I had seen hotwiring in movies for basically my whole life so I figured it would involve pulling out some sort of panel under the steering wheel and there would be a whole bunch of coloured wires that I would have to cut and twist together in some specific orientation. Well it turns out that with the development of keyless, push start cars, the whole ignition system changed and so you can't actually “hot wire” a car because there is no longer a “hot” wire. It's all done through a computer system. The way cars are stolen nowadays is people pay professionals to clone your key fob. Then it's as simple as the thief walking up to the car they want and getting in. The car thinks the thief’s fob is yours, and they drive away. Hollywood kept the hotwiring because a) it's something audiences instantly understand and b) it's a hell of a lot more fun than watching a guy downloading an app.

It turns out that stuff isn't exactly easy to find on the Internet, and even if I could find or make one, there's no way for me to bring it with me to the next loop, which is when I would need it, so it was back to square one with this plan.

It was at this point that I realized I had never actually written down my plan, and in doing this, I discovered a much easier solution.

My original goal was to steal the police scanner from the cruiser and listen to it all day, making note of crimes or accidents that I could possibly prevent for the rest of the day after I save Ben. Then I would just map out a way to save as many of them as I possibly could!

However, as I discovered, the scanner is something that is hardwired to the cruiser itself, not something I could just pull out and steal. Finding this out while sitting in the cruiser I was mid-way through stealing was less than ideal.

Turns out that I didn't have to steal the fucking car at all, because, after the initial attempt I began to actually research this stupid plan. While researching “how to clone a police car key fob” google kept trying to autocorrect my search to “how to clone a police scanner” Completely cutting out the need to steal the car in the first place. In fact, the very first link is to an Amazon page where you can just... buy one. Which would have saved me some time and also from getting SHOT. It's fine. I'm fine. This is a learning moment. Movies are not real, which is why we don't base our plans on movie plots. We learn and we grow.

Anyways, my next idea was to get up early and go to Radio Shack and just buy a police scanner, but places like that only open at 10, so I would be missing about 3 hours of potencial disasters that I could potentially be stopping. I was actually planning on breaking in before I realized that on top of being closed because of their listed hours, the place was also closed because it was shut down, with dust on the windows and sun bleached sale signs dated months ago. Am I old? When I saw that it was closed, the progression of my thoughts were as follows:

“Radio Shack is closed because no one has a radio anymore. Because you don't need a radio anymore... Because there is just an app on your phone... Oh, God damn it.”

Then I looked it up. There's literally dozens of police scanner apps. After a 5 minute search of reviews I found a paid one that works great and doesn't have ads. I'm starting to think I can't blame movies for my bad ideas.

Moving on! I've now finally got everything I need to begin. I just dropped Ben off, the car's tank is full, I've got my police scanner app running, I have a map of the city ready to be scribbled on and I've got this notebook to keep the plan for tomorrow! Let's see how this works!!

I remembered that every loop I had seen officers Kolnec and Hamza park their car just before Ben shows up at the corner. I figured I had time to sneak up once they got out and I would just hop in and take off.

I actually made it in the cruiser and got it started before the door was open and I was being pulled out and onto the ground. I panicked, and my instincts kicked in, and I grabbed for anything to pull themself back into the car. Unfortunately, the thing I happened to grab was the cruiser's holstered shotgun. So when the officers, who, just a few loops ago were sharing donuts and gourmet coffee with me, pulled me out of the cruiser, instead of the aforementioned Miranda rights being yelled at me, the only things being sent my way from the cops were two full clips of 9mm bullets. And then I woke up in bed with that split second of shooting pain (sorry for the pun) launching me half way to the ceiling. Ow. What a senseless waste. And to top it off I scared the crap out of Lacey.

For my own future reference; it turns out that some police cruisers don't only come equipped with ways to kill people, they also sometimes come with remote shut-offs for the off chance of, say, someone trying to steal a police car. I think maybe today I spend a little bit of time researching this before I get my head blown off again.

Unfortunately, my current predicament makes doing anything very difficult. I can't knit, or craft anything, or even do a puzzle, because any progress I make will just reset at the end of the day!

So I'm bored, which, by itself, doesn't really sound all that bad, but I'm worried it's going to become a problem.

I've been watching a lot of tv and movies. I spent most of the week watching Twilight Zone episodes. I was having a great time till I got to the one where the guy is the last man on earth and he has all the books in the world but then he breaks his glasses. I turned the tv off after that one. I'm afraid if I don't have a way to spend my days, they’ll start to blend together and my mental health will deteriorate rapidly. Honestly, that might be happening already, but keeping busy and the feeling of being productive is definitely helping me to keep my faculties, so I'm just going to focus on that.

It turns out that, compared to saving a man's life, figuring out what to say to the barista is actually pretty easy. Now that things are easy, while the stress is gone, so is the urge to perfect and improve. I'm... Bored. And it's barely been a week.

I got this way in school too. I'd find a thing, be it, a new show, an arcade game, a sport, a book series, anything. I'd find a thing, and I'd consume it. Like a cartoon cat eating a fish, I would swallow a subject whole and spit out the cleaned bones. I'd get into a hobby and instantly I would be capable, which felt good, so I'd get more into it. I'm a visual learner, so I see something done once and I just get it, which means I'm a quick learner too. Also, once I get into something, I tend to get really into it. Spending hours researching, reading Wikipedia and peer reviewed journals, watching youtube videos and the news etc. This usually allows me to rapidly improve in most hobbies. However, almost all of these interests end in one of two ways. Either my level of improvement slows; I hit a wall, I bite off more than I can chew with a project, something, and I completely burn out my interest, or, I reach a point where I feel I've learned all there is to know about the subject. I've 100 percent completed it and gotten all the achievements like a video game. I've squeezed out every bit of endorphin I can, like a tube of toothpaste, and now I can discard the empty husk of the hobby I left in my wake.

What sucks about this specific scenario that I find myself in, is that I can't really see any progress, other than this journal, so it's like I'm hitting a wall every day. Not only that, but because I'm the only person to have ever actually been stuck in a time loop (as far as I know) I have nothing to compare my progress to!

Like, yes, I can talk to the barista when I get my coffee, or the waiter at dinner, and come across as more charming, or less awkward, than I could before. But in the whole scheme of things, those issues feel so mundane compared to saving a life. Im getting antsy because it feels like I'm wasting potential, like I could be doing something really important but instead I'm selfishly trying to improve on small talk.

Hey. I just got an idea. I just got an idea that has the potential to either be really fun and productive as hell, or really, really stupid.

Well, fuck it, what do I have to lose! I'm going to go save Ben now, and then I'm going to spend the rest of the day planning tomorrow's loop.

Because tomorrow, I'm stealing a cop car.

I was really certain that Ben surviving was important, AND I STILL FEEL THAT WAY, but I may have put a little too much importance on that one thing being the be all end all of this loop. Clearly that was a mistake.

If it's not obvious, I'm still looping. Which, while vexing, isn't really as anxiety inducing as they make it seem in movies.

I really thought I would feel... Something about not breaking the loop. Right when I woke up I felt disappointment, but now that I'm writing it out I'm realizing that was more from being incorrect than any kind of stress about looping. I'm actually... Relieved that I'm still looping? Which, again, not super sure how I'm supposed to feel about that, but let's take it one existential crisis at a time.

I suppose I can progress with my ORIGINAL plan; which is, of course, perfecting every encounter I have in a day and therefore removing any social distress I may feel. Given how long it took to save Ben, that should keep me busy for at least a few months!

I'm sure I can easily keep myself entertained for the next century if I wanted! Anyways, it’s to leave to save Ben. I'm going to keep doing that, I figured just because it didn't end the loop doesn't mean it's fine to just let him die. Plus, it's part of my routine now so it's easy to keep to the schedule.

Okay, I feel better about the whole situation now that I've written it down. And here I was worried about how I'd spend my days!

It was the culmination of 2 weeks of work.

I was calm, collected, and most importantly, I was prepared. And I fucking DID IT! I SAVED BEN!!! HAHAHA!!!

The first major thing I did differently was my approach. Instead of waiting in my car like I had been the last week, (creepy, in hindsight) I tried to get there especially early and wait at the bus stop bench. That way, when Ben walked up and tried to walk into traffic, I was right there to *gently* pull him to safety. I used the same “Ben is that you? I'm a friend of your mother's!” line, which worked perfectly, but this time, I casually mentioned that I had to run, as I was auditing a lecture at the medical college.

Woah! Get this! It turns out Ben is actually attending that school! What are the chances of that!

I, again, super casually, offered Ben a ride to class, as I was just parked over here.

There was one moment of pause, where I thought the whole loop was about to be a wash, because Ben asked me why I was waiting at the bus stop if I had my car. I froze, I realized if I looked around it would be incredibly obvious that I was lying. Thankfully, looping the same day over a dozen times has, unsurprisingly, drilled a bunch of seemingly useless details into my head. One such detail that I remembered is that the cafe behind the stop is always busy with customers trying to grab a coffee or a breakfast before their day begins. I Tilted my head in a move that I felt was both casual and nonchalant, and made up a story about how I usually get a Danish and coffee and eat inside, but it was so busy, and the day is so nice, I decided to sit on the bench and enjoy my breakfast. I also explained that I had just finished when I saw him walking up, that's why I didn't have any.

It was at this moment I realized that, without any of the context of the whole, time-is-looping thing, this would constitute a kidnapping, and if Ben pushed back even a little bit, my whole story would crumble around me.

Thankfully that did not happen.

All in all that was far easier than I had built it up in my mind. I drove him to the campus, dropped him off and explained that I had to go park, and to say hi to his mother from me. Then I drove home.

Now... I’m waiting.

If my leading theory was correct, that Ben and the loop are somehow cosmically linked, this may be my final entry.

Writing that down makes me feel a whole bunch of different things. I'm not as relieved as media on the matter has led me to believe I would be. I mean, there's a little bit of curiosity on what a real “tomorrow” will look like, but mostly thinking about all the uncertainty that comes with that, I find I'm more stressed than anything.

If I was supposed to learn some sort of moral lesson from this experience I guess it's that life is important? To cherish it? But I feel like I was doing a pretty good job cherishing the life I have? Was I taking advantage of it? Lacey seemed happy, and even after 2 weeks of the same night I still enjoy hearing about her day, because Lacey could read me the phone book and I would enjoy it. No, I feel like if I'm doubting it, it's probably not the real lesson. A cosmic time loop level moral lesson would be obvious.

Maybe it's not me? Maybe Ben is the important one. Like he is destined to create time travel and they are using that to make sure he does or something Nolan-esque like that. I dunno, I tried Tenant last night as our movie and I don't know if I got it. Lacey loved it, but then again, she's much smarter than me, if she was the one looping she would have figured this whole thing out on day three.

Side note: a few loops ago I tried telling her about this whole thing, to get her advice. But, like a logical person would do, she took me to the hospital. At that point I was pretty damn sure I was looping, but Lacey can be very convincing when she wants to be, and again, she is very smart. We waited the whole day, got my brain scanned and were sent home for the results, which would never come because the day loops. I guess I could have kept trying, but I was really focused on trying to stop Ben from dying. I get like that sometimes, once a task grabs me I hyperfixate on it until I've completed it entirely, for the last two weeks, it's been Saving Ben.

Maybe I don't get an answer. That would be pretty annoying after all this, but hey, maybe it's bigger than me. I mean, throw a black and white filter over the whole thing, chalk it up to cosmic anomalies, have Rod Serling wax poetic about the naivety of mankind and you've got a mid-rated Twilight Zone episode.

All this talk has made up my mind, if this is the last time I'm looping today, I'm going to enjoy it. I called around a few places and eventually got a restaurant, and I'm going to surprise Lacey at work so she won't have to commute home. See, if I had a few more loops, I could really do something special, but this is fine.

If this is my final entry, it's been fun.

Theory number One is a Matrix type situation (I watched the whole series, including the new one a few loops ago, not going to work really opens up your day). This theory says that reality was some sort of program set up to keep my brain from working too hard so aliens or robots could use the rest of my brain and body for processing power...or batteries... or something. It's not important, and honestly the lore changes between movies for thematic purposes but that's not really great for basing a plausible theory of reality on it.

Anyways, to summarize, my brain is connected to an advanced computer program running a simulated reality, and for whatever reason, my unit was bugging and looping a day.

This type of glitch, of Ben coming from a different direction each day, would make sense in this case, because, like a video game, this program is focused on creating a functional reality just for me, and therefore things on the periphery of my reality wouldn't take much processing power. He would just spawn in when I get close to where he's supposed to be. Or maybe, Ben is another person that is trying to reach me, but the system keeps messing it up.

This theory is bottom of the list for a few reasons, which I'll detail here;

Ben has spoken to me several times, not once has he seemed to recognize me or tried to give me information, which doesn't bode well for him being some sort of operative.

I don't like thinking of people like NPC’s. If I'm the only real person here that would mean Lacey, my son, all my friends, and BEN are just simulations, and I can't believe that. I'm not special, I'm making the best of a special situation.

On that note, if this was a simulation and I've been made aware of it, why the hell can I not just download the ability to do kung-fu?? Neo did it in like 8 seconds and so far I have literally no ability to manipulate my surroundings, other than plan for the next loop.

The matrix theory also doesn't explain why my day is looping. Like if there were aliens or robots, or robot-aliens, using humans as batteries or data storage or whatever, surely a glitch this noticeable would be flagged by the system!

My next two main working theories are kind of similar, so I'm doing them together. They are “I'm in a coma” and “this is purgatory.”

Both seem... I dunno, lazy? I don't think it's a coma, because you can't read things in your dreams, and what are comas if not just really long dreams you can't wake up from? Anyways I've had no problem reading, and I've also watched a bunch of movies, both ones I had already watched and new ones, and while I guess my brain could be making up all of those plots, I honestly don't think I'm smart enough to do that.

As for the Purgatory theory, that assumes both that God and the Devil exist, which in and of itself is enough to make me dubious of the theory, but also posits that I'm supposed to learn some sort of moral lesson with this whole thing. If that was the goal they shouldn't have picked such a fun paradox to stick me in!

(I'd like to clarify for my own sake that, while seeing Ben die is still decidedly not fun, trying to solve this is truly one of the greatest puzzles I've ever encountered.)

Like with the matrix theory, even if this IS the case, knowing this information isn't actually productive; I already wanna save Ben, if that's the goal of the loop, great, if it isn't, I would still be trying to do it.

Which leads me to my favourite theory that still works; Ben is somehow connected to the loop. This is my simplest but also my strongest theory.

In my observations over the last few days I've noticed that Ben will have his phone in a different pocket from one loop to another, or he will arrive from either the north, west, or south. He always crosses the road on the southwest corner, headed east. That part, at least, is consistent, as is his arrival time.

I’ve optimized my morning routine and route to the intersection as much as possible, but Ben coming from different directions every loop means I have no way of preemptively stopping him before he arrives at the corner, because I really don't know where he is coming from. It looks like the part that does repeat daily starts when he shows up on the southwest corner looking frantic, after checking his phone, he sees something across the street and walks towards it, just as the light changes. Honk boom splat and the day resets at midnight.

Huh. Writing it out makes me think maybe I'm not the one looping. Maybe whatever cosmic forces created this loop actually were focused on Ben, and I'm the collateral!

I don't wanna get ahead of myself. Maybe this is connected, maybe it isn’t. It doesn’t actually change anything if they are, because I still have no idea what caused this, or if saving Ben will actually do anything at all. Either saving him will stop the looping cycle, or it won't. And honestly? I don't know which result I'm hoping for.

As for today's attempt, Ben still died, but I was SO close today.

Ever since being arrested I've been trying to find better ways to approach Ben. I can't state how much knowing his name has helped!

Today I CALMLY approached him, calling his name, and we chatted for a minute (I've tried a few different lines here, to varying degrees of success. this loop I told him I was a friend of his moms, which he seemed to buy) I asked him where he was headed, he told me he was going to College, but got turned around. Once the speeding truck went by, I excused myself from the conversation, and walked away feeling like James fucking Bond. That feeling lasted till I heard the screech, honk, and then a loud thud. Somehow, and I'm not really sure how, but SOMEHOW, Ben still got hit by a car. A DIFFERENT car, but a car nonetheless. It seems like that speeding truck caused another, oncoming car to swerve and lose control, right into the corner where Ben was crossing.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

ARE YOU ACTUALLY KIDDING ME.

Okay. One more thing to add to the list for tomorrow. I’m guessing that car is usually either in the pileup the truck causes, or stuck behind it. This also means I should expect ripples from things I do early in the loop. I should make a note of that. Wait. That's what this is. Ugh I'm all scatterbrained cuz I'm realizing my to-do list just got longer by about a half mile.

Anyways, I was about to just run and call the loop a bust, but I noticed that, the way Ben was hit, his wallet was sent flying. It just so happened to land right at my feet.

I don't even think you could call what I did pickpocketing. There was a wallet on the ground. I happened to pick it up so I could return it to the owner. Yes, you could argue that the owner was dying a half block away, and taking his wallet would make the responding officers job a whole lot harder, but I would counter that argument by saying 1. This is research to stop him from dying in the first place, thus negating the extra work, and 2. They wasted my whole entire day a few loops ago so this is just cancelling that out. So yeah, I took the wallet of a dying guy, TO SAVE HIS LIFE! Still didn’t feel great. At least I didn’t get caught and end up in jail again.

Inside the wallet Ben had a bus pass, a student ID, and his debit card, which had his name written as BEN A.M. and $16.35 in assorted coins and a couple bills. Jeez, he really is just a kid. I gotta focus here and stop this from happening.

His student ID had him listed as Ben Algarve. He’s in med school, but that’s on the other side of the city! Damn Ben you really got turned around. I wonder if he has, like, dyslexia for directions or something. But he must be smart if he made it into med school. Ok Jr. Doctor Algarve, nice to meet you, how do I keep you alive?

Tonight, the movie pick is The Butterfly Effect, for obvious reasons.

I tried just running up and tackling the guy and apparently some people don't appreciate, in bystanders' words, "being chased by a big sweaty guy who ran out of his car."

So, when the guy RAN AWAY FROM THE MAN TRYING TO SAVE HIS LIFE, and INTO TRAFFIC, everyone made it seem like it was somehow MY fault, and I spent the rest of the day in a holding cell. I called Lacey, first I was thinking I'd tell her the whole story and get her to come down to the station, but when I called the school she was busy with her class. The school receptionist offered to take a message, and I didn't want Lacey to have to deal with the gossip, even for the day, so I just told her I'd be home late because of a work thing and not to wait up for me. I also figured, while I was here, I might be able to get some information on the guy who died from the cops at the scene. Apparently they were just down the street and got the whole thing on their squad car dashcam.

The two officers, Kolnec and Hamza, brought me to the station and tried to interrogate me. I say interrogate, that comes across as much more forceful and dramatic than it was. They didn’t even handcuff me. It was kind of emasculating, like they didn’t even think I was gonna try anything. I mean, I didn’t, but they didn’t know that.

Now, I’ve seen a good number of interrogation scenes. Lace and I enjoy police procedurals, and a good interrogation scene can really keep you gripped for multiple episodes. Same with action movies. Hell, some movies are entirely interrogation scenes, like Usual suspects.

And yes, I know intellectually that those movies and shows take liberties and over dramatize and most interrogation rooms don’t actually have a massive one way mirror. I’ve also, however, seen enough reality tv and youtube clips of cctv footage, to know what they should actually look like. I was expecting a steel table, cinder block walls, me in cuffs, etc.

Instead, the comfortable break area where Officers Kolnec and Hamza sat me down, (in a very cozy lazy boy) me was underwhelming to say the least. Apparently it was a busy day in the station, and I wasn’t considered a high flight risk, so we got stuck with the break room.

It's not that I wanted to be treated poorly, I just had an expectation of how this scenario would go, if I were ever in this situation, and it was a little disappointing to be that far off. I mean, they didn’t even try good cop bad cop. Nary cup thrown across the room, let alone a chair.

Both officers were consummate professionals (read: the opposite of good tv). The officers spent the better part of two hours first walking me my rights (I waved my right to an attorney, it’s not like I'm getting to my court date any time soon) and then through page after page of personal information questions. After that, they asked for a breakdown of my day leading up to the accident, minute by minute.

Most of the questions for the first hour or so felt very boilerplate, and the cops were frustratingly accommodating. We stopped for both coffee (which I had always been led to believe would be swill, only given to me to get my prints, but it actually was a local house blend from the cafe across the street; delish)(also they already had my prints, they took them from my hands, no need for a coffee cup) and danishes (from a different cafe mind you, thus explaining the police budget to me better than any graph ever could)(the danishes were unfortunately also very good).

After a while, Officer Hamza mentioned something about an update probably being ready, and excused himself. While he was gone, Kolnec walked me through the last of the documentation. Before I knew it, Hamza was back with a manila file. Kolnec excused himself and went into the hallway with his partner. I realized for a moment that I could easily open the window beside me and be out the door in a minute. Something to remember if I ever end up here in a future loop, but for right now I was content to see this route to its finish. When Hamza and Kolnec returned, Kolnec looked a little more grey than he had a moment before. He put down the folder on the coffee table, sighing. I noticed the corner of the front page had slid out, but before my brain could process the upside-down letters, Kolnec grabbed my attention.

“Look, Joe, you seem like a good guy. I don’t think you meant for what happened to happen, we have the driver of the truck in custody, and he’s going to face the brunt of this, what with speeding and all. But before we can close the book on this thing, you gotta answer one thing for me. Why'd you run up? You said you wanted to stop him from being hit -you mean to tell me you made a u-turn, mounted the curb, got out of your car, and ran up waving your arms because you had a hunch? There's no way you could have seen the car before our radar did. Make it make sense for me, joe. I mean, did you know Ben- ?”

I’m sure officer Kolnec kept talking, but I didn’t hear a word. Holy shit. “Ben.”

BEN. I had been so focused on saving him because I hated seeing the accident. I'll readily admit it was selfish. Once I knew his name he stopped being like one of those non-player characters from my son's video games. That's a guy! A boy, really, he's so young. Damn. I feel like an ass.

I guess the officers took my shock as me exercising my right to remain silent, because the next thing I knew I was in a waiting area, being given a number and told to go to the window when my number was called. Still reeling, I looked at my number. G12. I looked at the screen: NOW SERVING E94. I did the mental math and settled in for a long wait.

While waiting I did what I imagine you are supposed to do in jail; I thought about what landed me in that position and how to prevent it from happening again. That left me with a few things I'm going to have to consider moving forward if I want to save Ben and also continue on with my plan of perfecting this day. First I took a minute to assess how I was feeling. I mean, I had been arrested for god sake! I found that I was actually feeling fine! The more loops I went through the easier it was for my brain to understand the rules. I'm actually finding that the little bit of anxiety I was experiencing what with the whole “looping day” situation has been alleviated now that I've got an interesting way to spend my days. Day. Loop. Whatever.

Okay here's my list of Things I Considered While In the Pokey:

I shouldn't resort to anything that can get me arrested, injured (or killed) or otherwise caught up in unnecessary shenanigans.

If I get caught in a lie, make a note what the person said/ how they responded to me, I can try something else again next time round. confidence works wonders.

I should figure out as much as I can about Ben, where he is headed, why he looks lost etc. you are more likely to look and listen, rather than RUN INTO TRAFFIC, if the guy yelling at you is not yelling but instead calling your name, smiling and waving. CONFIDENCE JOE

On that note, be friendly and get there early. I was over thinking my prep and under thinking my follow through. Get up and out of bed, I can speed a little as long as I don't get pulled over, and get there and PARK your car.

There are Police near by, so try to avoid contacting them. I don’t want to be stuck in a loop of the world most boring interrogation again.

Writing this out has given me more confidence in my next attempt. I’ve got a few different variables I wanna try so I probably won't update this log until I've made some progress.

So it turns out going to bed early did the trick. I'm not gonna lie, this was kind of a long shot. I figured Lacey has been going to bed early for the last 20 years and she's always up well before her alarm, so it couldn't hurt to try, but I didn't think it would actually work.

It's not like I'm gaining hours of spare time. I usually go to bed at 11, so three days ago (my last log) I tried going to bed 30 minutes early and woke up a little over 1 minute earlier. . Yesterday I went to bed at 9:00 pm and I'm currently writing this a full 5 minutes before my alarm! 6:25 Baby!

5 minutes does, unfortunately, seem to be the max I can get though; two days ago I tried going to bed at 8:30 and all I got for it was a weird look from Lacey. If anything, It took me longer to fall asleep than at 9, and so I ended up actually sleeping in a few minutes before I realized what I was doing.

Goes without saying no progress was made in loops 5-6. If there was, there would be a log. Messing with my sleep schedule threw me off and by the time I was out the door I knew I would be too late to make it. Still, I was able to take some notes:

The guy steps into the path of the truck at exactly 7:35 am, meaning I have 1 hour and 10 minutes to stop that from happening every day. That means prep, getting there, and execution of my plan must require a maximum of 70 minutes, including the 34 minutes it takes for me to drive there.

Actually I wonder if there is a better route. I'm going to try a few different paths over the next couple loops, and keep note of which one is fastest.

Okay, my alarm just went off, I'm gonna try getting there well early, and when the guy tries crossing the road I'm just gonna tackle the guy. Maybe I'm overthinking it and it's just that simple!

The second I pass midnight I pass out, waking up at my usual time, just a little more tired and sluggish than usual. I run the risk of actually sleeping through my alarm and losing time, which is exactly what happens today. Lacey's alarm actually woke me up.

So this loop is another wash. At least I got some research in; my only issue with these loop stories is the protagonist is only ever trying to break the loop. Why? I don't want to break this loop, I just wanna fix one thing and then I can focus on enjoying myself again. Because, and I still don't know how I feel about this, but I'm having fun. I'm no longer always stressing about whether or not I'm forgetting something, or if I'm interacting with someone oddly. If I notice they react poorly, I make a mental note of it, and the next time around I try something different. I can literally perfect every interaction I need to have, just by memorizing what to do.

It feels like replaying an old Sierra point and click game, like the ones I used to do with my son. The first time you play the thing it takes MONTHS, you can die on almost every screen, and every death is agonizing, not just because your character is usually brutalized, but because all your progress is reset to your last save. Then, once you beat it, you realize that, actually, there's really only a few hours of actual content. And it's FUN to replay it, it's FUN to find all the secrets the developers snuck in. That's what this feels like, like I'm following a walkthrough of life!

Now that I'm not going to work anymore, I have more time for research. Today I made some broad strokes, researching any kind of paradox I could find. I read a few short stories on the subject and listened to a lecture by a Yale professor. It's interesting stuff, even if most was not applicable in this specific case. I figured, the more information I have on it, the better. I even ended up watching a Mythbusters episode on the Monty Hall Paradox, which comes closer to deal or no deal than to what I'm dealing with, but it was still entertaining.

Last night I tried staying up late, so tonight I'm going to try the opposite and go to bed earlier. This whole experience is making me realize if I was a little smarter I'd be able to do some really cool science experiments, because as long as I time it correctly, all the variables would be perfectly repeatable. Something to consider AFTER I save this guy from his date with a truck's fender. I guess this is actually science, as Adam Savage said “the only difference between screwing around and science, is writing it down.”

Yesterday I made a concerted effort to warn my boss about his paper coffee cup having a bad seam; this resulted in him thinking it was me who caused this. I was fully prepared to be reamed out for simply trying to help, when something even worse happened; he burst out laughing. For the rest of the day I was stuck in a one sided prank war with a bored middle manager with a flair for the dramatic. Rather than deal with that, I spent my day locked in my office, researching time loops and paradoxes. I didn't realize just how many stories/movies/episodes of sci-fi shows involve time loops. So far I've made a list of the most popular movies and books, and I'll watch or read one every loop, maybe one will be similar to mine.

I went home from my office thinking one day I should find a better way to spend my life once I'm out of this loop and it hit me; I'm living the same day over, nothing I do today will matter tomorrow because yesterday is, was, and always will be today.

Man do I feel dumb. Some of the most prime hours of the morning for the last - I don't know how many actual cycles, how many hours I wasted. I could have been planning. I could have been doing anything other than finance. So I quit. It won't matter at all, I mean, it still felt good to tell off my boss, but at the end of the day it'll be easier to just take a sick day going forward, it's not like I'm gonna run out.

Today I tried parking my car on HIS side of the road, and pulling him back from the truck. That way, we are both out of harm's way! If I'm following the rules of the road, which I may not do on a later loop, but I'm hesitant to add another vehicle to the equation, but if I do follow the rules of the road, ending up on his side means I need to make a u turn or a completely different route and circle back. Both of which take precious seconds. Today I wasted time parking my car instead of just hopping out, so by the time I got there the man was already crossing. This was the closest I had been to the accident, save for being a part of it, and it was brutal. This time the truck didn't launch the guy, but instead ran him over. This caused the truck to spin out and skid into the intersection, causing a severe pileup. I ran back to my car and hyperventilated. I'm home now, I don't remember the drive home, I think it was all adrenaline.

I'm going to spend the next few days experimenting. Currently I wake up with my alarm at 6:30, which gives me one hour to put my plan into action. My first goal is to try and extend that time as much as I can.

The morning after my brush with a pickup's grill, I had a split second of pain, which leads me to believe that my body remembers something of the last days' events, even if only for a second. I'm going to first try staying up all night, to see if I can just start the day at midnight, and failing that, I'm going to try the exciting plan of going to bed early and drinking loads of water, because changing my alarm won't do anything as it will reset every morning anyways.

I'll make sure to keep note of anything interesting over the next few loops, but I doubt I'll make much actual progress. Still, this log ensures I remember what happened, every detail, so I can fix this thing. I'm gonna hyper focus on this until I find a solution I'm happy with. Tonight, from the list of time loop and paradox movies, I'm going to suggest Groundhog Day. It's one of the few time loop stories I actually know, but it's good to refresh my memory, and it's also just a good, comforting movie. And honestly I need that right now.

Let’s start with the good news. First; This journal seems to carry over, rather than reset. I have no idea why that is, but I am very glad. I wrote the previous log half thinking that when I woke up this morning it would have poofed away. Well the journal itself was right where it had been since my wife bought it for me, in my nightstand. Except unlike yestoday - no I hate that. Yesterday or last loop from here on out.

Unlike the last loop, the pages that I had written on were still there! this is PROOF that I AM NOT CRAZY! Proof for myself at least. It’s not like I can tell anyone this without getting institutionalized. I’m definitely not smart enough to understand the greater implications of the book. That reminds me, I should research time loop stories and paradoxes when I get a chance.

Well, at the very least this means that this book can serve as a record of my days; I don’t want to just repeat failed attempts that I forgot I tried. Speaking of failed attempts, back to my plan.

The second piece of good news I discovered yesterday is that if I die in the loop, the day just resets. Thank God, it would have sucked If I died the day after figuring out I was in a loop. I figured this would be the case, Bill Murray tried suicide on like day 3 of Groundhog Day, and Tom Cruise dies like 500 times in that movie with Emily Blunt. I forget the name of the movie, but that one was caused by aliens, and so far I haven’t seen hide nor hair of any kind of extra-terrestrial. Though I’m not counting it out. This was still a good thing to confirm.

Now with the good news out of the way, let’s post mortem my plan: it went bad. So bad that I died.

A few loops ago, before I knew it was a loop, I figured I would skip my morning workout in the hopes of getting to work early, because “there was a lot of traffic on First st. these last few days” I hadn’t yet realized it was always the SAME traffic.

Anyways, on that loop, I left early and sure enough there was no traffic. I was actually at the intersection when I saw the guy for the first time. At this point I knew something happened at the intersection, but because I was always so late, I never realized what the cause was, just that cars were pulled over and police were there. The man seemed distracted, he kept looking at his phone and then whipping his head around, clearly he was looking for something. By the amount of sweat on his forehead, he had been for a while. I only really noticed the guy because every other person I could see was looking at him too. The crossing guard, the kids, their parents, the people at the cafe, everyone was looking at the guy having a really bad day. He wasn’t exactly being subtle is what I’m getting at.

All of a sudden he looks across the street and gets this big relieved look, seemed to find whatever it was he was looking around for, and headed toward it.

He had the right of way, the truck wasn’t even on his side of the road. But the driver (idiot) was distracted & speeding (idiot idiot) had to make one of those trolley problem choices. Hit a group of kids and a cross guard, or one guy. I’d have made the same choice. Then again, I wouldn’t have been going fucking 80 in a school zone. Prick.

No one had time to react, to even say anything. One second we were all watching some guy act out the 5 stages of grief at 7:35 am, the next a Ford F-150 turned him into a bag of meat before he hit the ground. The truck hit him so hard that his shoes were launched 2 blocks.

I was obviously shocked by the sight. It stuck with me the whole day and well into the evening. However it still wasn’t until the next day, when I, again, left early to miss that traffic, and witnessed the exact same thing in the exact same way that I finally convinced myself that this was, in fact, a time loop. That was when I decided to write everything down, and now we are caught up.

So, as I so confidently wrote down last entry, I had a “plan.”

That was a bold face lie. My so called ““pLaN””was this; I’m gonna stop that guy from being hit by a car. Just get there early and... Stop... It. Writing it down really highlights just how overconfident I was. But I figured what it lacked in steps, it made up for in adaptability. I thought I would just seamlessly incorporate saving a guy’s life into my daily routine. I was incorrect. In hindsight, this is obvious to me. It took me 13 years to incorporate flossing into my daily schedule, I really thought saving a guy’s life would be an easier task.

So, yesterday, after writing that journal, I made it there just as the man was looking up from his phone, maybe 45 seconds later than the day before, which meant I was still early enough to get out of my car, pass the students and crossing guard and run towards the guy, waving my hands like a maniac, and stopping him from crossing. However in my excitement I completely forgot that standing in the middle of the road was exactly what got the man hit. So when the F150 came hurdling down the road, it didn’t hit the man I stopped, instead it hit the crazy guy waving his hands in the middle of the street.

Oh also, the guy still got hit. He ran into the intersection, I guess to try to help me, and a BMW that swerved to avoid the truck took his legs out. Idiot. What was he going to do? Reattach my spine? The first rule of first aid training is to ensure YOUR OWN safety. Next time maybe I should take my own advice.

Thankfully I passed out from blood loss fairly soon after and then I woke up and now I’m back in bed at home.

Writing this has taken the better part of 40 minutes. I should probably write these at night so as not to waste my precious pre-crash minutes. I’m going to go to work as usual now, there’s no way I can make it to the intersection in time for this loop. If dying doesn’t matter guess I could kill myself but that seems... dramatic. And what if this isn’t a loop but instead I’m skipping to a different reality every time? That means Lacey would find me and I’d never wish that upon anyone. I should also note that when I woke up this morning, for just one quarter of a millisecond, I felt all the pain of yesterday’s accident. And then it was gone, like the last remnants of a dream. As much as knowing dying isn’t permanent is a relief, I still don’t wanna risk doing that too much.

So it’s off to work like normal, and after that I’ll figure out a plan to get to the intersection earlier.

I believe that I am looping one single day, and have been for at least a week.

In hindsight, it was embarrassingly obvious. There were dead giveaways all over the place, but I was in my own little world I suppose, as we all are at times. I’m honestly appalled at how many loops it took for me to start to notice.

I feel like the whole point of keeping a journal is complete honesty, so I’m gonna try to be as accurate with my timeline as I can, even though it’s a little embarrassing. I would guess that I started to realize my situation on around day 4, not including the original loop. But, again cards on the table, it probably took another 2 or 3 days after that for me to actually admit to myself it wasn’t just a severe case of deja-vu.

Not that I have to defend myself in my own journal, but for the record, it’s not that I’m unobservant, actually quite the opposite. The main reason detecting the loop was so difficult for me was I have spent the majority of my adult life organizing and planning the perfect routine. My days run like a well oiled drill sergeant. Uh. Or. However that saying goes. What I’m trying to say is that even before I was literally looping a single day over and over, I had been actively striving to make my days feel as similar as possible. For as long as I can remember, deviating from routine has always kind of stressed me out. Supposedly “fun” things like field trips or out-of-uniform civies days at my school would make me virtually break out in hives. Thoughts like, “what if I miss the bus home and they leave me there?” or “what if there is a test on what we did and wasn’t paying enough attention and I fail??” Or even “where are you supposed to eat lunch at a zoo where you can’t smell animal poo? Because if you can smell it that means there are poo particles in the air. And if those land on your food and you eat them you are probably gonna get brain worms or mad cow or avian bird flu and die!” Would cause me huge amounts of stress the night before any kind of school trip.

While I’m not quite the anxiety riddled child I once was, ever since I was able to control my own schedule, I have tried to dial in my daily routine to something both sustainable and enjoyable.

Here is a typical day, for reference. I wake up early and have a quick breakfast. It’s the same every morning, I know what I like (coffee; hot, oats: cold). I’m up and out the door before Lacey, so I also make her coffee and put it in her thermos when I hear her turn the shower on (the thermos we got on our trip to British Columbia, NOT the red one, that’s for soup).

I take the same route to work, which both avoids the usual morning traffic, and also happens to be quite scenic.

I get to work at approximately 7:45 am. The early start time is not a requirement of the job, but I find that once the office starts to fill up with other employees, it’s harder for me to focus. I find that if I have a few hours before the office gets too noisy I can finish all my work in a few hours. I bring a sack lunch to work. A Sandwich: ham, Swiss, sprouts, on rye. Condiments: mustard (Dijon) pickles (Dill). Carrot sticks and a dip for a snack, and 3 Peak Frean cookies. I get one can of Fresca from the vending machine (unless they are out, in which case I get a diet 7-up).

After lunch I call Lacey at the school where she works. I make sure to call between classes, and we plan what we want to do that evening. We might watch a movie, either at home or at the cinema, or go for a walk by the lake, maybe take a drop in class, go for a drive, go shopping, it doesn’t really matter.

I’m lucky to say that after 25 years of marriage my wife and I are not only still very much in love, we also still really truly enjoy each other’s company. It doesn’t matter what we do, as long as we do it together. The phone call is honestly just more of an excuse to chat. We could be picking up garbage for all I care.

After the call I usually just head home. My profession has a task-based salary which means depending on my plans, I can choose to leave when I feel that I’ve earned enough money or done enough work for the day. Or if I get bored.

I almost always get home before Lacey. I like to spend that time listening to an audiobook or music, cleaning up around the house, maybe going to my office and doing one of my hobbies, and generally enjoying being in my own space. When Lacey gets home, she does something similar, and once we have decompressed, we enjoy our evening together.

Our son moved out almost 6 years ago, so once or twice a year we do a road trip with him and his girlfriend. We go to a different state each time, and it’s always a hoot. More rarely we might go to Europe or Asia just the two of us. Some may call this boring, but I’m quite proud of the life I’ve built. I do suppose I’ll miss those trips, but in all honesty, my son is just a few blocks away so I can visit him, and he always answers the phone when I call. Not to mention, all the driving and flying we had to do to get to our destination always just gave me anxiety.

All of this is my long winded way of explaining exactly why I feel like it’s not weird or stupid that it took me nearly a week of Wednesdays to notice I was looping a single day. If you get a feeling of deja-vu, your first assumption is not “help help I’m stuck in a cosmically unstable paradox” it’s “man, I should go to bed earlier,” or “jeeze this week feels long.”

I don’t know why I’m defending myself in my own journal. It feels necessary to just state for the record that I, Joe Morrison, am not an idiot.

So what confirmed my suspicions? Well two things; my boss spilling his coffee... and another, much more obvious thing. But we will get back to that one later.

For the last 7 days, at 9:08 am, the lid of my boss’s Starbucks blonde roast pops off, drenching his nice pressed suit. He would then proceed to say, out of all possible expletives available to him, the word “jeepers.”

The statistical chances of my boss spilling his coffee on himself at the exact same time of day, while in and of itself is not low, was pushed beyond the point of credulity with the utterance of the word “jeepers.”

Seriously, who says “jeepers” outside of Scooby Doo?? It was such a distinct phrase that it stood out to me, and that’s basically how I figured this out. If it weren’t for “jeepers,” it might have taken me months to realize I was looping a single day.

That and the other thing. But again, we will get back to that.

As I said before, I thrive with routine. It’s just the way my brain likes to work. My wife is convinced I’m “on the spectrum” and she’s probably right. I don’t see a need to put a label on my brain, but, yes, I’ll be the first to admit that I think a little differently than other people I know, yes I do get stressed when my routine is broken, and yes, I do have a deep, long-time interest in trains. So sue me. I would also argue that I am much less likely to succumb to some sort of mental break in this situation, due to the fact that routine actually brings me a good deal of comfort.

To some, I could imagine being stuck in a loop of one day would get boring, and to others being forced to endlessly repeat the same day may be considered their own personal hell. I am not one of those people. To me, I see this as a once in a lifetime opportunity. How many times have I misread a social cue, put my foot in my mouth, or looked back on an awkward social interaction and thought to myself “well I could have done that better.” Well never again! Some might see an endless loop, but to me, I see an endless opportunity to perfect my day! This phenomenon could not have happened to a better suited person.

I have no clue how or why this has happened to me, but honestly, I was lucky enough to be stuck in a loop of a day in mid May, with decent weather, in my home city, married to the woman I love, i’m not exactly dying to figure out why this happened. I never again have to fall prey to a social faux pas, like saying “you too” to the ticket seller at the cinema in response to them saying “enjoy your film.”

If it weren’t for the fact that it’s a Wednesday, instead of say, a Saturday, It would be perfect.

Well... That, and the man I keep watching die.

I did say I would be coming back to the other thing.

--------------

7:34:51 AM is the exact moment it happens, at least by my watch, which is a self setting digital so no mechanical parts to break. And yes, I did assume the date part of my watch was broken like an IDIOT for like 3 whole cycles.

I didn’t even notice when I left it by the door to be fixed, and awoke to it by my bed. I assumed Lacey hadn’t heard me say I was going to take it in and moved it there for me. Anyways the watch isn’t important.

At 34 minutes and 51 seconds past 7:00 AM, a man, crossing on a green light, is utterly flattened by a distracted driver.

Before all of this began it would take me about 1 hour and 15 minutes from me waking up to me leaving the house for work. Add 15 minutes of driving and waking up at my usual 6:30 am meant that by the the time I would make it to the intersection where it happened, the car had been moved to the side of the road and emergency services had arrived. I dealt with heavy traffic, a police man directing us, some glass on the road and a morose firefighter hosing down an oddly dark stain on the pavement. It wasn’t until I saw the body on the stretcher, the head covered, that it all clicked for me.

I have no interest in breaking out of the time loop, but watching a guy get squished every day is starting to affect my mental health. I’m really the only person who can stop this from happening, and then it will be back to perfecting my eternity of paradise.

I have a plan to try and save this guy. If that doesn’t work I’ll just try something else tomorrow until I crack this thing. Not to sound morbid, but it does feel like an interesting way to spend an eternity.

And I mean, what do I have to lose? Some time?