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After all this time, I have finally decided to put my story down on paper. It's not a story you will believe, but that is okay... I'm accustomed to that.

I need to do this anyway, so that one day, if it ever happens to anyone else, then perhaps they'll do some research (as I have, to no avail) and find this document... Find that they indeed have not gone mad; that what they experienced has happened before.

Doctors, to this day, still write me letters, wanting to prick and probe at me the way they did in the first few months after the event. I've long since begun ignoring all such requests.

The event in question...? Well, 15 years ago, when I was twenty-three years of age, to everyone else, it appeared as though I had suddenly aged from one moment to the next. By how much, nobody (including me) knows for sure... Two years, maybe a bit more, is the best estimate, using a portrait that had been done of me only a month before.

But I did not suddenly age - that would be preposterous. The only problem is, the truth of what happened is slightly more preposterous, and only I know what that truth is.

I remember it like yesterday... I was sitting in our study, about to read a letter from my sister, when everything became silent. And I do not mean silence in any way you can understand... This was an abysmal silence that almost stopped my heart. I couldn't understand it... The old grandfather clock had stopped ticking. Noises outside from the street were gone. No signs of birds twittering, nor wind blowing... Absolutely nothing. I put the letter opener down and its clatter on the desk made me jump. My steps across the carpet were waves of vibrations in my head. It took me what must have been many hours to get used to the sounds I produced, for they were the only sounds possible.
 
I made my way down our dark passageway towards the kitchen, where I knew my husband would be busy preparing lunch. I saw him standing with his back to me and swallowed my inquiry as my first syllable roared in my ears. He wasn't moving. As I approaching him, trying to tread as lightly as I could, I noticed the oddest thing... The mote of dust in the sun beam coming through the window was completely still. Only when I passed my hand through it experimentally did they stir, and the sound produced was startling... A barely audible, crystal static as each piece of dust collided with so many others.

Coming out of my brief trance, I stepped around and looked at my husband, who still hadn't budged. Not a single muscle in his face moved. It looked as though he had just turned around to get something from the cupboard... His eyes were looking that way, his hand half-reaching towards it. My heart raced (and nearly deafened me) as I tried to understand what was happening. I grasped his hand and it felt as hard as rock - and I could not move it, no matter how hard I tried.

It was the same everywhere. I ran outside our humble house, nearly drowning in the noise of my shoes on the streets. A horse and carriage was passing, or at least had been. Now they stood as still as any statue, frozen most strangely in mid-motion. I experimented with everything... I was able to move objects, but not a single living thing, from the humans and horses to the butterlies frozen mid-flutter. After some time of complete bewilderment, exploring the town, the details of which I can hardly remember, I went home, weeping.

Time, it seemed, had frozen. But not me. I was free to do what I wanted. Anything I wanted.

And in all the time the world remained in that state, I saw things and did things you wouldn't believe... I'll admit that I did things I am not proud of. I also believe I did just as many things that many would consider heroic. I was the ultimate voyeur, spy and punisher. I was the strange presence felt, the movement in the corner of your eye, the poltergeist.

You cannot imagine what happens to one's mind, what happened to my mind, when faced with such a phenomenon.

The freedom! The Joy! The despair! The loneliness! The boredom! ... You cannot imagine... But, make of it what you will, I will try to relate it all to you in these pages.