08/17/2026
The Infinite Death Loop
My best friend and I are perusing the markets today. A lot has happened to this town since the Rebirth. Those newly built outlets made for the now banned franchises are filled with local stores. The rent in them is so cheap, and the red tape is barren. I consider a film idea as we stroll through to see what new ideas have materialized in the complex.
“You see that man that’s been following us for the past 30 minutes?” Barbara, my best friend says.
“I noticed him about 10 minutes ago. I’ve been lost in thought. Is he really following us?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Sh*t.”
We’ve come to the end of the outlet. He approaches us, “Do you remember me?” Ok maybe he’s just socially awkward. Still, we are guarded.
“I’m sorry, sir, we don’t recall”, Barb says.
“I’m the kid you said no to when I auditioned. I really tried this time, you know. I lived my life up til this point, even. It’s all wrong though. This must be hell, huh? Something is still so, so wrong.” A crazy look emerged in his eyes. “So? Shall we continue where we left off?” His head lowered as he walked closer.
All sense of logic left ours, and we booked it around the backside of the market. We kept running until we reached a busy street. He wasn’t even trying to follow close behind. It was like he was toying with us, letting us get away. Why? Maybe he just wanted to scare us, which was working.
“Janice, look!” Barbara pointed to the sky. I didn’t have much time for viewing the end. It surly was an airplane. And fire.
I awoke in the study, standing with a clipboard and pen. Barb was sitting at the desk. She looked over at me, with wide eyes. “The airplane” she whispered.
“We were just crushed by metal and flames” I whispered back. I dropped the clipboard. My hands were weak.
The next actor walks in the room. It was a kid and his mom. We look at our papers with confusion. “Your eyes don’t deceive you, my son is auditioning for the accountant.”
“Ma’am, there might be some confusion here. Our accountant is supposed to be in his forties, not four.” Barb says. She then shakes her head and sits back. Wondering where we are and why she spoke. Why It was all so familiar.
I look at the kid and feel a sudden itch of sweat permeate my skin. I walk over to Barb and get close to her ear to whisper “That kid is the man”.
She looks over my shoulder to get a better scan, and looks back at me with skepticism. I mouth “We died” to her, and showed her the date on the paper. 30 years into the past. Barbara puts her elbow on the table, and rests her forehead in the crook of her index finger and thumb.
“Let’s see what you got, kid” Barb says.
The kid begins to list his knowledge in accounting like a professional, and states that with his know-how, he can not only add context to the scenes; he can work for us as our accountant.
“And you’re sure you must act in this scene in order to accomplish all of this?” I ask.
“Yes” his mother chimes in.
“Ok, you’re hired. We’ll move some things around to make it work.” Barb says.
We look at the kid, and the mother who doesn’t respond. And awkward silence where and nod should have taken place. Or something. Anything. Barb and I look at each other, and look back at the mom. It didn’t look like anything was behind her eyes for a moment.
“It seems this might not be the way.” The mother says. She picks up her child and walks out.
“The f**k?” I ask, looking confused.
“What does this even mean for the future at this point?” Barb asks.
“No clue.”
We leave the auditioning room and head out for lunch to think things over. A car hits us.
My eyes open, and I am downtown with Barb. “Jan? Were we just in a car, or is this deja vu?”
“Yeah. We were hit by one. I know that much.” I check the rotation of my leg, and the flexibility of my spine. As if that would somehow shake the memory of death.
“I bet we look like we just swallowed a bug, jumping into life like this,” Barb says. She pulls out her phone and searches for the year. She turns her phone to me. 2 years into our past.
“How can that be? That’s fu***ng weird. Are we not dead? The f**k is time?” I ask.
“Let’s just chill out. I doubt we will ever have control over the way things choose to work around us.” Barb says. She pats my shoulder reassuringly. At least I have Barb in all of this. Barb points to a smoothie shop, and we head in.
We ordered smoothies and chilled in the retro atmosphere for decades of minutes, reevaluating our position from many angles. A familiar voice rings out from the kitchen. The mom? We look over to the back. The mom. She walks out to see us. In her shop, it seems. We take off down the street. One of our theories is that, that lady is somehow the one pulling these strings.
We wake up in a small house. From upright running to laying on the floor. I look over to barb. “What did it this time?”
“Manhole” Barb says. We fell down a manhole. I begin to laugh, the prospect of death no longer a fearful undertaking. At least not with the realization that we keep returning.
“Why are you laughing?” Barb asks.
“It’s funny. We keep dying is such silly ways.”
“We feel it, January. Every time it hurts so much.”
“Gotta look on the bright side, Barbtholemew. The pains of living aren’t so harsh now. If we can get out of this loop, life will be so much easier to tolerate. The hell are we anyway?”
We look around. 3 doors. One room with a kitchen, living space, bed. No toilet? No shower. There’s a deck outside one of the doors. Feels like autumn.
We chill in this space for a bit. Catching our spirit’s breath. Someone walks in. The mom. “Ah, in my home again.” She pulls out a gun and shoots us both in the head.
We wake in the small house. “Quick, lock all the doors” Barb says. We run to the 3 doors. Once they were all secure, we checked the windows. “She said ‘again’, didn’t she” Barb says.
“That was the first time, wasn’t it?” I ask.
“Yeah, for us. Maybe time is different for her. Or for that version of her. They must not be the same. Or, we are seeing future and past versions of her. And she is experiencing the same of us.”
“Why did she kill us?”
“Unfortunately, things are only becoming more confusing. And on top of that, I think we need to keep dying to find any answers.”
“Sh*t.”
The door k**b gyrates. We decided to catch her this time. To get answers. I open the door while Barb stands out of sight. I pull her in, and Barb pins her to the floor. And it worked. A little too well. “Her neck snapped! I heard something snap.” I exclaim. Barb checks her pulse and curses.
“Where’s the gun” I ask.
“It was on the left side, I think.” We search her body. Nothing there.
“So…is this future mom or past mom…Gotta be past mom right?”
“Yeah I think so. But we can’t be sure,” Barb says.
“What does this mean for us? Did we win? Are we going to die?”
“Only one way to find out, I guess.”
~
Crystal opens her eyes. She is falling toward water with just enough time to catch her breath. Memories of this life flood her skull. The marks she has left on her legs return, showing her number of deaths. She knows the routine down to a science. Go into her friends tattoo shop, ask about the latest news about his son, give advice on the whereabouts of his missing dog, explain the need to mark her arm for every year she goes without the drink, he offers her a travel tattoo kit, thank him and wish his garden well.
Any other way, and I don’t get the kit, and I can’t keep marking my leg. I leave the kit in a sealed container, in an area no one goes. If it’s not there, I go into the shop to obtain it.
This is the life where everything is perfect. Perfect man, a smart son, my own business, his own business. And I’m sick of it. Sick of losing it. I have to live through this rerun. I can’t die no matter how hard I try. Not on my own. I can’t just pack up and leave either. If I leave him to go live my life somewhere else, I hurt him. I don’t want to hurt him. I just want to escape the inevitable. Running into those bi***es.
~
We awoke in the house a 3rd time. This time we heard something under the house. I go down there and see an old lady tied to a joist. I untie her and bring her up.
“Who are you, are you ok?” I ask.
“I’m her mother. She’s gone mad. Thinking putting me down there will somehow stop everything.”
“Are you in this loop too?” Barb asks.
“No, but she said you’d ask. She also knows when I’m going to die, apparently. I just want to go home.” The old lady seemed a bit warn out. A bit exhausting to be a pawn in whatever this is. She doesn’t believe what she says to us. Almost like reading a script. Doing what she can to hurry the plot along. Afraid.
She finally steps into her house. “Crystal,” the old lady whispers. Barb and I brace for death. There is no death. Quite the opposite, in fact. There is life, moving inside of her. She isn’t a mom yet. Before I could think I ran up to her, grabbed her arms, and started kicking her stomach with all my might. “It has to be the kid” I grunt out as I feel their bodies under my foot. Barb is freaking out in the back of my head, but I tune her out.
Crystal’s eyes go from a wince to that same blank stare she held at the audition. She leans close to me and whispers, “It’s the girl”. I almost lose my balance. Barb grabs me and pulls me away. We collapse to the floor.
“Daughter?” I ask.
“I was supposed to have one. But I…Fell,” The ground under her became wet. Her mom scrambled around to help her with delivery. We run out of the house. My adrenaline still pumping. Barb still sounding very far away. Everything still feeling very far away. Each time, more questions than answers. Each answer revealing more of the unknown beyond.
“Sh*t, Jan!” I hear in the distance. So far away.
-A dream I had
