I don’t know if time flows normally outside.

I don’t know if I’m some simulation in a computer game where I loop a particular scenario over and over expecting different outcomes.

I don’t know if I’m a sinner who’s sinned to live this cursed moment again and again and again without any reprieve.

I don’t know why this happens. I don’t know how this happens.

I just know that I’ve lived and have been reliving this same memory for a long time.But

It always started with me waking up in the back of a car exiting a tunnel.

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A woman’s laughter would reach my ears. ’Sweetheart,’ she would say, turning to look at me. Hearing her voice used to make me happy in the beginning—fill me with warmth.

“Let him sleep, pspspst,” a man would say. I always sit up when I hear him—as I did now.

“But he looks so cute. Don’t you want to squish his cheeks and hope he stays that young forever?” the woman said, wistful. “I want him to stay young. Keep holding him in my arms. Hide him away and keep him safe from this big bad world.”

It used to jar me when she’d say this. I was a grown man. I’d grown tall and strong and… I forgot the rest. I just knew I wasn’t that young anymore.

The man chuckled at the words, gentle, quiet and understanding all in one. “You know the world doesn’t work like that.”

“A mother can dream,” said the woman, prim.

A song would start playing now. I’d started hating it after the first few loops. I couldn’t be bothered now. Love, hate, sadness, anger… they’d all lost their meaning somewhere after the thousandth loop. The woman started to hum. The sound would grow louder and louder, until the man would pinch the bridge of his nose and start singing. It would be off-key, horrible—but they’d laugh.

The man’s singing brought me back to the present. The soothing ever-present pounding of the rain always did add to the dreamy haze.

The singing stopped and I jolted at the sudden silence—this, too, happened every loop. Something about this moment would always make me jolt no matter how many times I’ve relived it.

The man sat hunched over the vehicle, a hand clutching at his chest. The car kept on moving, the woman cried out, tried to help. I lurched forward, but couldn’t move.

I could never change this part—or what was coming. I’d tried countless times.

Time and tide waits for none. I’d heard this somewhere—in the long-forgotten time where I was grown, perhaps—and it struck true, now more than ever. For I could never stop time.

A vehicle—speeding—hit ours. The car flipped, like it did in the movies.

I landed next to the car. Never remembered how that happened, no matter how many loops I’ve been in.

People say you can feel time slow down and see your entire life play out. It always happened in the blink of an eye. Nothing registered.

Things changed here. I changed here.

If I looked down, my limbs would be bigger. Movements come easy. This would be the part where I am given more freedom.

I could save them, I could kill them, I could walk away… whatever change I made would have no effect the next day. I would still wake up in the backseat of a car exiting a tunnel.

I rose to my knees, eyes watching the woman—someone important. I knew not the why, and had stopped caring about the how. The man, too, had been equally important. He was gone though. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—look at him now. I huffed and shifted my focus to her.

I pulled her phone—a small, flip-phone, an anachronism—and called 911, and waited.

I’d been a moody fellow when I was grown. My actions after this point changed with the wind.

Sometimes, I’d hold her hand and help her pass peacefully into the ether.

Sometimes, I’d whisper good-nothings into her ears as we waited for the ambulance to come in. Her life would be saved. But I’d never get to visit her.

Sometimes, I’d be cruel to her, blaming her for everything that happened to me. It was one of the outcomes after all.

Having lived this long, I’d done it all.

But these days, I walked away. There was nothing I could do. Nothing that changed my situation. Something had snapped sometime ago. A string, perhaps, or was it my sanity?

This time around, I watched the life wash out of her eyes. I kept my hands and words and comfort to myself.

There was time enough, was what they all said.

But for me, there was none.