Getting to the door is more difficult than I might have thought originally. The time loop has shrunk to less than one minute, meaning that a new “me” arrives at the office door every handful of seconds. We have reached critical mass. If we continue to grow, we might burst through the office walls–and who knows what’s waiting on the other side?
I think I knew once, but I can’t remember now. There’s a hallway out there, isn’t there? Is there? Who knows.
No one around here stands anymore. No one’s stood for a long time. The entire office has become a monkey’s paw of arms, legs, heads, and torsos. I can’t tell me apart from anyone else anymore. We’ve become a single groaning, wriggling organism.
And if I could actually differentiate myself, I wouldn’t be able to see anyways. Bodies cover the fluorescents and blacken the room. The space now feels less like a workplace and more like a womb.
I wonder what it will give birth to?
I seem to be the only “me” who has thought to end the time loop. No one else has spoken up about it, and no one seems to be in any particular rush to get anywhere. Is it possible that I am somehow different from all the other versions of myself–that my experience somehow outweighs my nature?
What a narcissistic thought.
Someone else must have reached the same conclusion as me, but he, too, waited until it was too late to do anything. Heck, I haven’t even spoken up. Why should he? Why should I expect something from someone else that I wouldn’t expect from myself?
What a selfish thought.
And, no, it’s not too late. I can still sever the loop, but I need to act now.
I’ll swim through the horde–grabbing, pushing, punching, and kicking. I’ll break the others if that’s what it takes. I can’t afford to let me hold me back.
This might be my final post. When I touch that door, there’s no telling what might happen to me. Everything might return to the way it was, but I doubt it. Nothing’s been the same since I touched the door the first time, and I’m pretty sure the damage is already done.
Thanks, whoever you are, for sticking with me these last few weeks (months? years?). Wherever you are. Whenever you are. If you really are. You’ve been my North throughout all of this. If I somehow make it through, I’d like to maybe meet you. I’d like to maybe leave this place and see what things look like from your end of the screen.
Yes. I like that.
I’d like to leave.
October 9th is almost over. Stay tuned to find out what happens next.
“Morning coffee” is a serial fiction series. So far, we’ve covered rubberneckers, co-workers, cubicle stains, office plants, desk trophies, conspiracies, secret organizations, pocket dimensions, black holes, and impending, inevitable doom. And that’s just the beginning.
Where should we go next? Let me know in the comment section below.
Stay weird,
Jake
P.S. Irrecolletions is now on Twitter. Follow along for insights, daily snippets, and refills of Morning Coffee.
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