Now and then, some cosmic disturbance will cause a rivulet of time to turn away from the mainstream, to make a connection backstream. When this happens, birds, soil, people caught in the branching tributary find themselves suddenly carried to the past.
Raindrops hang motionless in air.
Pendulums of clocks float mid-swing. . . . Pedestrians are frozen on the dusty streets, their legs cocked as if held by strings. . . . As a traveler approaches this place from any direction, he moves more and more slowly. . . . For this is the center of time. Lightman's thought-provoking fiction united incoming freshman who took part in the fourth annual Penn Reading Project.