Stop Me If You’ve Heard This
The open-mic poetry and fiction night is going well. While the last reader ran long, overall people have been responsible with their time, and have brought listenable work. As the reader leaves the small, slightly elevated platform, the next speaker is already walking up. No one called for him, yet he moves with absolute surety, dragging a metal stool behind him. Just as he nears the stage, a woman darts out of her chair. It should be a collision, except he’s already stepped to the side, letting her pass without so much as brushing one another.
Arrived at the stage, he drops his stool into place, takes a seat, and masterfully adjusts the microphone-stand that every other presenter has struggled with. There’s something about him, something off. Too practiced, too polished. He has no nerves or anxiety; the expected feelings of one about to share their art. Just as a nearby coffee machine finishes a loud grind, he leans into the microphone and begins to speak.
“Stop me if you’ve heard this before. To the best of my knowledge, this is around the thirteen thousandth time we’re reliving today, though I’m obviously rounding. I don’t know why, but I’ve found a few clues. The reset always comes at 11:48 pm. For a few hundred days, I would go as far as I could in any direction, hoping to uncover an explanation. To the north, on my very furthest trips, I caught a flash of light just before the reset cast me back to the day before. It might be related, or I could just be grasping at straws.”
Clearly some sort of framed fiction, and an interesting premise. The crowd gives him more attention, despite the borderline-bored tone he’s opened up with.
“I’ve seen the movies too, and tried all the usual stuff. Making amends with old friends, forgiving enemies, even smoothed out things with a distant cousin. Doesn’t matter. I don’t think this is about me, ultimately. This was no big, special moment in my life. Just a Tuesday. Just an endless, ceaseless, unrelenting Tuesday.”
He drifts off for a moment, a distant look in his eye, the pause coming right as a barista hits a few blasts on a blender for a frozen frappe. The speech resumes right as the blender ceases, like they’d coordinated the handoff of attention.
“But the silver lining to that idea is that if it’s not about me, if it’s something bigger, then maybe I’m not the only one. Perhaps, somehow, there’s more of us out there. The ones who can mark the iterations, who remember all of their Tuesdays, even when the burden of them threatens to break your mind in half. Sometimes, it does. I went crazy a few times, one lasted two years’ worth of Tuesdays. Even insanity grows wearying after too much of it though, so I’m back to trying for now, because what else is there? What else can you do, when nothing ever changes? Nothing matters, nothing continues, nothing grows or dies. It’s just this. This day, these moments, over and over again.”
His eyes slide up, an unexpected intensity boring out of them, into the crowd. “Funny, what repetition can do. For all of you, this is a night at a coffee shop. To me, it is the deepest, foulest level of hell.”
There are some stirs in the audience now, he’s managing to really sell this piece. Although how much is the material versus the oration skill is hard to discern.
“With infinite time, I’ve picked up a few skills I always wanted. Learned about programming, hoping to crack some hidden online collective of those like me. Picked up a bit of self-defense, in case there’s a fight waiting at the end of this. Even worked my way through a criminology degree to help hunt for clues, not that I’ll ever have actual credit for it. Right now, I’m studying everything I can about time-loops, time-travel, any scientific theory that would account for why this happened. It’s slow going, but it’s not like I’m in a rush, right? I mean, to you all, this has been the span of a day.”
A darkness flashes in his expression, naked envy at the crowd’s supposed ignorance.
“The thing is, it’s the solitude that gets you, over the piles and piles of Tuesdays. I’ve been the best friend of everyone in this room at one point or another, speaking of, Karen, you need to step outside. Your mom fell down the stairs and is about to call for help.” He pauses as a woman near the front looks confused, doubly so once her phone starts to vibrate. Covertly, she slips out the front, shooting uncertain glances to the man on stage.
“I tried telling you all your deepest secrets, when I should know none, or walking you through the events as they would happen. Sometimes, there were those of you who could believe. We’d work together for a while, but there was a limit to what could be accomplished. I always had to bring you back up to speed, make you believe, and then you’d each have the same progression of ideas as you did in the iterations before. Finally, I had to accept that none of you are suited to the task. I need someone else like me. Someone who can count the Tuesdays.”
There’s a sadness to him now, as he gazes out to the crowd, desperation visible in his posture. “But I still hope. I want to believe that I’m not alone in all of this. That’s why I come here, every dozen iterations or so. I need help. I need company. I need… I need someone else to remember. So if you’ve heard this before, if it scratches at any part of your mind, please stop me. Come tell me I’m not by myself.”
He barely even looks up from the stage, like he knows the reaction will be appreciative murmurs and confused stares. It was a good piece, carried largely by the intensity of the performance. Without another word, he drags the stool from the stage, bringing it back to the coffee bar and setting it down slightly out of position. Moments later, a waitress zips by, just missing the stool’s legs. When she’s gone, he moves it the rest of the way, then walks silently out the front door.
Despite the largely clear sky, he pulls out an umbrella and pops it open. Far off in the distance, you think you hear a rumble like thunder, and part of you wonders… just for a moment… nah, that’s crazy.
Turning back to the stage, you await the next act, although the strange man and his curious tale never quite leave your mind. At least, not until 11:48 p.m.