Please disregard my previous letters.
Throw them away.
Burn them.
Cast them into a black hole.
I don’t care.
I doubt you’ll even receive this message. It’s been six… times. Now. Through the loop. I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m stuck in a loop. I can’t…
I’m sorry. I had to step away for a moment. I can’t explain to you the state my mind is in right now. Somewhere between disbelief and horror?
It all started after my previous letter. I placed them in the mail and decided to walk around the Bazaar a bit longer to clear my head before heading home.
I want to go home.
But… I can’t.
My Time-Ex™ isn’t working, and it’s not broken. It’s… me. I know because I tried on hundreds of them in those first few loops, and I even tried giving it away on the fourth run through, but I still started back at the stupid entrance plaza, puking my guts out, watch firmly clasped to wrist.
And then I smashed it. I broke it into a thousand pieces because it deserved it! It’s the Time-Ex™ corporation’s fault that I’m here anyway! I shouldn’t even be here because my watch was supposed to prevent this from happening!!! But it didn’t. And now I’m trapped for Gods’ knows how long, until someone can save me I guess?
But I don’t think anyone can come save me. If you could, you already would have, wouldn’t you? But you’ll never be able to because that would have to happen after today, February 29, the WORST day of the year. It’s so bad that we only allow it once every four years, but I have to deal with it every goddamn day.
Does this make sense? Do you understand that I’m STUCK at the Bazaar? It just floats in space around the Alpha Centauri System, and do you know what interstellar objects were within the distance of conventional spacecraft near the Nexus Interstellar Bazaar on Feb 29, 3053? Exactly none of them.
I am trapped because every time I fall asleep, instead of darkness and dreams greeting me, I’m wrenched back to the goddamn parking lot, puking my guts out, hearing the same damn line from the fucking cleaning robot, saying, “Not to worry, sir. The job’s not great, but the pay’s surprisingly good,” and I just don’t fucking care because at least THEY get to LEAVE the Bazaar at the end of their shift.
I would KILL to clean puke off the ground if I could just leave this awful place.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said robot there. I know it’s offensive. They were an automaton, and I’m a bad person. First, I nearly destroyed the universe, and now I’m thinking about just ending it because I’m convinced that if I don’t meet myself at Henry’s at exactly 6:03 pm Earth Standard Time, the entire universe will collapse.
But I don’t know if I can do it.
I don’t know if I can relive the same day over and over and over again, and it’s only my sixth time through.
Here, tell you what, Professor. I will do anything to get out of this loop, so I hereby request that you send the police after me. My name is Jaelys Timothy Winstead, and I am a lawbreaker. I have broken the physical law of TimeSpace™, and I would like to be taken to prison where I belong. You can find me at The Nexus Interstellar Bazaar within the Alpha Centauri system, and I will need a police escort.
There. If anyone has the resources to find me, it’s the police. Now I just have to wait. Maybe a few more loops through, and someone will come save me.
But there is no saving me, is there?
I’m trapped here.
Because if you could save me, you already would have, wouldn’t you? You would have come through on my second loop. Or maybe my fourth or fifth if you were feeling cruel.
Instead, I’m doomed to relive this same, wretched day, over and over again.
I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe it makes me feel a little less lonely? I mean, there are plenty of people around, but it’s not like I could make friends with someone who’s just getting reset the next day.
Though I guess it couldn’t be worse than sending letters to an imaginary pen pal.
Well, thanks for reading, Professor.