time they were given, they sure did. They played games of touch football and Red Rover; did cart wheels through the fluffy, green grass; cops chased robbers and hiders outwitted seekers. Not a moment of this precious time, their respite from the long hours under the fluorescents, was ever wasted.

The problem was that recess simply wasn’t long enough. It was like time past at five times its normal speed when their feet touched the grass and the sun warmed their faces. And then, suddenly, there were the teachers: blowing their whistles and calling them all back inside. The students’ need for the sun, for the freedom of movement, nowhere near satisfied. As such, that time of year, the last two hours and twenty minutes of the school day was always torture.

If only there was a way to slow down the passage of time. If recess lasted longer, if the students could get their fill of time outside, then the rest of the day wouldn’t be so bad at all.

Cindy McBride was the one who suggested it.

“If we all believe we can make time go slower,” she said in the long line of sad students snaking their way back towards the school’s double-doored entrance, “Really, really believe it, and we all think it in our heads together all at once, then we probably could make time go slower.”

“Yeah!” Pat Williams enthusiastically agreed. He wasn’t actually so sure about the plan but he just wanted an excuse to yell. He was so full of unburnt-off energy on account of the too-short recess.

“Indoor voice, please, Pat.” One of the teachers called out even though Pat hadn’t past back in through the double-doors yet.

“That’s a great idea Cindy!” Valerie Meyers exclaimed even louder than Pat.

“Valerie,” the same teacher warned, the only teacher who was even paying attention. All of the other teachers, like the students, were glumly thinking about how much they didn’t want to go back inside either.

Valerie didn’t really think Cindy’s idea was great, or even good. She knew that slowing down time was impossible, everyone knew that. It was just that Cindy had a pool in her backyard and, it being an especially warm and sunny June, Valerie really wanted Cindy to invite her over to swim one of those afternoons.

“That sounds stupid,” Eric Lumar said.

“No, it doesn’t!” Cindy, Pat, Valerie and half a dozen surrounding students who desperately wanted to believe in a way, any way, to make recess last longer.

Eric’s face grew hot and he didn’t say anything else.

Cindy smiled and stood up straighter, feeling important and popular.

She declared, “We do it tomorrow at recess, then. When I say so, we all concentrate really hard on making time move slower.”

“Yeah!” Valerie said. She turned to Eric and added, “And we all have to do it. If even one of us doesn’t or secretly thinks it’s impossible, then it won’t work.”

“That’s right!” Said Pat.

“Pat, I won’t ask you again,” the same teacher said. To be fair, Pat had now passed through the doors and was now walking past the office.

Cindy turned to Valerie, “Hey Valerie, would you like to come over to swim after school? I have a pool in my backyard, you know.”

Valerie smiled widely.

The next afternoon, at the start of recess, all sixty-four fifth-graders clustered around Cindy at the front of the grassy field by the parking lot. Cindy reveled in all of the attention and she wasn’t even worried about looking foolish if it didn’t work. She and Valerie had agreed the day before, while they were drying off and sitting on a pair of Adirondacks, to just blame Eric.

Cindy looked at everyone assembled around her seriously. She may have liked having an insurance policy in place but that didn’t mean she didn’t believe it would work. She really did think it would, it was something she could feel.

“Okay,” she said, “Is everyone ready?”

Dozens of heads nodded and there was a scattered mix of “yeses”.

Standing next to Cindy, Valerie said, “Remember, everyone has to do it.”

Valerie glanced at Eric who stood a few rows back but, as the tallest in the grade, was clearly visible.

While looking directly at Eric, Valerie sternly added, “Everyone.”

Eric visibly shrunk. He might have been the tallest but that didn’t make him immune to the effects of a public shaming.

“Yeah Eric!” Someone in the crowd yelled.

“Don’t mess this up!” Called another.

Most of the fifth graders didn’t really believe what Cindy suggested was possible, how could it be? But no one wanted to admit that and risk being singled out like Eric.

Still though, they figured, why not try it? Try it for real? Who knew, it might work.

“Alright,” said Cindy, “On three we all believe that we can make time move slower.”

“Really believe,” Valerie added. She’d had so much fun the previous afternoon and she hoped Cindy would invite her again that afternoon.

“Yes, really, really believe.” Cindy said.

Sixty-two head nodded obediently.

“Here we go then,” Cindy said. “One, two, three, now!”

As one, sixty-four young minds feverously believed that they could slow the passage of time. They carefully pushed away any and all doubt.

No one had thought to ask Cindy how long they would have to do it. At what point would a person even become aware that time had slowed?

It turned out that, like when Cindy had felt that what she had claimed was true, after less than a minute of concentrating on their task all sixty-four children felt that they had been successful.

The teachers, who had been standing together in a line, watching the assembled students with crossed arms and amused smiles, felt it too. Only what they and the children felt wasn’t that time had slowed, it had stopped.

They all knew right away that none of them would ever grow any older, that that wonderfully clear and bright June afternoon would never end. That they would be happy and warm in the sun forever.

Nothing ever changed but no one ever minded. The students delighted in their games and the teachers talked together from the sidelines. Everyone was perfectly content. Everyone was happy to live forever in that single, perfect moment.

Whatever the students had done, its effects hadn’t stretched beyond the field and the playground. The forest behind the playground, the neighborhood past the field, the parking lot and the school were no longer visible. They were all lost behind a golden shimmer that extended from the ground and up to the clear blue sky.

They all knew that if they passed through any point of the shimmer they would be gone from that moment forever, and so no one did. That moment was too perfect to be lost, regardless of whatever else they had lost.

While those inside the field and the playground could never see out, those outside it could always see in. Those outside couldn’t step into the field or the playground that seemed to be rimmed by a faint, shimmering golden light. Like the light from the sun.

It baffled the teachers of the sixth-grade class when they called out to the fifth-grade teachers, standing in their line and chatting lively. It was past twelve-forty-five by then, why weren’t they bringing their grade inside so their own could have their recess?

When they tried to step from the parking lot to the field, it was as if they had walked into an invisible barrier.

Such a strange situation. What was to be done? The principal ended up calling the police, she cringed on the phone while she described the extraordinary situation to the dispatcher. Had she herself been on the receiving end of that call she would have thought she was crazy too.

The dispatcher had told her it was a crime to make a prank call to the police, but the principal had maintained that it was no prank. So, an officer was sent to check it out.

The responding officer, of course, could make no sense of what he saw either or do anything. So, he did the only thing he could think of: he called for back-up.

Meanwhile, word got around to the parents of the fifth graders. Many rushed over from work and crowded together in the parking lot while the ever-growing police presence began taping off the perimeter of the field, playground, and surrounding areas.

Day turned to night and then to day again. All the while, the students on the field and the playground continued playing and the teachers chatting. The games changed and the topics of conversation did too but neither ever stopped.

Media vans flocked to cover the bizarre scene and it became a sensation across the country and around the world. To add to the curiosity, one day when it began to rain, the viewers on TV and online were amazed to see the bright and sunny day continued on the playground and field.

The area was eventually blocked off entirely and government and top university scientists were called in. Experiments were run and run again but even as the years went by, no one could offer much of an explanation.

Centuries and then millennia past. New nations and empires rose and fell. A fully autonomous, dazzling city replaced the little suburban town of Fredrickson. Mankind journeyed to distant planets and set up colonies on new worlds. Wars were fought between the celestial colonies and their home world.

Eventually, peace between all the human worlds was reached and humanity focused it creative power on curing every disease, increasing life expectancy tenfold and granting every person a utopian life.

For tens of thousands of years, humanity lived in a truly golden age. That was until an extraterrestrial race called the Kwek with ever-expanding imperial ambitions decided that they would be better suited if humanity was out of the way.

So, began the centuries long war that would end with humanity’s extinction, save for sixty-four fifth grade children from the long defunct Fredrickson elementary school and their five teachers.

The atmosphere of Earth was blackened out from the fallout of the Kwek’s terrible weapons. To this day, all that remains of Earth is a frozen wasteland. All except for the little idyllic bubble where the sun from that June day so long ago still shines down on that green field and that playground.