The Fredösphere

John faced his enemy.  The enemy was huge, insect-like, and armed with a blaster.  John was an Earth man, armed with his wits and naught beside. 

The big bug fired his blaster.  The beam of energy approached John at light speed.  Fear can make time stop, they say, but John knew no fear.  Because he wore a space-time continuum adapter field, he was able to step through time in it's fundamental units at the Planck scale.  To John, time slowed nearly to a halt.

John, conqueror of worlds, hero of the Second Galactic War, and now the last hope of the princess whose shapely form lay unconscious at his feet, observed the beam of energy that was surely destined to kill him.  He observed it creep forward by two of the 100 inches that separated him from his enemy.  He had time.

He had time to remember.

He remembered a day thirty years prior, the day of his first piano lesson.

He remembered Miss Thornton, his piano teacher.  He remembered Miss Thornton's imposing height, her huge black eyes and her spindly, insect-like limbs.  He remembered Miss Thornton's angry cries of "no!" each time he tried to play a melody.  John remembered Miss Thornton's rage as he fled her piano studio that day, and the puddle of urine he left behind on her piano bench.

Three inches.  He had plenty of time to remember it all.

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