What if today never ends?
What if everything about life—everything anyone hoped to be, to do, to experience—never happens?
Whether sitting in a chair, driving down the road, in surgery, jumping off a cliff or flying … that’s where you’d be … forever.
Unless …
In One More Day, Erika Beebe, Marissa Halvorson, Kimberly Kay, J. Keller Ford, Danielle E. Shipley and Anna Simpson join L.S. Murphy to give us their twists, surprising us with answers to two big questions, all from the perspective of characters under the age of eighteen.
How do we restart time?
How do we make everything go back to normal?
The answers, in whatever the world—human, alien, medieval, fantasy or fairytale—could,maybe, happen today.
Right now.
What would you do if this happened … to you?
Now, Erika's question was the same as the rest of the One More Day authors: what do you think would be the implications on the world of time freezing once it has been unfrozen? And she answered with:
My Life Stopped Over A Steaming Cup of Coffee.
I remember burning my lips on that hot coffee while sitting in my car, an old Mazda 626. The air conditioner didn’t work, but I was thankful to have the car, being the recent college grad, and a very broke one at that. I’d just left Panera’s ready to head to work when I put the coffee down and turned on the radio. I caught the usual banter of voices on Mix 93.3. I can’t remember the word that made me stop, but I shaded my eyes from that bright September sunshine, shifting the car in reverse, when the worst news I could ever imagine rattled me beyond alert—an airplane had just flown straight into the Twin Towers in New York City. The building was going down, and people were trapped, going down right along with it.
Startled, I grabbed the steering wheel and sped out of the parking lot as fast as I could in the rush hour traffic in Overland Park, Kansas. I couldn’t get to a television fast enough. Hearing it over the radio is horrible for a visual learner like I am. I didn’t know what to picture. I’d never been to New York City before. But in that moment, my worries, my entire life felt suspended on extremely torturous commute to work.
Time stopping moments shake you to the core. My idea of safety for myself, for my family and our country flew right out the window. And ever since that moment, it seems like there will always be this constant battle between safety and freedom in our country. We are part of nation founded on freedom, and yet, simple things we took for granted, like going to the airport, sitting next to a perfectly nice stranger will always be different. Will we always look at people and wonder if they are really what we see? I’m not sure. But I do know, 9-11-2001 changed me, and the world as I knew it.
It’s that moment in your life where your hold your breath. Everything in your mind slides right on out. All you can think is how is this possible? This has to be joke? Please tell me it’s a joke, because who would hurt someone else they’d never even met?
That’s the sort of feeling I tried to create in my short story Stage Fright. A moment in time where your entire life explodes. Your choices change you. And you grow, even if your heart hurts in the process.
What if everything about life—everything anyone hoped to be, to do, to experience—never happens?
Whether sitting in a chair, driving down the road, in surgery, jumping off a cliff or flying … that’s where you’d be … forever.
Unless …
In One More Day, Erika Beebe, Marissa Halvorson, Kimberly Kay, J. Keller Ford, Danielle E. Shipley and Anna Simpson join L.S. Murphy to give us their twists, surprising us with answers to two big questions, all from the perspective of characters under the age of eighteen.
How do we restart time?
How do we make everything go back to normal?
The answers, in whatever the world—human, alien, medieval, fantasy or fairytale—could,maybe, happen today.
Right now.
What would you do if this happened … to you?
Now, Erika's question was the same as the rest of the One More Day authors: what do you think would be the implications on the world of time freezing once it has been unfrozen? And she answered with:
My Life Stopped Over A Steaming Cup of Coffee.
I remember burning my lips on that hot coffee while sitting in my car, an old Mazda 626. The air conditioner didn’t work, but I was thankful to have the car, being the recent college grad, and a very broke one at that. I’d just left Panera’s ready to head to work when I put the coffee down and turned on the radio. I caught the usual banter of voices on Mix 93.3. I can’t remember the word that made me stop, but I shaded my eyes from that bright September sunshine, shifting the car in reverse, when the worst news I could ever imagine rattled me beyond alert—an airplane had just flown straight into the Twin Towers in New York City. The building was going down, and people were trapped, going down right along with it.
Startled, I grabbed the steering wheel and sped out of the parking lot as fast as I could in the rush hour traffic in Overland Park, Kansas. I couldn’t get to a television fast enough. Hearing it over the radio is horrible for a visual learner like I am. I didn’t know what to picture. I’d never been to New York City before. But in that moment, my worries, my entire life felt suspended on extremely torturous commute to work.
Time stopping moments shake you to the core. My idea of safety for myself, for my family and our country flew right out the window. And ever since that moment, it seems like there will always be this constant battle between safety and freedom in our country. We are part of nation founded on freedom, and yet, simple things we took for granted, like going to the airport, sitting next to a perfectly nice stranger will always be different. Will we always look at people and wonder if they are really what we see? I’m not sure. But I do know, 9-11-2001 changed me, and the world as I knew it.
It’s that moment in your life where your hold your breath. Everything in your mind slides right on out. All you can think is how is this possible? This has to be joke? Please tell me it’s a joke, because who would hurt someone else they’d never even met?
That’s the sort of feeling I tried to create in my short story Stage Fright. A moment in time where your entire life explodes. Your choices change you. And you grow, even if your heart hurts in the process.
A little bit about Erika:
Inspired by her first grade teacher's belief in her imagination from the first story she ever wrote, Erika has been a storyteller ever since. A dreamer and an experiencer, she envisions the possibilities in life and writes to bring hope when sometimes the moment doesn’t always feel that way.
Working in the field of public relations and communications for more than ten years, she has always been involved with writing, editing, and engaging others in public speaking.
Her two young children help keep her creativity alive and the feeling of play in the forefront of her mind.
Inspired by her first grade teacher's belief in her imagination from the first story she ever wrote, Erika has been a storyteller ever since. A dreamer and an experiencer, she envisions the possibilities in life and writes to bring hope when sometimes the moment doesn’t always feel that way.
Working in the field of public relations and communications for more than ten years, she has always been involved with writing, editing, and engaging others in public speaking.
Her two young children help keep her creativity alive and the feeling of play in the forefront of her mind.