Loop

At first, she didn’t realize it was happening. The days had started bleeding together weeks ago, around the time she start falling asleep while reciting the next morning’s calendar.

“Wake up. Make coffee. Call my clients to remind them of our meetings. Get dressed. Log into court.”

So the first time she relived the day, she only noticed a vague deja vu. A sense that maybe she’d visualized this day too hard the night before.

It was the bird that first made her realize that something was off. A beautiful blue jay sitting on her air conditioner in the middle of Brooklyn. She loved blue jays, she always had, even though her parents hated them. Blue jays are massive, bigger than they look somehow. And they’re bullies at a bird feeder.

But they’re beautiful. At first, she only liked them for their pretty blue feathers. But the older she got, the more she fell for the beautiful creature that absolutely insisted on taking up space.

Anyway, the blue jay was odd. Out the ordinary. A weird thing to dream and then see the next day.

And then it came again. And again. And the deja vu got worse and worse.

It was maybe the 4th or 5th day that she realized what was happening. She was reliving the same day, every day. The same monotonous uneventful day, just her and the blue jay.

When she first realized what was happening, she was falling asleep. The next morning she woke up and, without any other ideas, she followed her routine. The only break in her routine, as usual, was the blue jay.

About a week later (who knows how long, really, there’s no real way to keep track when you’re in a time loop), it occurred to her that she should do something different. She had no real ideas to break the cycle, but the routine clearly wasn’t working. So maybe this was the day to break it up. Go to the beach, even in the cold. Ride her bike on the prospect park loop that she’d been meaning to do since she moved. Something.

But then, what if today was the day that stuck? What if this was the day that had a tomorrow?

So she couldn’t leave. Not really. Because then what would become of her clients? Her clients needed her. Her coworkers needed her. Everyone depended on everything else and what would happen if this time, this time, it all counted? What if departing from the routine would blow it all up?

So she follows the routine. The same every day. Over and over. Just her, and the blue jay.