The scene was also familiar because—as it may have been mentioned—this was not the first time Amie had lived through this day. But although she had experienced that Monday sixteen times before, she had only visited David thrice in that time.
The two neighbors had met about a year before the time loop began, soon after Amie had moved into the building. She’d been working at a public relations firm for a few years post-college, living with a parade of roommates as she tried convincing herself that she was enjoying her work. Then Amie’s employer and landlord came to a joint agreement to blow up her life, simultaneously laying her off and converting her place into a short-term rental. She was lucky to quickly find the writing job and a new place to live. Despite the low salary and the high rent, Amie enjoyed the peace and quiet of no longer having roommates. Most of the time.
One day, she’d come upon David struggling to open the front door while holding two cardboard boxes full of wooden blocks. After a good amount of cajoling, Amie had managed to wrest one of the boxes away from him and haul it up to his apartment. With the amount of time it took her to convince him to let her into his apartment with the box, she knew he either wasn’t going to murder her, or didn’t want her to see the bodies of the people he had already murdered. If the former situation was true, great. If the latter, she figured holding a heavy box of wooden blocks would prove to be useful.
David didn’t murder her, and since then visiting her neighbor had become a regular occasion for Amie. At first she would show up under the guise of having baked too many cookies or scones or muffins. Eventually, she just started showing up. David seemed to enjoy having an audience as he tinkered with his machines, and Amie enjoyed having someone who enjoyed having her around.
She’d also found out that he’d managed to write a few bestselling books and was “semi-retired,” which apparently meant that he spent most of his waking hours building Rube Goldberg machines, or acquiring objects for said machines, or cursing at the machines when they didn’t do what he wanted them to. As for the books, Amie had long since given up on trying to get him to reveal their titles, or the pen name he wrote them under.
The first of her three September 17 visits to David was on the Original Day, when her only experience with time loops was watchingGroundhog Daywhen she was twelve.
Her second visit was on Day 1 I.L., when she frantically dashed up the stairs, banged on the door, and froze as she heard Ella Fitzgerald’s muffled crooning through the door once again.
She’d stayed for ten minutes, unwilling to say out loud what she thought was happening to her, as if outwardly acknowledging the loop would somehow give it permanence.
Her third visit was on Day 12 I.L. Although she didn’t want to admit it to herself, Amie was steadily acclimating to her situation.And even though he had no way of knowing, she felt bad for going so long without visiting David. She felt even worse when she learned that she’d woken him from his afternoon nap, and worse still when he told her to stay, saying, “Once I’m up, I’m up.”
Despite feeling like an imposition, she ended up staying for over two hours, far longer than her usual visits. And even though she couldn’t bring herself to say the words “time loop” to David that day, she’d left his apartment feeling a little less alone.
And now, on Day 15 I.L., Amie was ready to say the words out loud.
“Is this a judgment-free zone?” she asked, picking up a lawn flamingo that had been lying on the couch and taking its seat.
“No,” David replied bluntly, not looking up from his work.
Amie’s jaw dropped. That was not the response she’d expected. “Why not?”
“Yesterday you judged me for not knowing that ‘SMH’ meant ‘shaking my head.’ ” David connected two track pieces together with a loudsnap. “By your own actions, I don’t think this is a ‘judgment-free zone.’ ”
“Oh.” Amie vaguely remembered that. For David, it had been yesterday. For her, a bit longer.
“Okay, I’m sorry for that,” she continued, cradling the plastic flamingo in her lap. “Can it be a judgment-free zone starting now?”
David snapped another two pieces together, glancing at her over his shoulder. He looked like he wanted to complain more about being teased for his lack of knowledge of slightly archaic texting acronyms, but there must’ve been something in her voice that made him nod instead.
Amie took a deep breath, holding her emotional support lawn flamingo a little tighter. “Do you know what a time loop is?”
David shifted on the floor to look at her fully. “Like inThe Bird Returns Again?”
“Inwhat?”
“The Bird Returns Again. 1987 sci-fi novel by Dana Malett.”
“You know, most people would’ve just said, ‘Like inGroundhog Day,’ ” Amie pointed out.
David waved a piece of the car track at her scoldingly. “The judgment-free zone didn’t last long. SMH.”
“Okay, you’re right, sorry,” Amie apologized. “LikeThe Bird Returns Again. I’m assuming. Did the person in that book keep repeating the same day?”
“I think the author called it a ‘temporal loop,’ ” David confirmed, facing his track again. “It was the same nine hours, actually, but I think the general concept remains the same.”
“I …” Amie tried searching for the right words. She was becoming increasingly more familiar with the reality that anything she said or did wouldn’t have an impact that lasted beyond the next sunrise. Yet somehow she still felt it was important to get this right on the first try.
“Do you think that could really happen?” she finally asked. “That someone could get … stuck, repeating the same day over and over again?”
David had finished with the tracks and was on his feet, heading for the wicker basket.
“I suppose,” he said, kneeling down and pulling the top of the basket open. “I don’t have the scientific knowledge needed to say definitively what would need to happen to cause something like that, if itwaspossible.”
