Time and Love Exchange

Chills

He picked up her cellphone and handed it back to her, "Hope it's not spoilt..."

Embarrassed and awkward about her clumsiness, Lynney quickly thanked him albeit overly hesitant of how to bring up the topic of her lost novel. She was not certain whether he could still recall about their weird chance meeting the night before. The page of the newspaper was still tucked away inside her bag.

As she was thinking of leaving with disappointment, he spoke up again, "I'm sorry...but by any chance..."

Lynn felt her hope rising like rapidly-formed bubbles as his voice resounded afresh in her ears again...

"Do you realise that the clock in the tower is not working right...or is it just me?" Danson turned and pointed to the tower in the middle of the fountain standing at about a few metres from their spot under the rusty dim street light.

Lynn was intrigued by his observation and immediately checked the time on her wrist watch(she never really trusted her phone all this while). "Mine says 7:30," she noted.

Holding up his own digital smartwatch, Danson was somewhat puzzled, "Well, here turns out to be 9:30..." He then lifted his gaze to meet hers questioningly.

Lynn raised her phone's light and upon flashing it at the clock tower, it strangely displayed 12 o' clock sharp at this instant, though it seemed that both of them figured the time was barely anywhere near 11 o' clock even when they first arrived in the park. Tacitly, they both switched their attention to their individual cellphones.

"8:30?"

"10:30?"

They were stunned at the variety of hours being shown and simply stared dumbfounded at each other. Both were sure that they had charged their phone batteries fully before leaving their homes for the day.

"Do you think something is incredibly wrong here?" Lynn asked the perplexed Danson.

By now, the last batch of colorful fireworks just died down as they glanced up at the sky above them. Then, seeing that the streets were literally all deserted except for the two of them, Danson made an odd remark, "This place looks more like a 12 midnight to me now...There's no sign of a bus or any other vehicle coming by..."

Lynney was beginning to feel uneasy, "Let's hope it's not April Fool's...I was nearly tricked into believing that time has flown backwards for me today...And still feeling that way..."

Danson has the same unsettling feeling as he sensed it from the subtle shakiness in her voice in the midst of the dark chilly night they ended up in. "It sure is an uncomfortable confusion now that it 'looks' late...But if you don't mind, I have my car parked right at one of the street corners not far down and I can give you a quick ride home. Nevertheless, it's up to you..."

Thrown in a situation where such an offer no longer sounded uninviting or a surprise, Lynney gladly accepted Danson's lift for the sake of timely safety.