cryptidhunter101 t1_j5dm00d wrote on January 22, 2023 at 5:39 AM

Seven Nothing Days Pt 1 (second below)

You know the weird thing about a time loop, it doesn't take long. Yeah I know it literally only takes a day in the grand scheme of things but if the majority are anything like mine, well you would have to be a complete idiot to not figure shit out by day five. I mean for god sakes I'm pretty sure someone somewhere has probably literally walked past a glowing neon sign on their first day, things that cause time loops, they are just too big to miss.

Like when Nancy said she cheated on me five years ago. Just out of the blue, waking up next to my beautiful, newly pregnant, wife of the past six years to find her sitting at the edge of our bed and looking at me with the most haunting look of guilt I can imagine. I guess she got to thinking about things the night before, the night before when we held each other crying with joy over a black and white photo of a speck until we both (I thought) fell asleep. She said it was right around our 1 year anniversary, some guy who had slipped her his number while she was working at her sisters coffee shop. Apparently I'd grown distant since the wedding, at least that's what it felt like, I guess all that time spent traveling to get enough for a house wasn't worth it after all. She said they only went out three times, slept together twice, the whole thing lasted barely two weeks. It was me coming home to surprise her on our anniversary that ended it she choked out between sobs, she went out again with him after that but she just felt so guilty afterwards she broke it off.

I was numb. Nancy, my wife, my high school sweetheart, the woman I had loved for ten years, had betrayed me. I could hardly breathe much less stop her when she got up and mumbled something about staying on the couch until I decided what to do. For the next hour I just laid there, I didn't cry or swear or talk to god or my mother. I just laid there and thought, and remembered, and thought some more. A part of me wished she hadn't told me, that she had just suffered in silence, her guilt her penance. But it was too late now, the cat was out of the bag as my grandfather loved to say. I knew she would leave if I asked her too, probably get a divorce without even going to court for more than a day, as for the baby I didn't know.

Our life together played back over and over again in my head. Our first 'real' date after innocently hanging out together for two months, prom night our Junior and senior years, driving that hour between our colleges every week. It was all just too much to throw away over some mistake when she was weak and I was gone, especially now that my, no our child was in her stomach. I found the sonogram on her bedside table, I stared at that little black speck for god knows how long but I barely even blinked until I had thought of the words I was going to say.

Forgiveness is hard, especially when the wound is fresh. For two hours we held each other and cried on that couch, talking about nothing but everything. Eventually I had to get ready for work, I would need money and PTO pretty badly when the baby came. So, in silence, she helped me just like she did every day. We didn't say a word after we stood up from the couch, not even when I left, just a kiss. My shift was only four hours but it felt like an eternity that first day, second guessing, wondering, worrying. But when I got home and saw her, standing there in the kitchen, cooking an early dinner, her hair a mess and her eyes still red, well somehow I fell in love all over again.

Nancy and I spent that night like we did our first night together in my college apartment, well, minus the red wine of course all though I did slip some bourbon. We were together again, it was as if the morning had never happened. The last thing I saw was the clock striking 12 before I drifted off to sleep in her arms.

The next day I relived it, exactly. Of course it wasn't word for word, though the confusion probably masked my lack of shock better than I realized. By the time work rolled around I had convinced myself it was the strangest dream in the world, a premonition maybe, a chance to screwup but not for real. When I fell asleep that night I was thinking about going to church on Sunday to thank god for it in fact.

The next day however, that was when I realized something was wrong. That morning I was to scared to do anything different, to jeopardize what I thought was the most critical day of my life. By the time I drove to work however I had thought back to all those movies I had laughed at and decided something had to be done differently, some opportunity had to be taken or passed up, a yes had to be a no or a no a yes. I thought deeply about every moment and action down to each keystroke on my computer and every step I took going to the water cooler and back. I spent the first half of the drive home trying to figure out what it could have been, what I had possibly missed. I spent the next half coming to terms with the yes that had to be a no.

It took me three days to come to terms with it. You would think I would have been distant and cold, that I would have shut Nancy out and let that do the work for me. But I just couldn't bring myself too, not when this was very well goodbye, goodbye to her, goodbye to a happy family together, goodbye to the life I had so painstakingly helped to build. No, I lived each of those three days effectively the same. Sure their were differences, some ideas about alternative solutions, others mere experiments while I had the opportunity. One morning I followed her when she left the bedroom, another I wrapped her in my arms as soon as I woke up. At my job I did things different, nothing as drastic as setting my desk afire or strangling the perpetually annoying Stephanne just in case, but reports didn't get filed, hellos were skipped, conversations started. For some reason I didn't take a different route, I guess all those final destination stories and car crash statistics got the better of me. At home I tried different things, one night I didn't touch the whiskey, another I got a little drunk. In the throws of passion I even tried different things, things that I'd always wanted to but now only did because it would be the last time. The final day I missed work, stayed home and held her until she said she needed to be alone and disappeared to her craft studio until it was time to start dinner.

I could have kept it going, kept living the same day over and over again, trying new things each and every one with no consequences to face. But after four days of realizing my inevitable future I had enough. On the seventh repeat it took me about an hour to come to terms with what I had to do. I called first my mom and then her brother, they both were as shocked as I was to hear me say Nancy cheated but both understood why I was asking her to leave. God they didn't even know about the baby yet. I took a slug of bourbon before I went out there, brushing my teeth beforehand so she couldn't tell. I barely managed to tell her I think she needed to leave. She cried against my should for a while but eventually, she agreed just as I knew she would. We spent two hours discussing what would happen, moving her stuff out, which car she could have, how a divorce might go. The last was what broke me, what finally made the tears flow from beneath my prepared, hardened face. We didn't hardly discuss the baby, once in a while she left the room to throw up from a combination of morning sickness and stress, and each time my heart and mind screamed to not do it, to tell her I was wrong when she came back. But I'd had six days to come to terms with it, looking back I had needed each and every one of them.

Finally her younger brother came and took her and a few things, tomorrow they would come by and get the car while I was at work. I wondered if maybe I should have someone watch or change locks, to make sure she didn't take anything that wasn't hers. When I realized what I was thinking I took my second slug of bourbon of the day, and my third. I called into work right after that even though I was already an hour late. All I said was Nancy left and they said I could take all the time I needed. From there I drank, first my favorite bourbon and then the remnants of a whiskey bottle from our wedding. Once in a while my thoughts drifted to my dads hunting rifle, or one of the two pistols I kept in locked drawers around the house, or the knife block I had gotten from Nancy's cousin last Christmas, or the length of heavy rope in the garage. Somehow I was still conscious at midnight, I guess I had to watch the clock read twelve o one. I half passed half blacked out around one, the first morning of my new life.

Second part is below

cryptidhunter101 t1_j5dm8rf wrote on January 22, 2023 at 5:41 AM

Seven Nothing Days Part 2

I spent most of that day like I did the night before, mouth deep in every bottle in the house. I was passed out when the call came, the phone waking me despite it never having done so previously when my mother, sister, and soon to be ex brother in law had all called. Yet another sick damn twist in some master game. It was around three a clock in the afternoon, I was still too drunk too talk straight, the cop probably thought I was an alcoholic when I slurred a "yeah, this is him", at my name. When he said my wife was in a bad wreck on State 129 I'm ashamed to say my first drunken thought was relief. "I hope the bitch is dead", I yelled before slamming the phone down before falling back asleep mumbling about no alimony and not worrying about child support.

It was well past six when the near incessant pounding on my door woke me up. My mother and sister had came to get me, to see if I was even still breathing. They made me get dressed in at least some clean sweatpants and a t-shirt before stuffing me into the car. Apparently her eldest brother had been in a car wreck of his own two states away and she had flown out of work trying to meet her other siblings at the hospital. A semi's brake lines weren't working and when she blindly tried to merge lanes, it was painless I was later told. It wasn't until they got some coffee in me that I sobered up enough to realize what all this was. It wouldn't have mattered what I did the day before, today she had an important meeting, today she would have been in her office and gotten the call about her brother at the same time, today she would have drove onto highway 129 at the exact same time and that exact same truck would have been in the exact same place. I think my crazy laughter until we got to the hospital was part of the reason my mother and sister never treated me the same way ever again.

Nancy's parents had died three years ago, cancer and a heart attack barely a month apart. Her other brother and sister were too busy trying to get there remaining siblings medical needs squared away. It fell to me to ID the body. When the nurse pulled back the blanket and I looked down at the lifeless face that was my wife, that was the mother of my future child, that was up until the day before the most important person in my life, I should have broken, like a paper swan in the rain I should have melted then and there. No one would have blamed me, in fact it was expected in spite of the circumstances. But I was quiet, I'd already had six days to say good bye. "Yep, that's Nancy" is all I said before turning and calmly walking away.

For a long time I thought that day stretched into seven was just for me. I thought that god had decided to let me say goodbye on my own terms and in my own sweet time. I knew what I would have done if he hadn't, the pain of losing a wife and child so suddenly, the hurt and what ifs of a perfect future suddenly thrown to hell. If I hadn't gone for one of my pistols or the rope in the garage the alcohol or pure carelessness and depression would have surely ruined me. But why did they have to be taken, why did a being that could make me relive days take them from me.

I got the first inkling of it all being part of something bigger when the draft letter came. We were at war, true war, for the first time in decades and I was a low-level underwriter for a relatively minor insurance company. A widower, just under thirty, no kids or dependents, no major physical ailments. If I wasn't the first man on the list I should have been the second. I signed up for officer school because it seemed like the thing to do, high test scores, college educated, ex boy scout and collegiate seasonal athletics club president. What more could they want in the next Patton. I scored expert marksman with a pistol but barely qualified with any rifle or machine gun handed to me, I guess that's probably why I got tossed into the police force.

For two years I was a stateside MP, some people might say it was the three 'possible saboteurs (a pair of curious teenagers and a mentaly ill vagrant) I captured in my time at Fort Bragg that got me bumped to Captain, others that I was an ass kissing yes man. Really it was because I was too old and uncaring to be anything less in the US army, or anything more for that matter. I got sent to some little South Asian country as a company leader. Our main job was "protecting" VIPs a hundred miles behind the line.

The General was young for a two star, possibly one of the youngest in US military history. He was fresh off a victory in the Pacific, a victory that had won an entire theatre three months early and with 10,000 fewer casualties then expected. In fact beyond where he had been we were either at a standstill or slowly losing ground to the enemy. There were rumors that if he broke the standoff in this jungle he would get a third star and command of all troops in lower Asia. But he wasn't a pompous asshole either, he talked to me like an equal that whole week that we guarded him and his entourage as they toured camp after camp in a snaking trail towards the front. He even thanked me and my men for the dedicated work. Everyone saw an ace to win the war, I saw a future President.

During that week Nancy and the day I had come to calling the 'nothing week' were as far to the back of my mind as they could be. There was work to do, no time to think about what put me here or why. But, as I watch my men thrust the pistol of the would be assassin skyward, as my ears rings from a shot that tears through only canvas, as I see the grenade lacking a pin fall from the shell shocked soldiers sleeve, it all makes sense. You would think I would have rushed and jumped into action instead of just standing there staring. I know though, I know that this is merely a moment, a moment that I was destined to have. Hell, maybe if I don't jump I'll relive today too, or maybe even my whole life since that day I kicked Nancy out. I'm the only one that sees it, and even if anyone else does the only other person who could do anything is one of my men. John, he's got a wife and kids. Terry, his mom's in the hospital and he's currently fighting to keep a pistol pointed skywards. Miguel, if he doesn't get the General back it won't matter what anyone does, besides, his sister would kill me anyway. I could go for the door, if I had Nancy and a baby at home I would, fuck the General. But with no one, there's no point. Hell I wouldn't even be here if they were alive, ditto if I was dead to a 9mm or a bottle to a grief stricken brain. Maybe I could throw it, no, there's too many people in the way. I smile slightly, when I had shipped off my mother had said she didn't want to be handed a metal. Sorry mom, at least you'll get to meet the president with this one.

All this to save some men, no not to just save some men. I was right about the General, so is everyone else, he's going place and the world will go with him and him only. A little bit of spite for the universe wells up deep in side, a part of me thinks to just draw my pistol and do it myself as a giant middle finger to the greater plan. It's fleeting though, I had long ago come to terms with it, I had suffered too much, destiny had beaten me down just as it had over the nothing week. I look towards the General as I leap, everything moving in slow motion. I see the disbelief in his eyes, the confusion, the hint of burgeoning fear of what's to come next. they remind me of myself, one morning, a lifetime and seven days ago.