The Time Gobbler

Once there were two siblings – Matthew and Clara.

Matthew was older and loved building all sorts of things. From blankets he could make a fort, from a box a rocket, and from a stick a sword, a telescope, or a magic wand.

Clara was always inventing something. One day she was a vet, the next a queen, and the next the owner of a restaurant that served only pebble soup.

But one day they got a tablet at home.

“Just for a little while,” said Matthew.

Clara sat down beside him.

On the tablet was a game where you collected coins. When they collected enough coins, they got a chest. When they opened the chest, they got a new character. When they got a character, they could complete another quest.

And when they completed another quest…

another one appeared.

“Just one more!” Matthew begged.

“And then we’ll go outside,” added Clara.

But they didn’t go outside.

Outside the window the sun was shining.

Then the neighbors’ dog appeared in the yard.

Then it started to rain.

Then it stopped.

And Matthew and Clara barely noticed any of it.

The next morning Matthew asked:

“Can I have the tablet?”

“Breakfast first,” said Mom.

Matthew frowned.

At breakfast he thought about the tablet.

While getting dressed he thought about the tablet.

When Clara showed him a picture of a dragon she had drawn, he only said:

“Hmm.”

“You didn’t even look!” Clara said, offended.

“I did.”

“You didn’t!”

Matthew really hadn’t looked.

In his head he could still only see his game.

In the afternoon he finally got the tablet.

And suddenly he was happy again.

At least for a while.

Then Mom told him:

“Matthew, time’s up.”

“What?! I just started!”

“You’ve been playing for almost an hour.”

“NO!”

Matthew gripped the tablet with both hands.

“I need it!”

Mom looked at him in surprise.

“You need it?”

Matthew wanted to say no.

But the strange thing was that right then he really felt as if he couldn’t be without the tablet.

That night Matthew couldn’t sleep.

And then he heard:

Ting.

He opened his eyes.

The tablet was glowing on the table.

Even though nobody had turned it on.

On the screen it said:

ONE MORE ROUND?

Matthew stood up.

Then Clara appeared beside him.

“Did you turn it on?”

“No.”

The tablet jingled again.

ONE MORE VIDEO?

Then:

ONE MORE REWARD?

And finally:

JUST A LITTLE LONGER?

A thin little voice came from the tablet:

“Come closer.”

Matthew and Clara stepped back.

“Who are you?” Clara asked.

“I’m the Time Gobbler,” the tablet answered.

Two little glowing eyes peeked out of the screen.

“I love minutes best. Yum. And hours! Those are even better.”

“You’re eating our time?” Matthew cried.

“Oh no,” the Time Gobbler giggled. “You’re giving it to me yourselves.”

And suddenly pictures appeared around them.

Matthew on the tablet while the sun shone outside.

Clara watching videos while her dolls lay beside her.

Dad calling Matthew to come kick a ball.

“In a minute!”

Clara had a half-built dollhouse.

“When I finish watching this!”

And every time the Time Gobbler appeared beside them and swallowed another glowing little minute.

Chomp.

Chomp.

Chomp.

Matthew stopped finding it funny.

“Give them back!”

The Time Gobbler shook his head.

“Time doesn’t come back.”

“Then we’ll turn you off!” said Clara.

“Go ahead,” the Time Gobbler grinned. “But tomorrow you’ll want it again. And if you keep wanting more and more, I’ll grow.”

Now he was almost as big as a pillow.

“So what should we do?” Matthew asked.

The Time Gobbler shrank.

“That’s your business.”

And he vanished.

The next day Matthew told his parents everything.

He expected them to laugh.

They didn’t.

Dad said:

“The tablet isn’t bad. But some games and videos are made on purpose so you want to keep going.”

“So the Time Gobbler really exists?” Clara asked.

Dad smiled.

“Maybe he doesn’t look exactly the way you saw him. But that feeling of ‘one more, one more, one more’ — that definitely exists.”

And so they made a rule at home.

The tablet had its time.

And when the time was up, it was really up.

The first day it annoyed Matthew.

The second day too.

The third day a little less.

And on the fourth day, when the tablet chimed that it was over, Matthew put it on the shelf.

“Clara!”

“What?”

“Should we build a rocket?”

“Yes!”

They took a huge box.

They stuck wings on it.

They drew buttons.

Clara put a colander on her head as a space helmet.

And Matthew counted down:

“Three! Two! One! BLAST OFF!”

Their rocket flew past the Moon, landed on Mars, and rescued seven aliens from a giant space slug.

It took the whole afternoon.

In the evening Matthew walked past the tablet.

The screen flickered faintly for a moment.

ONE MORE ROUND?

Matthew stopped.

Then he looked at Clara.

Clara was holding two wooden swords.

“Should we go fight a dragon?”

Matthew smiled.

“Let’s go.”

And the tablet went dark.

Somewhere deep inside it a tiny voice said:

“Oh well.”

The Time Gobbler went hungry that day.

And Matthew and Clara discovered something important:

A tablet can be great fun. But the best thing is when we decide when to use it — and not when it starts deciding for us.

The End.