The Time Keeper

Sarah loves Ethan, but she realizes that he doesn’t love her back. When Sarah meets him in the parking lot of the Dunkin’ Donuts on Christmas to give him his present, she tells him that she loves him, and he rolls his eyes. She feels completely humiliated. He gives the present back to her unopened. From that point on, Sarah begins to disengage from life. She feels angry that she blew her opportunity with Ethan, wishing that she hadn’t pushed him away when she had the chance. She realizes now that it’s completely over. She can’t call him or see him anymore. She drops to all fours in the parking lot and sobs until a man from Dunkin’ Donut tells her to leave.

Dor sits atop a skyscraper watching the city move at its normal pace. He has met Sarah and Victor and slowed time around them to understand their lives, but even so he has trouble understanding the complexity of their worlds. He realizes that knowing something is not the same as understanding it.

Victor refuses morphine. He wants to stay in control even as his body is deteriorating. He has said his goodbyes to some of his business associates and he wants Grace to continue their tradition on New Year’s Eve of attending a gala and presenting a donation check to their charitable foundation. Grace doesn’t want to leave him. He tells her that he wants her to do it to keep the tradition going. She agrees to go.

Sarah wakes up the next day at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. When she had gotten home the night before, she took two of her mother’s sleeping pills and locked the door. She begins to cry when she sees Ethan’s wrapped present sitting on her chair. She reaches for it and throws it against the wall and then cries even harder. She decides to write him a private Facebook message and control the damage by not taking herself too seriously so that he won’t either. She goes to his Facebook page and sees that his latest post is about her, accusing her of making a play for him and all of this because he was just trying to be nice. The comments all take his side and disparage Sarah. Sarah runs out of her house crying, and for the first time she thinks about suicide; she just needs to plan the when and the how.

At 8:00 pm, Grace is getting ready to attend the gala. Her hair and make-up are done. She struggles to zip up her dress, something that Victor has always done for her. She doesn’t want to go. She checks on him and sees that he’s sleeping. She gently wakes him, and he tells her that she looks beautiful. It’s been years since he has complimented her looks. She tells him that she’ll go and come back as soon as she can. He lies and tells her that he’ll be there when she comes back. Victor feels a bit guilty that the last thing he has said to her is a lie. He plans to go to the cryonics facility while she’s gone. He calls Roger over and whispers something to him and then asks if he understands that if “that happens” (157), there should be no hesitation. Roger says he understands, and they leave.

At 8:00 pm, Lorraine is getting ready in front of the mirror. Her divorced friends made a pact to stay together on nights when loneliness might be extra difficult. However, Lorraine is worried about Sarah. She hasn’t come out of her room much in the last five days. Lorraine remembers when Sarah was seven, and they all went to see the ball drop in Times Square. It had been so much fun until Tom exclaimed that he was glad that they never had to do that again.

Before she leaves, she knocks on Sarah’s door and tries to have a conversation, but Sarah doesn’t really engage with her. A car horn honks outside for her to go, so she leaves for her party.

Sarah has already been drinking from a bottle of vodka that she took from the dining room cabinet. She has decided to end her life tonight while her mom is out of the house. She can’t imagine facing Ethan or anyone else at school. She remembers how easy it was for everyone to tear her apart online. She feels empty and ready for time to stop.

Father Time follows a dying Victor to the cryonics warehouse. He watches as they unload Victor and as Jed takes his pocket watch, promising to take good care of it. Dor stands in the corner and turns his hourglass. At the same time, in her garage, Sarah turns the ignition of a blue Ford Taurus. She listens to the sad song about the end of the world she had heard the day she called Ethan from New York on repeat as she inhales the fumes. As she loses consciousness, she thinks she sees a man through the windshield and hears him scream.

Dor screams in frustration. He can slow time, but he has never stopped it completely. Eventually Victor will be frozen, and Sarah will be poisoned. He feels as though he has failed. He thinks back to what the old man told him about things happening when they are supposed to. Dor realizes that he needs to bring Sarah and Victor together and that he has to stop time completely. He reaches in and pulls Sarah out of the car. With time slowed down, he walks all the way to the cryonics building where Victor is. He takes Victor from the bed and places Sarah and Victor next to one another with their hands on the hourglass. Dor places his hand on top of the hourglass and turns it, releasing the top and making the white sand inside accessible. Dor reaches into the hourglass and plucks a single grain of sand before it falls, stopping time all over the world.