What Is Time to the Young?

By Roy Hayward

Life is a gift. Youth is its wrapper. He's been hanging around colleges, schools, and places where young people live for hundreds of years. Keeping himself young and enjoying youth borrowed from others. A chance but inevitable encounter, an accident, being faced with the consequences of his life bring him to a new purpose. Check out this journey of discovery for an old soul who becomes young at heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roy Hayward
• Release date: Sep 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781693181689

Roy Hayward

Roy Hayward loves to read. He spent much of his years growing up holed up in well lit corners of libraries reading all of the fiction that he could find. There were many times that one librarian or another would recommend a book, and Roy would have already read it. As a result he decided that he would be a writer at a young age.Roy graduated from high school in Fairfield, Iowa. He served two years as a missionary in Seoul Korea. He attended college at Rick College in Rexburg, Idaho, and then the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. Started out studying Chemistry, but switched majors to Political Science.After college, he got a job and discovered that he was more interested in the computers he used than the job he used them to do. A year after college he was working doing tech support for a printer company. He bounced from job to job working his way up in skills and position. He is now a programmer managing a team of Web Developers.In Rexburg, he met his wife Beth. After stealing her away from his roommate, they were married in the Idaho Falls Temple and began their life-long adventure. They had seven children of their own and then became foster parents. As of this writing they have adopted five children from foster care and are still fostering children.Through all of these adventures, Roy has continued to read, and to write. And to share his love of good books with others; his friends, his family, and random people on the internet.

Book preview

Roy Hayward

What is Time to the Young?

Life is a gift, youth it its wrapper

Copyright © 2019 by Roy Hayward

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

First edition

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

Contents

1. Missing Time

2. Losing Time

3. Serving Time

4. Recovery Time

5. Closing Time

6. Killing Time

7. Back In Time

8. Out of Time

9. Giving Time

More Stories

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Thanks for checking out this story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Please take a moment to sign up for my email feed. If you do, I will send you something cool:

https://www.royhayward.me/p/next-big-story.html

You might also be interesting in some of my other stories:

Airlock

A SciFi story about a salvage mission to a crashed spaceship that goes in an unexpected direction and ends up in a fight for his life.

To Paint with all the Colors of the Visible Spectrum

A SciFi story. It feels a bit more whimsical but has some decent action as one space artist tries to kill his biggest rival while that rival is distracted by a pretty face. And things blow up.

Arbor Colony

A SciFi novel about a colony to a forested planet that encounter a new sentient life in the forest. The get into some life or death conflicts. The factions form in the colonists and there are some interesting questions raised about the right of survival.

Find these and other stories at my website: https://www.royhayward.me/p/short-stories.html

1

Missing Time

I can’t believe how late it is, Susan said as she stuffed her textbooks into her backpack and her feet into her shoes.

You know what they say about time flying. Jim yawned. The clock on the yellow cinderblock wall showed they had five minutes before curfew in the dormitory.

I don’t consider calculus, ‘having fun.’ Susan fixed her hair by pulling two handfuls of her ponytail in opposite directions against the scrunchy on her head.

Jim touched her hand as she got up from the table. Well, I like studying with you. Even if it has to be calculus.

Susan scooped up her backpack and opened the door before she looked back. Are you doing anything Friday morning? I have a free period.

Jim grinned. How about the student center at eight? Breakfast would be at least an hour with her.

Susan winked before going out. Until Friday. And maybe we can come up with something fun for the weekend.

After the door closed Jim got up from the kitchen table holding a bottle. He tapped on the stopper to make sure it was firmly in place. And wrote out a label for it and stored it in the back of his closet.

——

Here, let me get the door, Jim said to an older woman coming out of the faculty office building. She looked old enough to be Jim’s mother. But looks could be deceiving. After all, Jim was younger than his looks by many hundred years. Her gray coat, hat, and flowered scarf reminded him of a style of a couple decades ago. But what really stuck out to him was that he didn’t recognize her. He thought he knew all of the faculty and their spouses by sight if not by name.

He had an appointment with his academic advisor. So he didn’t have time to give it much thought.

Jim, you have been going to this college for more than five years now. The woman looked over the tops of her antique-looking glasses. Are you aware that this is a junior college and that we only offer two-year degrees?

I am, Professor Conners. Jim replied. I think I am almost done here. I just need a little more time.

Professor Conners looked over Jim’s transcript. What are you planning on graduating in?

Think I like this major. Jim smiled his well-practiced and winning smile. Mathematics is really starting to grow on me.

Professor Conners harumphed but in the end signed off on Jim’s application to continue studying on condition that he made progress towards graduation.

Jim left the office feeling pretty pleased with himself. He even started whistling as he passed the benches on the campus common. The woman with the grey coat, hat, and floral scarf was sitting there reading a book.

Even though she looked out of place as well as style Jim smiled at her. No reason not to