time stood still

People sometimes say that at certain moments of their life time stood still for them. I've always wondered, if time did ever once stand still, there being no time for time to resume again, wouldn't it be stuck eternally? Most conceive of time as continuous, an unbroken necklace of instants immeasurable strung together to form a measurable whole. But I have heard others suggest that the phenomenon we know as time, much like matter and magnetic charge, is made up of bits and pieces, incredibly tiny discrete units of time, and that with the first of these tiny time units the Universe was born. If this is the case, perhaps we can more easily imagine, however implausible, that as existence hops from island to island of time in a sea of null-time, it is possible for time to stand still, for us to get stuck in midflight and see ourselves where we should not, in those dark, turbid waters where the dust of Creation is still settling and the scattered archipelago of time is just a distant shore.

Perhaps. Or perhaps time standing still is merely the prattle of Hallmark cards.