The United States government considers “clock time” as “the only practical solution” to “the slowing”: “It was a matter of economic stability, said the politicians, of competitive advantage, and even, some insisted, national security” (85). Public schools and other government branches begin operating on their normal, 24-hour schedules so that life could move forward as usual.

At Julia’s house, her mother and father have a quiet Saturday morning, their first on “clock time” since the start of “the slowing.” Julia’s mother tends to her orchid plants while her father reads the paper. When Helen sees that Joel has gotten into one of their emergency peanut butter jars, she becomes very angry with him, asking, “Do you think this is a joke? […] A guy on CNN said we might only have a few weeks left before everything falls apart” (88). Julia observes her parents fighting and thinks back to a time when her parents were young and in love: “When I thought now of that moment in the kitchen, an almost unbelievable thought comes to my mind: There was a time when those two people—that man hunched at the table and that woman shouting in a bathrobe—were young” (89).