Just as my hand came over the button, a voice called out:
“Stop!”
Frozen, the sweat dripping from my brow, I finally forced my head to turn toward the sound. Julia’s disheveled form; she was panting, clinging to the railing of the gangplank as though a wind might blow her off her feet and send her hurtling into the gears below. Yet, she should know as well as I that there was no hope of wind in this place.
“Stop,” she said again, now in a quiet, pleading tone.
My hand had not moved from its place, had not moved to its place. It had stayed, trapped.
“Listen,” she pled. And I listened, waiting for an explanation.
“Dr. . . . Groan . . . ” she managed between breaths, “has one more idea.”
She was loosening her death grip on the railing.
“He says, if you can wait, give him one more hour.”
I nodded.
“T-one hour,” I agreed. “And you need to return before you pass out.”
With a nod and a sigh, she turned back the way she had come. I turned back toward the button, waiting as the seconds ticked by, my hand ready to fall with the last grain of sand.
Tale Told 