So I walked to Andytown this morning and stood in line with the other masked comrades. I knew that commie coffee shop wouldn’t stoop to celebrate the national historic genocide, so cafe au lait was in the cards for me.
But as the coffee burned my lips, I was struck by the sensation that I had mis-presumed the day. Lorsequ’il est, my phone confirmed it wasn’t Thanksgiving at all! Perhaps the Andytowners weren’t quite the communists I’d imagined them to be, for on closer inspection, I saw the sign proclaiming “Closed Thanksgiving” swinging in the window like a corpse.
Well, Tomorrow with a T, Thanksgiving was still a day away!
Sometimes this happens when, shall we say, my mind is otherwise engaged. When I lose track or take a trip — one of my trips, not Marcy’s would-be road trip — it happens: this calendar jumping. These clock tricks. Losing time. Losing space. I jump in and out. Shall we say, it’s something that — occurs.
And no, it’s not random. Although I often choose to champion chaos, when it comes to my experiments with time, I certainly do not. No, in my “lab” in situ, I use more than my considerable wits and a dadaist roll of the dice to make a plan. I take the measure of each movement, catalog each experimental dosage as I gauge its full effects. Careful calculations guide me from hypothesis to action, and yes, the scientific method is frequently engaged. Although my work tends to slip outside the boundaries of… well, yes. Let’s just leave it at that: my work tends to slip outside the boundaries. So I — consider an occasional surprise in time more than just a side effect. It’s part of the risk I assume in doing such important work.
And let me tell you, skipping ahead in time is fine — it’s fine. Clock-slips in a future-ward direction rarely get more than an oopsies out of me. No, leaping over an uneventful Thursday isn’t nearly as jarring as repeating a day that’s already passed… The lesson here is future travel rates a solid “nbd” from me, it’s crashing to the past that’s dangerous. And so far I’ve never wiped out on its shores. I’ve only managed to ensnare myself in stasis — trigger a loop of yesterdays, figure 8 myself into a lemniscate, repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat to a white-peaked froth.
I theorize this “repetition” is achieved through a trick of the barbiturate, some chemical slight of hand, a shell game of the pills’ with which I frequently engage. And it lasts… well…it lasts until it’s done lasting. It’s hard to gauge the duration, eg. how many times I might repeat a day, since slipping-time’s main method of mischief is removing any means by which to measure it.
Clever, eh?
Let me crack a window to my world…
After taking an experimental dose of… things I will not say (there are recipes o’ plenty on the darkline, some of which I’ve penned,) I’ve been known to regain consciousness and find it’s Tuesday yet again. At which point I’m forced to ask aloud, “didn’t I do this day already?” for yesterday I’d asked the same. It’s the strictest form of deja vu; truculently inalterable from events the day before. This repeating day is set in stone, without modification or exception. And despite my memory of already having done it, I am forced to play out all the scenes again. If my repeating-day were a movie script, there would be no pages of revision — no blue, pink, yellow, green, or, god forbid, goldenrod emendations could be added to the script. For I am ensnared, shooting an eternity of the unfinessed, first-draft white. So while the outside world might change its tack, (catch up as my metaphor has shifted now from “film script” to “sailing vessel;”) So while the outside world might chart another course, rise on a different swell, blow with an unexpected leeward gust, I may only act, react, and re-enact the preceding day’s events. I must take the selfsame face of seawater, ride the same unpleasant waves. Or, if you will, drive the same metaphorical truck over the same metaphorical potholes again and again, until I am released.
Though certainly redundant, by no means is it boring. That’s one thing to be said for time loops, they can’t be misconstrued as “dull.” Which is high-and-fine by me. Terror I can tolerate, but boredom is untenable.
Some would call this phenomenon that I experience “Ground Hog Day,” after the movie of the same name. And they would find themselves adorably clever for making such an observation. But on all counts, they would be wrong. That protagonist enjoyed a world of freely-willed new choices, while his outer world remained the same. And after close-reading the preceding paragraphs above, anyone could see that my experiences are the opposite of that. But I have no need to address such hyperobiac pop-culture cretins. I do not esteem these movie-watching mis-presumers. If you find yourself among them — leave. You don’t know chemistry; you don’t experiment with consciousness. And do I? Check and check. You movie-watchers are pathetic and my contempt for you is limitless.
— Now wait and see how Justice plays this hand out. For blaspheming your “beloved” “classic” “precious” film, I’ll be forced to type this same abstruse explanation of pliable time over and over again on the never-turning page, hitting my head in perpetuity against an inaccessible future. Maybe I’m doing it now…
It occurs to me you’re just the type to “sleuth” around on the dark edges of the internet, aren’t you? Getting your kicks in places like this private piece of paradise where I curl my body snake-like on the warm black floor. Here, where I’m on my own recognizance, bothering no one, and free to take the measure of my serpentine mind.
Stop. Before I strike. I can find you easily, you know. I found her.
I’m not even going to finish my story.