Again & Again

5:00 A.M. The alarm rang softly in the dark beside the bed.A hand reached out from under the blanket and pressed the button on top to turn it off before it got louder. The house was quiet. The man stayed still for a moment, looking up at the ceiling while he woke up, seeing a little gray light at the edge of the curtains. He took a deep breath, pushed the covers away, and sat up. The old bed creaked as he got up and felt the cool wooden floor with his feet. He rubbed his eyes and stood up, moving through his morning routine without thinking. He walked to the bathroom while the world outside was still dark. The light above the mirror flickered before shining softly in the small room.

Cold water splashed on his face, waking him up as the droplets ran down into the sink.When he looked in the mirror, he saw a clean face, looking calm and proud of his daily habits. He reached for the razor. The sound of the razor against his skin filled the room as he shaved slowly.

As always, the razor slipped a bit on his right lip, leaving a small cut that he pressed a piece of tissue against.

Soon the bleeding stopped.He rinsed the razor and cleaned the sink before looking in the mirror one last time, his skin smooth and clear. Happy with his reflection, he turned off the light and stepped back into the hallway.

By the time the clock reached six, the faint gray outside the windows had grown stronger, the early morning light slipping quietly through the house while the man made his way down the hallway toward his daughter’s room.

He opened the door just enough to step inside.

Her alarm clock blinked uselessly on the nightstand beside the bed, its earlier effort clearly ignored as she remained buried beneath the blankets, tangled in the same deep sleep that seemed to hold her every morning no matter how loud the alarm had been.

He sat gently on the edge of the mattress and placed a soft hand on her shoulder, giving it a small shake that barely disturbed the quiet stillness of the room.

Her response came slowly, a faint shift beneath the blankets followed by the long breath of someone being pulled reluctantly away from sleep.

He smiled.

This part of the morning never changed.

He helped her sit up, steadying her lightly as she blinked through the haze of sleep while the weak morning light crept across the room.

It always took her a moment.

Once she was awake enough to stand, he guided her toward the door with a gentle hand resting along her back.

Her steps were slow.

Not unsteady, not clumsy, but delayed in a way that made each movement feel slightly removed, as though the signal from her mind took longer than usual to reach her legs.

Still she followed him down the hall.

6:15 A.M.

The kitchen filled with the warm smell of breakfast while the man moved quickly between the stove and the counter, sleeves rolled slightly at the wrists while he worked through the small routine that had long ago become second nature.

Eggs cracked cleanly into the pan.

Bread dropped into the toaster.

A glass of juice waited beside the table.

His daughter sat quietly in her chair, her hands resting loosely in her lap while sleep still lingered around her posture, her head dipping forward every now and then before she slowly lifted it again.

He set the plate down in front of her and gave the top of her head a quick playful tap before returning to the stove, glancing at the clock above the refrigerator as he moved.

There was always just enough time.

Between bites of toast and small sips of coffee he wiped a bit of jam from her cheek with a napkin and once made a silly face at her from across the counter, earning the faintest lift at the corner of her mouth before he rinsed a dish in the sink.

The small morning moments passed quietly, the kind that rarely stood out yet somehow carried the comfort of being repeated every day.

6:45 A.M.

When the clock reached six forty-five the front door opened and the cool morning air slipped inside.

The man stepped out first, holding the door while his daughter followed behind him, moving slowly down the short walkway toward the car.

Her arms hung loosely at her sides while she walked, each step careful and measured, the motion lacking the restless energy most children carried in the morning though she continued forward all the same.

The man walked beside her.

When they reached the car he bent down and lifted her easily into his arms before she could climb in herself, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead before setting her into the back seat.

He closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side before climbing in and pulling the door shut behind him.

Before turning the key he lowered the mirror above the steering wheel and glanced at his reflection.

The glass was dusty.

A crack ran across the corner.

The man staring back at him no longer looked quite the same as the one who had stood in the bathroom earlier that morning.

Thin scars crossed his cheek.

Another line ran along the bridge of his nose.

The clean smooth face from before had been replaced with something older, rougher, marked by cuts that had long since healed.

He blinked once.

Then he pushed the mirror back into place.

The key turned.

The engine coughed to life beneath the hood.

Both hands settled on the steering wheel while the car rolled slowly out from the driveway and onto the road ahead.

And the drive began.

He drove through a beautiful, well-kept neighborhood where the morning was only just beginning to stretch awake, the sky still pale with early light while most of the houses remained quiet. Curtains were only now beginning to open, a few porch lights still glowing faintly as the day prepared to take hold. The lawns were trimmed neatly, hedges shaped carefully along walkways, and the sidewalks sat clean beneath the soft wash of dawn.

Only a handful of people were outside at that hour. A man in a robe stepped onto his porch with a steaming mug in his hand, a woman further down the street bent to pick up a rolled newspaper from her driveway, and somewhere nearby a dog barked once before settling again.

The road was clear.

Just him and his daughter.

The car moved steadily along the smooth pavement while sunlight began slipping between the houses, brushing against the windshield and warming the dashboard as he drove.

As the man blinked, something shifted.

The houses changed, though not all at once.

At first it was subtle, the sort of thing someone might miss if they weren’t paying attention. One lawn looked a little taller than the rest, the grass uneven and wild as if the owner had missed a few weeks of mowing. A porch railing sagged slightly where it met the steps, the paint along its edges peeling in thin curled strips.

He continued driving.

The street remained quiet.

Another blink.

The houses shifted again.

More lawns now sat overgrown, weeds rising through cracks in the sidewalks. One driveway held an old car that looked like it hadn’t moved in years, dust covering the windshield while leaves gathered along its tires. Another vehicle sat crooked beside the curb with one door hanging slightly open.

The man checked his mirrors out of habit.

The rearview mirror rattled slightly against the uneven road beneath the tires. Its metal rim had long since begun to rust, small flakes of orange corrosion creeping along the edges where the paint had once been smooth. The glass itself was cracked in a thin jagged line that stretched across the surface like a frozen lightning bolt.

He smiled faintly to himself and kept driving.

The houses continued to change.

By the time he reached the next block, the neighborhood no longer looked cared for at all. Windows were boarded or shattered, fences leaned sideways where posts had given way to time, and broken toys lay scattered across dry patches of dirt where grass should have been.

A bicycle rested against a mailbox that had been knocked halfway into the ground.

Still he drove.

The road ahead stretched forward beneath the pale morning sky.

6:55

The town changed again.

Now the houses stood damaged in ways that time alone could not explain. Walls were split open along their corners, roofs sagged inward where beams had collapsed, and long black scorch marks crawled up brick and siding alike. Windows had been blown outward, leaving empty jagged frames that stared hollowly into the street.

Sandbags had been stacked in strange places throughout the neighborhood.

Some formed low barriers across lawns or sidewalks, the canvas long faded and torn by weather. Many had split open, their contents spilling out into the dirt beneath them.

Cars no longer looked abandoned.

They looked hollow.

Their paint burned away in places, glass melted or shattered, metal frames twisted into shapes that no longer resembled anything meant for driving.

The man continued on.

Soon the houses thinned out, giving way to stretches of trees that gathered more tightly along both sides of the road. The main part of town fell away behind him while the pavement narrowed slightly, the edges of the asphalt crumbling where roots had begun pushing upward from the earth below.

Tall pines rose along the roadside now, their branches heavy with morning mist that drifted slowly between the trunks.

The man glanced back at his daughter.

She sat quietly in the back seat.

He smiled.

Her skin looked pale beneath the weak sunlight slipping through the window, the color in her face softer now, as though the morning light had washed it away.

Still she sat there.

The road curved ahead.

Soon the pavement disappeared entirely.

A wide stretch of broken ground blocked the path where the road had once continued. The earth had been torn open into a massive crater, the edges jagged and uneven while chunks of asphalt lay scattered across the surrounding dirt.

Objects lay everywhere around the broken road.

Long metal tubes rested half buried in the soil. Crushed vehicles sat overturned along the edges of the crater, their bodies riddled with holes and twisted panels. Metal frames that might once have been machines or equipment lay scattered in pieces across the ground, their shapes too warped now to easily recognize.

The man slowed the car.

His eyes moved calmly across the destruction before he turned the wheel slightly, guiding the vehicle along a narrow dirt path that curved away from the ruined road.

The path looked well used.

Tires had carved deep tracks into the soil where many vehicles had passed before him.

The forest swallowed the road soon after.

At first the trees remained tall and green, their branches thick with needles while birds called faintly from somewhere deeper among the woods.

The air looked clean.

The ground was soft with fallen leaves.

Then the forest changed.

The trees grew thinner, their bark split and darkened as if something had drained the life from them. Leaves no longer covered the ground; instead the soil lay exposed and gray beneath the dead trunks.

Water pooled along the roadside in shallow pits.

Its color was wrong.

A sickly green shimmer floated across the surface as though something thick and unnatural had mixed into it.

A deer limped slowly between the trunks, its ribs visible beneath patchy fur while its eyes stared forward without focus.

The man kept driving.

Bones lay scattered across the dirt road.

Animal skeletons mostly. Though a few looked different.

A small house appeared briefly through the trees to his left, its roof collapsed inward while pieces of white wood had scattered across the yard like broken ribs.

He followed the path until it curved once more.

Soon the dirt road returned to pavement again, connecting back to what had once been the main highway into town.

The man guided the car onto it smoothly.

He smiled again.

His eyes lifted toward the rearview mirror.

His hand rose slowly to his face as he rubbed along his jaw, feeling the rough patch of growing beard beneath his fingers. The hairs there had grown uneven and thick, spreading across his cheeks and chin in a way he hadn’t noticed before.

His nose hairs had grown long enough to be visible in the cracked mirror.

He would have to clean those later.

His nails scraped lightly against his skin.

They were longer now.

Cracked.

Dirt gathered beneath their edges.

He lowered his hand and continued driving.

Soon the road led him into the town center.

Businesses lined both sides of the street, though many of the buildings stood half destroyed. Store signs hung crooked above shattered windows while pieces of broken brick littered the sidewalks.

Further ahead something massive rested across the road.

The twisted body of a large aircraft lay crumpled among the buildings, its wings torn apart where it had struck the ground.

Other wrecks appeared further along the street.

Some half buried in rubble.

Some burned so completely that only skeletal metal frames remained.

As the car rolled past, the sunlight revealed something strange along the walls and pavement nearby.

Dark outlines.

Shapes pressed into brick and concrete like shadows that had never faded.

The shapes of people.

Figures frozen mid-step.

Hands raised.

Bodies turned toward something that had once filled the sky.

Their outlines remained burned into the surface of the world around them.

The man continued driving past them without slowing.

The road stretched forward through the ruined town.

And still he smiled.

He was almost there now.

The streets had grown quiet as the school drew closer, the houses thinning along the road while the car rolled slowly through what remained of town. The pavement was cracked and uneven, but the route felt familiar enough that he barely thought about the turns anymore.

His eyes lifted toward the mirror.

The glass was cracked, its metal frame rusted and dusty. In it he could see the back seat.

His daughter sat exactly where she had been the entire drive.

Motionless.

He smiled.

Her head leaned slightly to one side, strands of hair hanging across her cheek while her arms rested stiffly beside her. The color had drained from her skin, leaving it pale and dry beneath the weak light coming through the window.

He didn’t seem to notice.

Or maybe he refused to.

His own reflection hovered in the corner of the mirror. His teeth showed in the smile he gave her, crooked and yellowed beneath a thick beard that spread across his cheeks and jaw. His once-clean clothes hung torn and dusty from his shoulders.

Still he smiled.

His hand reached across the dashboard.

Dead insects covered its surface, their brittle bodies baked beneath the sun that poured through the windshield. The plastic had faded and cracked with time.

There sat the toy.

He picked it up gently.

A doll.

Or what remained of one.

Its fabric was torn, one button eye barely hanging by a thread, the dress faded nearly white from years of sunlight.

He leaned back and placed it carefully in his daughter’s lap.

The doll rested there against her still body.

He seemed pleased.

The road curved once more.

Then the school appeared.

He blinked.

Suddenly it looked beautiful.

Fresh paint covered the walls. The windows gleamed in the sunlight while bright drawings covered the front doors. The playground beyond the fence looked new again, the swings moving softly in the morning breeze.

He glanced back.

His daughter smiled.

Her cheeks were full of life again, eyes bright beneath the warm sunlight.

His reflection changed with the moment. The beard was gone. His face smooth, his clothes pressed and neat as his white teeth flashed in a proud smile.

The clock clicked forward.

7:30

He parked along the curb and stepped out of the car.

The air felt warm.

Safe.

He blinked.

The world collapsed.

The school stood blackened and broken, windows shattered while rusted playground chains hung lifeless in the wind. Dead dirt covered the yard where children once played.

He opened the back door.

A small body fell out.

Dry.

Withered.

The rotted remains of a young girl struck the pavement and collapsed in a brittle heap.

He froze.

Then panic flooded through him.

He dropped to his knees, lifting the corpse gently as if she might still feel the fall. Behind him the car had become a rusted shell, paint eaten away by time.

He tried to stand her upright.

The bones gave way.

The small body crumbled to the ground.

He blinked.

Again.

And again.

Something inside him began to break.

He stumbled backward against a cracked birdbath filled with foul green water. In its surface he saw his reflection.

Not the man from that morning.

A starving figure stared back. Torn clothes. Hollow cheeks. Long cracked nails. A beard thick with dirt.

His legs gave out.

He fell to his knees.

And he sobbed.

The empty streets carried the sound nowhere.

Everything was gone.

The house.

The town.

The world.

His daughter.

Time passed.

The sun climbed.

Then the clock in the car shifted.

3:00 P.M.

The man stirred.

He blinked.

Warm sunlight filled the schoolyard again. The building stood whole, laughter drifting faintly across the playground.

His daughter stood nearby.

Alive.

Smiling.

He lifted her into his arms and placed her gently into the back seat.

The engine started.

The car rolled forward.

And the drive home began.

Again.