Split Infinity
an excerpt

Delmont struggled not to panic. At moments he had found himself on the verge, pushing his way through stationary figures, heart pounding, hand sweating. This had been going on far too long, hours at least, although with the clock faces as immobile as the pedestrians, it was difficult to tell.
He’d seen something like this on television, perhaps on one of those PBS programs his old lady had liked to watch, back when she was still around. Smart *** ***, always did think she was Ms. High and Mighty. Couldn’t be bothered working at no Mickey D’s not that gal. Still were lots of those programs on TV, more and more all the time, even on the regular channels, interrupting perfectly good sitcoms to explain just how the world worked. Delmont knew all too well how the world worked--it all depended on who you knew, how much money you had and what color was your skin. Way of the world, pure and simple. But anyway, details of the program weren’t important and once he saw those white lab coats he’d pretty much tuned out.
Then again, maybe this was something from The Twilight Zone. That wasn’t very likely. Those stories were always over in less than an hour, and this had been dragging on forever.