I've died forty-seven times today, and it's only 2:15 PM.
The first time was a piano. Classic. You'd think people would stop hoisting pianos up buildings in this day and age, but apparently the universe has a sense of dramatic irony. The second time was a bus. The third through seventh were variations on "choking on a sandwich," which honestly felt lazy on the universe's part.
By death thirty-two, I'd started taking notes.
"Winston Wu, Loop Compliance Officer, Death Log, Tuesday the 19th," I muttered into my phone as I bled out in an alley. "Stabbed by mugger. Wallet taken. Ironic since I only have twelve dollars and a library card. Pain level seven out of ten. Would not recommend."
The mugger looked both confused and concerned. "Are you... are you reviewing getting stabbed?"
"Documentation purposes," I gasped. "Do you take Venmo? I can just send you the twelve dollars."
Then I died and woke up at 6:47 AM, same as the last forty-six times.
Here's what I knew: I was stuck in a time loop. Here's what I didn't know: why me, why today, and why the loop kept finding increasingly creative ways to kill me before I could make it to 3 PM.
Also, I really wanted to finish my sandwich.
"You look tired," said Maya at the coffee cart.
"If you've died forty-eight times before lunch," I said. "I doubt you'd look better than me right now?"
She laughed because she thought I was joking. "The usual?"
"Make it a large. I'm going to need it." I paused. "Actually, make it decaf. Turns out caffeine makes my hands shake, and I need steady hands for death forty-nine."
"You're weird today."
"You have no idea."
I'd learned Maya's routine over the past forty-seven loops. She worked the morning cart, took her break at 10:30, and ate a blueberry muffin while reading whatever fantasy novel she was into that week. Today it was something with a dragon on the cover. Tomorrow it would be the same dragon because tomorrow was always today.
Normally I'd make small talk, but I was distracted by the fact that a suspicious number of pigeons were gathering on the awning above me. I'd learned to read the signs. Large gatherings of pigeons meant incoming pigeon avalanche scenario. Happened during loop nineteen. Very undignified way to die.
I moved three feet left.
"You okay?" Maya asked, handing me my coffee.
"Just repositioning. Can I ask you something weird?"
"Weirder than your death count comment?"
"Do you ever feel like you're living the same day over and over?"
She considered this. "I mean, kind of? Monday through Friday are pretty similar. Wake up, work, go home, watch TV, sleep, repeat."
"But you remember yesterday being different from today?"
"Yeah, obviously."
"Right. Obviously." I sipped my coffee. It was perfect. It was always perfect. Maya made good coffee across all forty-eight loops I'd experienced. "What if I told you this is my forty-eighth Tuesday the 19th?"
"I'd say you should switch to decaf." She paused. "Wait, you did switch to decaf. Are you having a crisis?"
"A temporal one, yes."
A tourist asked for directions, and Maya turned to help them. I checked my watch. 9:15 AM. In loop thirty-seven, I'd made it all the way to 2:47 PM before a freak electrical fire took me out. That was my record. I was determined to break it.
My phone buzzed. Unknown number.
"Winston Wu?" said a voice that sounded like it had been run through several different translation algorithms.
"Speaking. If this is about my car's extended warranty, I should warn you I don't own a car."
"This is the Department of Temporal Consistency. You are currently experiencing a Class-7 Causality Loop."
I stopped walking. "I'm sorry, what?"
"A time loop. You're stuck in one. We're calling to inform you that you've violated several temporal ordinances."
"I violated them? I'm the victim here!"
"According to our records, you triggered the loop yourself at 2:53 PM today. Or rather, today as experienced linearly. For you, it was several thousand iterations ago."
"That's impossible. I haven't made it past 2:47 PM."
"Exactly. You keep dying before you can trigger the loop, which means the loop can't resolve, which means you're stuck in a causality recursion. It's quite the paradox."
I sat down on a bench. A pigeon eyed me suspiciously. "Let me get this straight. I'm stuck in a time loop because I created a time loop, but I can't escape the loop until I survive long enough to create the loop that I'm stuck in?"
"Correct."
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
"That's temporal mechanics for you. Anyway, you're in violation of code 7-Alpha: Unauthorized Temporal Recursion. The fine is five hundred dollars or three hundred hours of community service."
"I'm literally dying repeatedly and you're fining me?"
"Rules are rules, Mr. Wu. Have a nice day."
They hung up. I stared at my phone. A pigeon pooped on the bench next to me, missing by inches.
"Thanks for the warning," I told the pigeon.
It cooed judgmentally.
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By loop twenty, I had decided to get proactive and start cataloging my deaths.
I made a list of everything that had killed me so far: pianos (3), buses (5), choking (7), heart attacks (4), falling objects (6), mugger (2), electrocution (3), poisoning (1, bad sushi, very embarrassing), traffic related (6), tripping and hitting head on curb (6), and miscellaneous (4, mostly implausible).
And there was clearly a pattern. The universe really wanted me dead before 3 PM.
But why?
I went to the library because if you're going to solve a temporal paradox, you might as well do research. The librarian, Mrs. Wu (no relation, but she found it amusing every loop), helped me find books on theoretical physics.
"Interesting choice," she said. "Normally you just get mystery novels."
"How do you know what I normally get?"
"You're here every Tuesday. Like clockwork." She smiled. "No pun intended."
I stared at her. "Mrs. Wu, do you remember me being here last Tuesday?"
"Of course. You got three Agatha Christie novels."
"And the Tuesday before that?"
"Same thing. You're very consistent."
My hands went cold. "How many Tuesdays have I been here?"
She pulled up her records. Scrolled. Kept scrolling. Her smile faded.
"Fifty-three times," she said quietly. "You've checked out books fifty-three times on Tuesday the 19th." She looked up at me. "That's impossible."
"Yeah, that's been the theme of my day."
"Days," she corrected. "Apparently."
I explained the situation. The loops. The deaths. The phone call from the Department of Temporal Consistency. By the end, Mrs. Wu had poured us both tea from her secret stash and was taking notes.
"So you need to survive until 2:53 PM," she said. "To trigger the event that started all this."
"Apparently. But I don't know what the event is."
"What were you doing at 2:53 PM before all this started? The original timeline."
I thought back. It felt like years ago, but it had technically been earlier today. "I was at the park. Feeding pigeons."
"Why?"
"Because I'd just gotten fired and I was having an existential crisis."
Mrs. Wu nodded sympathetically. "What else?"
"There was this kid. Maybe seven years old. He was crying because he'd lost his toy robot. I helped him look for it. We found it in the bushes." I paused. "Then something weird happened. The robot started glowing. The kid grabbed it and there was this flash of light and..."
"And?"
"And I don't remember anything after that. Next thing I knew, I woke up at 6:47 AM and a piano was falling toward my head."
Mrs. Wu set down her tea. "Winston, I don't think you triggered the loop."
"The temporal people said I did."
"No, they said the loop triggered at 2:53 PM in your presence. But what if the kid triggered it? What if that robot was some kind of temporal device?"
"Why would a kid have a temporal device?"
"I don't know. But I think you need to get to that park and find out."
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Loop fifty-four, I made it to the park.
It was harder than it sounds. The universe threw everything at me. Rogue skateboard. Aggressive goose. Spontaneous sinkhole. I dodged them all through a combination of paranoia and aggressive zigzagging.
The kid was there, same spot, crying about his robot.
I sat down next to him. "Hey. Lost something?"
He looked up with red eyes. "My robot. My dad gave it to me before he..." He trailed off.
"Want help looking?"
We searched for twenty minutes. I knew where it was, obviously, but I wanted to see what happened naturally. Sure enough, we found it in the bushes.
The kid grabbed it. The robot started glowing.
"Um," I said. "That's not normal, right?"
"Dad said it was special. He was a scientist. He built it for me." The kid's voice cracked. "He died last week."
The robot glowed brighter. The kid started crying harder, clutching it to his chest.
And I understood.
"You wanted to see him again," I said softly. "You wanted to go back."
The kid nodded. "I miss him so much."
The robot pulsed. Reality rippled. And suddenly there were two kids in the park. One holding the robot, tears on his face. The other slightly translucent, watching his own past self from a week ago.
Or maybe it was a week in the future. Time was getting confusing.
"Oh no," I said.
"I didn't mean to," the kid whispered. "I just wanted one more day with him."
"I know, buddy. But I think your robot is a time machine. And I think it's stuck in a loop trying to grant your wish."
The translucent version of the kid faded. The solid one looked at me with terrified eyes. "What do I do?"
I checked my watch. 2:52 PM.
"I think," I said carefully, "you have to let go."
"But then I don't get to see him anymore. I'll lose him. Forever."
"You already lost him. I'm sorry. But the robot can't bring him back. It can only trap you in the moment of losing him, over and over. Is that what your dad would have wanted for you? For you to be sad over and over again?"
The kid shook his head. Fresh tears fell.
"He'd want you to remember the good times, right? And keep living. Keep growing up. Make him proud."
2:53 PM.
The kid looked at the robot. At me. At the park around us that was starting to flicker and fade.
"Okay," he whispered.
He set the robot down.
The glowing stopped.
Reality solidified.
And I felt the loop break like a rubber band snapping.
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I woke up at 6:47 AM on Wednesday the 20th.
I'd never been so happy to see a new date in my entire life.
I went to the coffee cart. Maya was there, same as always, except it wasn't the same because it was Wednesday and everything was gloriously, wonderfully different.
"You look happy," she said.
"I'm alive and it's Wednesday," I said. "That's enough."
"Weird thing to celebrate, but okay. The usual?"
"Large coffee, regular this time. I've earned the caffeine."
I paid, tipped extra, and was about to leave when I stopped.
"Maya?"
"Yeah?"
"Want to get dinner sometime? Like, a specific day that we both agree on in advance and then it happens once and never repeats?"
She laughed. "That's a very strange way to ask someone out."
"I've had a weird week."
"It's Wednesday. The week just started."
"You have no idea." I smiled. "So, is that a yes?"
She considered. "Sure. Does Friday work?"
"Friday is perfect. Friday is beautiful. Friday is magnificently linear."
"You're definitely weird," she said.
"Yeah, but I'm consistently weird. Same level of weird every day. No variations."
"I genuinely don't know what that means."
"Good. Let's keep it that way."
I walked away feeling lighter than I had in fifty-four subjective days. My phone buzzed. The Department of Temporal Consistency.
"Winston Wu? Just following up. The loop has been resolved. Well done."
"Thanks. About that fine..."
"Already waived. You performed a valuable service helping that child resolve his grief-triggered temporal anomaly. We'll consider it community service."
"Wait, the kid's dad really was a scientist?"
"Quantum physicist. Built the toy as a prototype emotional response temporal device. Very dangerous in the hands of a grieving child. Anyway, thanks for cleaning up the mess. Try not to create any more paradoxes."
"No promises, but I'll do my best."
They hung up. I looked at my coffee, at the street, at the Wednesday morning that was beautifully, perfectly happening for the first time.
Somewhere in the park, a kid was learning to remember his father without trying to trap himself in yesterday.
Somewhere in a timeline I'd never visit, forty-seven versions of me were still dying in increasingly improbable ways.
But here, now, in this timeline, I was alive.
I was having dinner with Maya on Friday.
And I was never, ever feeding pigeons in that park again.
Though I did kind of miss Mrs. Wu. We'd had some good talks. Maybe I'd visit the library on Thursday. You know, the regular way. Where Thursday comes after Wednesday and I only experience it once.
What a concept.
I finished my coffee and headed to the office. I'd been fired in the original timeline, but in this one? This Wednesday? I checked my email.
Still employed. Excellent.
I walked past the construction site. The piano was safely on the ground, being wheeled into a building through the front door like a normal piano in a normal timeline.
"Looking good, fellas," I called to the movers.
They gave me confused looks.
I didn't care. I'd earned the right to be weird about construction equipment.
After all, I'd died forty-seven times and lived to tell about it.
Well, lived to not tell about it, since no one would believe me anyway.
But I'd know.
And sometimes that's enough.
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END
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