© Tom Kane 2013

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The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

Author: Tom Kane
Publisher: Brittle Media Ltd

On June 23rd I die every night at 9:17 pm.

A woman with purple hair knocks on the back door of my convenience store and shoots me.

Then I wake up again.

June 23rd.

Every time.

***

It started out like any other day. I woke up, got my breakfast and got ready for work. I manage a small convenience store down town. I fed the cat and I watched her eat her breakfast. As I sat in my small diner, second coffee in hand I mused about what I had to do today. Nothing strenuous, just a few displays to complete and to manage price changes and stock rotation. Not exactly taxing, but never the less, it was a job until I got my real career as a writer off the ground. That was taking longer than I thought, but hey, what’s the hurry.

I’m not married, never found the right women, don’t suppose I ever will now, so I could pretty much decide what I did with my life. It was not a particularly auspicious day. Pakistani gunmen killed nine tourists and there was a bitter row brewing over the Chef’s use of the English language, oh, and there was a Super Moon. Like I said, not a day to remember, except I couldn’t forget and I was living it day after day after day.

***

So downtown I unlocked the convenience store. It was still early so my first customer was about an hour away. I pushed up the heavy metal roller-shutters and locked them in place. Then I unlocked the multi-locks and opened the creaking door, mentally telling myself, again, to oil the hinges.

Thirty minutes in and the coffee was on and the check-out till was full of cash. Charlene arrived and did her usual routine. Yawn, good morning, except it came out as “Mornnnun,” and she smiled her dainty smile. Her blond/mousey hair was as unkempt and unwashed as it always was and I mentally noted (second one of the day) that I needed to tell her to sharpen her act up or it was the door for her.

In any given day I make about thirty mental notes and here’s the rub. That was on a normal day. Now I don’t have normal days, I have the same day, over and over. But I do remember making the mental notes and here’s biggy, the Numero Uno… these mental notes on my repeat please day are always different. What isn’t different is the day itself, Charlene and the customers, all seventy-six of them. I remember each customer, what they bought, what they said, what I said and what Charlene said. I remember what I ate for lunch and I remember my trip to the bank to pay in the previous days takings, which is always $2052.45 and it never varies, except here’s the second Biggy… the denominations always change. Same total, just different denominations.

This to me is a clue. A clue to what always happens after I have closed the door on the store at the end of the day and a clue to why this day is always repeated.

Yeah, I know what you’re think, Groundhog day. Nope, not the same. In the film Bill Murray experienced the same day, day after day, to the point he knew exactly what was going to happen to him and to everyone in the town, day after day after day. My experience is different in that I remember different mental notes, all of them, and the takings from the previous day have different denominations, sometimes the same, but never two days running.

How many times has this happened, this repeating day. Well, according to my mental notes, the ones I remember if I do remember them all, it’s been twenty-nine straight repeat days now and here comes number thirty.

***

So, here I am, ushering Charlene out the door and mumbling good-nights and see you tomorrow, really, Charlene, somehow, not being rude, I hope I don’t see you tomorrow, and I finally get the door closed and locked. I walk down the aisles to my little office at the back and to the rear door to make sure that’s locked and there’s a knock at the back door. Here’s where I get my first chance to change the day. I either answer the knock on the door by opening it or I ignore it and grab my things and make a hasty exit. But I don’t. I always open the back door and there she is. Shiny silver suit, long purple hair, black eyes and a dazzling smile. She says, “Gript nej burda, hon.” It sounds like a distortion, as though she standing in front of me, but talking to me from a million miles away. Time stood still, and her movements slow and sluggish. The she levels a weird looking gun at me and fires. I’m dead meat, man, and the world goes black. Guess what happens next? You got that right buddy, it’s June 23rd 2013 again and it’s another repeat to my somewhat boring life. Jeez I need a handle on this shit because if my life is a repeat, I want my money back because there is only so much shit a guy can take.

Day thirty-one has started in much the same way… yeah, I know, exactly the same way as the previous days in the sequence, but I like to allow my mind to wander a little if I can, keeps me sane. So I’m going through the motions when a thought, a new one, occurs to me. It has dawned on me over these last few days that I seem to be able to have new thoughts in the same way I’m allowed (allowed, am I being controlled by a higher force) to make different mental notes.

This new thought is a bit special though. You see, my name is John Halloran and I have suddenly realised the exotic woman who shoots me says something in some weird foreign language. But the last word sounds like hon, which is a lot like John. Is that significant? I think it might be and then the second thought comes to me. Why not say something to Miss Exotic, before she says the inevitable to me? Why not? Worth a try I guess.

***

The day done and I’m finally (again) at the back door and there’s the knock. I’m ready, I pull the door open and I say, “John Halloran. I’m…” and I realise there is nobody there. Fear suddenly grips my chest and I think I’m about to faint when that beautiful voice says “Gript nej burda, John.” And the gun fires. She was behind me.

Day thirty-two started the same way as the others but now it’s different, now I know I can make changes to this day. A plan began to form in my head. To me, the day itself was pretty mundane and nothing much of great import seemed to happen. It was when I was locking up and the strange but beautiful woman turned up at my back door, that was where I was going to attempt to change the day. And change it I did.

That evening the knock on the door came as usual. In our previous encounter the purple haired woman had said John instead of Hon. This time I was going to do something I was a little afraid to do.

I opened the door and I stared at her intently as she spoke, trying to take in everything she said or did and making a note of how she looked. I was afraid because I knew she was going to kill me, but that had happened so many times I was actually getting used to the idea a little. So I paid attention to this woman and that’s where the day changed again. Two things I immediately noticed. She said, “Believe nej burda, John,” then she fired the gun. But as I went down I suddenly realised I recognised her face… it was Charlene!

Day thirty-three was a whole new day, albeit the same day for the thirty-third time, yet it was going to be different again. This time I knew Charlene was key as well.

 I was at the store, opening up as usual, again, when Charlene arrived. Here now, was the first shock of this new/same day. Charlene was wearing a wig of long silver-purple hair.

“That’s nice, Charlene,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Mornnnun,” she said, as usual.

Nothing else was forthcoming.

“I like your hair.”

Nothing. She simply followed the same routine as in previous days and sat at the check-out waiting for the customers. I looked closely at Charlene’s face and there was no denying it was the same woman as the one who kept shooting me. I had never realised how beautiful Charlene actually was. I had really only noticed her lank hair before. Though she was now different, she was still the same, if you get what I mean. She just sat there, at the check-out, waiting.

***

Day thirty-four began like all the others.

The same coffee.

The same cat.

The same tired routine.

But now I knew something.

Charlene wasn’t the enemy.

She was the key.

I watched her all morning.

Watched the way she moved, the way she spoke, the way she avoided my eyes.

By afternoon I knew.

Charlene wasn’t acting.

She didn’t remember.

Only I did.

Which meant the woman who killed me every night…

was not Charlene.

Not exactly.

That evening the knock came again.

I opened the back door.

Silver suit.

Purple hair.

Black eyes.

Charlene stepped forward and raised the weapon.

“Believe nej burda, John.”

This time I didn’t flinch.

“I do,” I said.

The gun lowered.

For the first time in thirty-four days, she smiled.

The world did not go black.

John Halloran woke the next morning.

June 24th.

***

Work was a joy. Everything looked new, everyone looked new, everything was new. Even Charlene had a smile. It was the start of a fresh day, time, life. And I loved it.

As the day ended I did my usual rounds of locking up and as I cam to the back door, I nodded to it, smiled and turned around.

The knock on the door seemed louder… or was it my heart thumping in my chest.

I opened the back door.

Silver suit.

Purple hair.

Black eyes.

Charlene stepped forward and raised the weapon.

“Do you believe in me, John?”

It was a full sentence, spoken in English. Again, I didn’t flinch.

“I do,” I said.

She lowered the gun.

“Why are you doing this?” I said.

She shook her head. “I have no choice. I turned left out of my new house and here I am, and I have to kill you, she said.”

“Why?”

She tilted her head backwards and there, like some crazy hall of mirrors at a carnival, stood a long line of Charlene’s, all the same face, same height, but different hair, clothes and all with a weird gun, or a knife, or an axe or weapon of some kind.

“Who the hell are they,’ I whispered, staring at the endless line of Charlene’s.

Some looked frightened.

Some looked determined.

One of them was crying.

“Who are they?” I said again.

The Charlene in front of me sighed.

“They’re me.”

“That much I worked out.”

“No,” she said gently. “They’re every version of me who turned left when I left my house this morning.”

I frowned. “Turned left?”

“In my world,” she said, “you destroy everything.”

I laughed nervously. “I run a convenience store.”

“In your world, yes.”

She stepped aside and pointed down the impossible queue of women.

“In one world you start a war. In another you invent something that ends civilisation. In another you become a tyrant. In another you end the human race without even knowing it.”

My mouth went dry.

“So, you kill me?”

“In every universe where I can reach you.”

I glanced down the line again.

“How many universes are there?”

She smiled sadly.

“How many directions can you turn when you leave your house?”

Silence hung in the alley.

Finally, I said quietly, “But you didn’t kill me this time.”

“No.”

“Why?”

She tilted her head.

“You said you believed me.”

The woman behind her stepped forward, raising her weapon.

“Sorry,” she said. “But in my universe… you don’t believe me.”

The gun fired.

June 23rd.

9:17 pm…

Author’s End Note
This story was begun in 2013 but somehow escaped completion until 2026.
Perhaps time loops exist after all.

Tom Kane
March 2026