Groundhog Day

Written by Daniel Imrem

I don’t know for how long, but I’ve been stuck in a time loop.

It’s not the same 24 hours over and over again; It’s far more insidious than that.

It took me a while to catch onto it; it started out just as a creeping feeling of déjà vu: I would sit down after work and turn on a movie and halfway through I’d realize that I’d seen it before, even if I had no memory of ever watching it. Then the feeling spread to books. Then the news.

It’s a clever disease. I’ll go out– go to a new store; one that I’ve never been to before– and I’ll find a person I’ve never met before. A cashier, perhaps. I’ll start talking to her. She’ll tell me about how she used to live in Montana; how she and three friends all made the trip down to California together; how she’s attending the University of Southern California and staying in a flat with those same friends and how they all want to be filmmakers and star in each other's movies. I’ll smile and nod, not having anticipated any of her answers; all the information seeming new to me.

But that’s the trick, you see?

I’ll pay for my items, get in my car, start to drive home– and then it’ll hit me– I’ll realize that I have seen her before. I’ve seen her at that same store; had that same conversation– had that exact same conversation– at least once before. Maybe twice before. Maybe hundreds of times.

Maybe millions.

That’s how it works; the loop is wide enough where I can’t tell where it starts and where it ends and where it returns to start again. I forget everything– only to remember after it happens. I’ve lived through eternities of mundanity so unmemorable that the only thing which stands out consistently is the feeling of retracing my own steps– having seen something before, been somewhere previously, done the same thing over and over again.

When did my life stop? When did this begin?

The other day– yesterday, today, tomorrow– I was so hungry to experience something new.

I was walking home from work; going along my usual route past Janus street where all the whores hang out, just three blocks away from my apartment complex. The area is shitty but my rent is fixed; reliable; stable.

The sun was setting, and it’d been so long since I had last been with someone; touched them for anything more than a hug or a handshake; back when time still flowed. One girl– red tank top, no bra– always stands in the same place; leaning against the same wall. This time I looked into her eyes. She kissed the air between us. I followed her.

She led me down a side street just off from my usual path; took me to a building I didn’t recognize. There were black smoke stains rising from broken windows; its yellow façade had faded into a sun-bleached white. A drunken man urinated in a small alcove next to the front steps.

It was all new and all beautiful.

We passed the drunkard as we entered. He was singing faintly to himself; a Spanish tune:

… Saber que me olvidaste…

She led me past the thin doors and the grunts of people fucking behind them; brought me to a sparse room– tawny mattress, dusty dresser, crooked lamp– the windows covered with rags and butcher paper, all held up with packing tape.

“Money first” she said and held out a hand and looked at me with those same eyes. I saw recognition in them.

The feeling flooded back. I had been in this building before– in this same room. I hadn’t recognized it from the outside but suddenly it all came back to me in a rush; the doors, the sounds; her eyes.

“Do you remember me?” I asked.

She rolled those big eyes and I knew that I had known her before; I remembered her expression exactly. “Sure stud, I’ll never forget you.” She said, hand still extended; open; hungry. “Now– cash up front.”

I grabbed her by the arms. She twisted. I shook her silly little frame.

“It’s important.” I said. “Have. We. Met before? Do. you. remember?”

She wriggled more. “Fuck! Ray!” She shouted; her spittle sprayed my face. I slapped her once, hard.

She was off down the hall before I could reaffirm my grip, shouting like a siren “Ray! Ray! Ray! Ray!” Premonition took hold of me; I felt fear. In the next instant, I was grabbed by a tall, olive skinned, muscular Mexican man. The hit to my gut felled me to the floor. My face pressed against a carpet that had never been cleaned; pieces of street trash stuck to my face. He grabbed me by the back of my shirt and the seat of my pants and dragged me outside into an alley.

He threw me down in a heap. Kicked me once for good measure, then again for safety’s sake. He told me he was going to cut my balls off. Told me he was going to kill me if I didn’t give him everything I had. He took out a knife– a long serrated Rambo-style blade– and said he was going to cut me.

I grabbed onto his leg and begged him to do it; begged him to slice me open; to give me a scar that would prove the wound was new.

He looked down at me with fear and disgust. He shook me from his leg, stomped me a few more times, then walked away threatening to kill me ‘for real’ if he ever saw me again. What irony.

Eventually, I got up. I walked back to my apartment, then past it to the overpass a mile south. I’ve thought about killing myself on that overpass countless times; throwing my body from the bridge and tumbling down into traffic; breaking into pieces on impact and being scattered by cars speeding by. Always, it’s the same cars at the same time.

Maybe if I did jump that would finally be the end of it.

But the fact that I haven’t done it yet– the fact that I keep coming back to the same bridge night after night, week after week, month after month, eon after eon– I think it’s just another part of my loop.

I don’t think there is a hell. It would be an excess.

There’s only purgatory.

And I’ll never be allowed to escape it.