Rewind

Rewind

What’s happening to me?

Porter thought the question, and though he couldn’t be completely sure, he was reasonably confident that he meant to speak it out loud as well.  But when he opened his mouth, that’s not what came out.  To his astonishment, Porter heard himself talk in a tone that was far more casual than he thought himself currently capable of.

‘How did Blake’s first soccer game go?’

Glenn shook his head in a familiar gesture.  ‘Not so good.’

Right.  He came down with the flu and couldn’t go.

This time Porter had no idea if his thoughts were intentionally silent.  In any case, Glenn continued without missing a beat.

‘The poor kid couldn’t make it.  He caught that flu bug that’s been going around.  Made him sick as a dog.  He could barely walk, but he begged us to let him go anyway.  Broke my heart to have to say no.’

After seven years as a junior cop with Glenn as his partner and mentor, Porter knew the older man as well as a brother.  But that wasn’t why he had already known why Glenn’s son missed his soccer game the day before, even before Glenn could tell him.  Something had happened this morning.  Was it this morning?  Does that even mean anything anymore?  Porter was jolted from his thoughts when his mouth opened and he heard himself jovially but sympathetically respond to Glenn without any conscious effort.  It was an odd sensation, like hearing your own voice on a recording and thinking that it doesn’t sound quite right.  Porter discovered that even when he tried to stop himself, he continued to say all the mundane things that he would normally say to try to cheer up a buddy who was feeling down.

All the same things that he said the first time.

Of course that was how Porter already knew that Glenn would smile and suggest they stop for coffee before starting the day’s patrol.  It was the same way he knew that they would never get the chance to buy that coffee, called off to check out a suspicious vehicle in a rich neighborhood surprisingly early on a Monday morning.  Porter knew it because he’d been through it before.  Not the normal tired feeling of having to go through the same routine for the thousandth time.  Porter had lived through the exact same morning already, to the last detail.  Every word of his conversation with Glenn came out just like before, the same as every gesture and expression.  They were even caught by the same red lights, and Porter was sure that he recognized at least some of the cars they saw as well as the people in them.  It was a perfect repeat of what had happened earlier this morning.

Only it wasn’t really earlier, was it?  It was now, just that now had come back again somehow.  And it wasn’t like in those movies where you went back and changed something trivial that would throw off the whole future.  Nothing would be changed here, like it or not.  There was no hero who would roll the dice willy nilly and hope he didn’t end up killing his own grandfather before he was born.  No sir, this was a prerecorded event, and the tape was rolling again.  Pull up a chair and grab some popcorn, we hope you like it the second time around.

How did I get here?

Porter knew that it didn’t make sense to think of it as being here, but that was the only way his mind could even begin to understand it, at least for now.  He ignored the call over the police radio sending them to investigate the suspicious vehicle lurking about Haven Estates, and he ignored Glenn’s disappointed grunt as he turned the car around.  He let the whole world around him fade into the background, like a television that no one is watching.  And he tried to remember what had happened.

They had gone to Haven Estates and found the car that was making at least one resident nervous.  Inside were two black teenagers.  Glenn turned on the flashing lights and pulled up behind the car.  Both teenagers opened their doors and started to exit the vehicle, which prompted Glenn to use the loudspeaker to tell them to get back in.  Porter had already stepped out, and readied his firearm.  The driver got back in the car, but the passenger didn’t.  And there was something in his hand that looked like it just might be a gun, something that the lanky teenager was beginning to raise and point towards their general direction.  For a long moment that seemed to last an hour but probably was over in just a few seconds, Porter was forced to decide whether to pull the trigger.  He decided not to.  Almost the very instant that Porter knew he wasn’t going to shoot everything was gone in the blink of an eye and he was back in the car playing it all out again.  But that’s impossible.  Impossible or not, it is what it is.  Maybe it’s a dream, but it sure seems real enough.  It doesn’t really matter if it’s a dream if I can’t wake myself up.  It was an uncomfortable thought, but just one among many.  Porter was sure that if he had a way to control his body again, he’d be tossing his cookies.

Porter snapped out of his thoughts and started to pay attention again.  Reality had nearly caught up to his last memory.  He felt himself rise out of the police car, watching the vehicle parked just ahead.  No longer believing that his will could have any effect on his actions or words, Porter observed helplessly, becoming increasingly nervous as time marched towards the point where it already did a back flip once before. 

Will it happen again?

He would know soon enough.  For the second time, Porter saw the driver heed Glenn’s instruction and the passenger ignore it.  He strained to see more clearly, glad at least for another chance to try to determine if the object in the teenager’s hand really was a gun.  Frustration mounted as he realized he couldn’t make it out any better than he had the first time around.  He supposed it didn’t matter.  What good was the instant replay anyway if the call is always the same?  But this time it wasn’t.  Not exactly at least.  When the time for the decision came, the moment of truth as they say, this time something completely unexpected happened. 

Porter let his gun slip from his hands to the ground below.  It wasn’t something that he did on purpose.  He was just not making any efforts to move or to manipulate his hands as he nervously but passively watched events unfold.  Then what?  Then all of a sudden he was in charge again.  And when the time came for him to drive, he was asleep at the wheel.  The pistol fell simply because he wasn’t trying to hold it anymore.  Porter blinked in surprise, then looked down at his weapon at his feet.  After just a moment, the world wrenched away in an instant and he found himself back in the car involuntarily making small talk over a little league soccer game at the start of the day.  The tape had backed up, and was rolling again.

After going through this a few times, Porter thought he figured out the pattern around what was happening even though the why and the how left him completely at a loss.  He was helpless to do or say anything differently when reliving the events of that morning, except for the few seconds just before the Rewind, when the cycle would start over again.  So far nothing that he did in those precious few seconds of freedom could stop the clock from turning back.  The thought crossed Porter’s mind that he might be stuck here forever, at least until insanity brought him some kind of escape.  Though he felt chilling dread at the idea when it first surfaced, he didn’t worry about it for long.  Porter was sure that there was a way out of this.  He had no reason for the confidence he felt, but he was right about it anyway.  He just knew.

He had to shoot the kid.

In spite of the revulsion he felt when he thought about using his firearm on another person instead of a target (he’s just a kid...) Porter somehow knew that this was his one and only ticket back to a normal life.  It sounded corny, but maybe it was just meant to be.  Maybe everything was all planned out, down to the last detail of how it was supposed to go down, and he just zigged when he was supposed to zag.  Well, the Powers That Be just weren’t having it.  Do over!  We’ll keep this up until you get it right, son.  There was even a part of him that was optimistic enough to think that maybe what that kid has in his hand is a gun, and he’s getting ready to use it.  It sure was an awfully funny way to act when the police come by, wasn’t it?  Not just funny.  Suspicious.  Just maybe this is all happening to save his life.  Not his time to go, and all that. 

And just maybe he’s scared.  Maybe that’s not a gun in his hand.  There was a reason you didn’t shoot the first time, wasn’t there?

Porter wasn’t sure, but he made up his mind that it was worth a try.  On the next go around, he was ready.  He still felt a lot of resistance to the idea of shooting the kid, but he was resolved to do it.  In all his days as a policeman not once had he needed to fire at anyone.  It wasn’t exactly as exciting as the movies, but Porter liked it that way.  But he had always known that the day might come that he would be forced to use his weapon, and everything that was happening was so unreal that it felt more like a video game than real life.  In the end, it was enough.  When the moment came, he pulled the trigger, and the bullet found its mark.  One shot in the chest took the boy down.  Porter still couldn’t tell if the kid had a gun or not.  That piece of information had proven to be consistently elusive, no matter how many times he had looped back in time.  What he did see though was blood, and lots of it.  It was amazing how much poured out in just the few seconds after initial impact. 

And then it was all gone.

The loop started over, just like before.  Porter wasn’t ready to give up just yet, convinced that this was the key.  There just must be something he wasn’t doing right.  He went through a few trial and error sessions first, trying a head shot, then going for a wound rather than a kill, in the leg, the other leg, the arm.  He didn’t always hit his mark, but then again, he had all the time in the world, didn’t he?  Sooner or later, he always accomplished what he set out to do.  That is, everything except escape the looping cycle of time.  Nothing worked, but he still held on to the idea that he had to shoot.  Finally, it hit him.

He had to want to shoot the boy.

It wasn’t enough for the Powers That Be for Porter to go back and do what he was meant to.  He had to buy into it, make it his all the way.  He was like a kid being forced to kiss and make up with his sister.  He was being watched, and if he didn’t mean it, then it didn’t count.  But how could he do that?  As much as he wanted out of this crazy dream, he didn’t really want to have to use his weapon on the boy.  It was bad enough having the experience of shooting him a dozen times now, each time a fresh take on the horrors of what a small bit of lead can do to flesh and blood when it’s shot from a hand-held cannon.  It was awful, each and every time.

But he couldn’t think of anything else.  Stuck in his dilemma, he let the cycle repeat over and over again, at times half-heartedly trying out a few ideas in the few seconds of freedom each loop offered.  Nothing broke loose.  Porter had no idea how long he had been stuck.  Maybe the concept didn’t even make sense.  His mind had already started to think of time in terms of how many loops he’d gone through rather than the forty or so minutes each loop lasted.  It didn’t matter much anyway, because he hadn’t kept count.  One thing he knew for sure.  If something didn’t change, sooner or later he would lose his mind.  It turned out his escape came first, but later Porter would spend long hours trying to decide if that was a blessing or a curse.

After some number of cycles, Porter started to hate the boy.  He knew it was irrational and it wasn’t fair, but he blamed the kid for the hell he was living through.  And eventually the time came that his hate expressed itself in its most primal form.  Porter shot him in the head, wanting with all his heart to see him dead.  The boy fell lifeless.  The first clue Porter had that something was different was the unveiling of the mysterious object in the boy’s hand.  Countless repeats of the same scene, including many where Porter had taken the kid down in almost the same way that he had now, had revealed not one extra detail about what he was holding.  Now all uncertainty was gone.  The black cell phone fell from the boy’s hand to the asphalt below, crystal clear in Porter’s view...

Porter vaguely calculated that time had resumed its normal, uninterrupted march some ten years ago.  He wasn’t sure.  Each day in the psychiatric ward was generally indistinguishable from the last, and from the next.  Every now and then the lack of novelty was so complete that Porter would worry that time had begun to cycle again, but it was easy enough to confirm that he was still in control of his body.  A blink or two would do the trick.  Time had never looped back for Porter again, but that didn’t stop him from living in fear that any move he made just might be the wrong move, and he’d be stuck again.  So Porter moved as little as possible.  His hope was that death would set him free.  And of course death comes to all in time.  He’d considered killing himself a few times, but could never bring himself to risk it.  Whatever plan the Powers That Be had for him, he didn’t think it included suicide.

There was one thought that tormented him, never far from consciousness and refusing to fade in spite of his attempts to ignore it.  Maybe the oblivion he craved doesn’t exist.  A light shudder ran down Porter’s spine.  Instead of an end, what if death is just another beginning?