Freewrite 001
The bullet dived into his head and swam through his brain, ending everything without solving anything.
They looked like ants from here. He’d zoomed out and paused time the way most people did when watching this particular rewind category. All of the assassinations. The big mysteries. Most of the crimes, actually, big and small. There’s always someone hoping they’ll see something the rest of us didn’t. They never do.
The screen inside the rewind helmet blurs as time slows. Time’s up. “Would you like more time?” it asks. He flicks his head down to accept 30 more minutes. He flicks his head right to select an hour, instead. Confirms. “Would you like to resume when you were?” He shakes his head, no. Numbers appears, starting at 2057, now. Can’t scroll forward, only back. He uses the hand controls to scroll the year back, rewinding to 2040, to 2020, past the 1900s, past the 1500s… He stops. All of history to watch, but nothing’s on. He scrolls forward, instead. Selects 2055. He hovers over the large rewind button below the year. He hovers for a long time. He inhales a ragged, uneven breath and presses the button.
The helmet orients, pushing and pulling information to and from his brain. He concentrates, focuses on her face. The helmet understands. He doesn’t go anywhere, not physically, but, in a flash, the helmet pairs his recollections with reality at a quantum level, separates every atom of his mind into two entangled pieces, then sends one half of the pair back in time while keeping the other half rooted in the present. The flash fades, and he’s there, then.
Here, 2055, in the same apartment he’s still in, only newer, cleaner, brighter. He’s been here before. Not just when he lived it. He returns here often, rewinds to right now and watches. Sometimes he cries, sometimes he rages. Sometimes he walks in his own footsteps, repeating the words he said like a script. Most times he walks in her footsteps and stares at himself as he yells. To shield her. To experience it, himself. To understand. He still doesn’t.
He watches her leave. The other him slams the door behind her. He passes through it. Her back is against the wall, she’s slumped against it. She cries. He sits beside her. He tries to touch her, but his fingers pass through her like she’s mist. She can’t feel him. She doesn’t know he’s there. Because he wasn’t. He studies her hair, her eyelashes, her lips, her fingers. He knows what’s going to happen next, he tenses, craning over her to see, to catch some new glimpse that he’s missed. She writes hastily with a pen with no cap on the back of a receipt. But she’s so hunched over, he can’t see what she’s writing. He tries to move her, to fit his face in a new corner, see from a new angle, but it’s always the same. She writes from 27 seconds. He can’t read a single word. Not everything gets recreated if the helmet can’t pull the information from the user or the objective reality servers. And something can’t be objective reality without corroboration. So at 28 seconds, when she leans back, thudding her head against the wall, exposing the note: the writing is jibberish, unintelligible, placeholder text. Four seconds later, she folds the receipt, stands, and tucks the note between the door and its frame, waiting on the doorknob. He listens to her walk down the stairs and fade out of his life all over again for the one hundred and eighty-sixth time. But he keeps his eyes on the note. When the door closes at the bottom of the stairs, it displaces just enough air to rush up the stairwell, into the hallway, and past the note. The note only flutters, at first. Then it falls. A tear slides down his cheek. He can’t wipe it, hands in gloves, helmet on, major design flaw, he’s realized. He speeds time up, the note stays on the ground until morning. He slows time to 1x, plays. He watches himself exit his apartment door and step on the note, helpless to change it. The note follows him, attached to his boot. He follows himself from two years ago. Watching the note on his heel. Until just outside, he hurries for the bus, jogging to catch it though he’ll miss it anyway, and the note flutters away. He watches himself kick a trash can. An older woman takes a step away from him. But he’s not watching himself anymore. He watches the note, caught on a bit of grass growing through the cracks in the asphalt, struggle against the wind as cars speed past. Then, the bus he missed passes, pulling the note into its wake. He watches the note twist in the air—
“Would you like more time?” appears as the rewind world blurs. He stares at his options. None of the options are enough.
