Another chance

Today is April 31.

At least that’s what the calendar says. Mila is counting the days until her next period. In her PMS/“just woke up“ haze, Mila is counting „…28th, 29th, 30th, 31st…“ and lets out a heavy sigh.

It is going to start on the first day of her short break for May Day. Great, she thinks, as if women didn’t have enough troubles. It seems to her getting a period rules the entire women’s life as well as all those other „rules“ women stick to which all start with „do not“.

Mila sighs. She has been reading so many bad news about being a woman these days that it just got to her too much. Or maybe it has just resonated within her due to similar bad experiences. No wonder she has been in a haze on some days. Living the same old life physically while living in other places mentally creates an even thicker haze, almost fog-like.

Just like today. She is sure she has read it is April 31.

She goes back to the calendar. It checks out.

She looks at her SmartWatch. April 31.

Breathe, she says to herself. You are mentally sane, you are stable, mature, relatively normal, she repeats to herself.

She takes another deep breath. Maybe she has developed a brain dysfunction overnight and her vision is suffering.

She turns on her laptop. The screen lights up – April 31, 7.12 AM.

„The time is out of joint“, Shakespeare’s words come to her mind. Or maybe she has fallen through the rabbit hole where April has 31 days.

“Okay,” she mutters. “Not funny. Let’s pull up the blinds and say hello to the world!”

The world is quiet. She gets out of the kitchen slowly, as though moving too fast might shatter whatever fragile logic is holding that quiet world together. The apartment is quiet. Too quiet. No hum of traffic outside though she lives across from the church. Now that she thinks of it, she hasn’t heard the bells announcing the hours. Or the voices drifting up from the street. Or the cars – she lives in the very centre of the city where everyone starts their cars as early as 5 AM, even on weekends – nothing. Even the creaky floorboards - always complaining, always alive in their own way - have fallen silent.

She reaches for her phone. No signal. The time blinks 08:00, then 08:00 again, resetting every few seconds like it can’t move forward.

Mila starts to feel anxious, a feeling of unease tightening in her chest.

She goes to the big window in her living room and pulls up the blinds.

The city is there - but weird. Cars stand frozen at the circular intersection visible from her balcony. Her elderly neighbour, pushing 90, is caught mid-step, one foot hovering just above the pavement, as if gravity has forgotten him, the other foot leaning on his stick. A cat hangs in the air mid-leap, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting sparrow glued to the car hood.

Everything has stopped.

Everything except her.

Mila pulls back from the window, heart hammering. “No. No, no, no…”

She checks the calendar again.

Today is April 31.

Her mind races, grasping for explanations. She cannot be awake, she must be still sleeping and having a dream within a dream. The kind that feels real until you notice something small, something impossible. Like a date that shouldn’t exist.

“Wake up,” she whispers, pressing her fingers into her temples. “Wake up.”

Nothing changes.

She tries calling work. The phone rings once - just once - before the sound stretches into a long, unbroken tone that never ends and hurts her ears. Not busy. Not disconnected. Just some strange, irritating buzz.

Mila hangs up.

A thought creeps in then, quiet but persistent: What if this isn’t a mistake?

What if April 31 wasn’t an error… but an extra day?

A day that doesn’t belong.

She looks back out the window. The frozen city doesn’t feel empty anymore. It feels paused. Waiting.

“For what?” she asks aloud.

Her voice sounds too loud in the stillness.

Then she sees it.

Across the street, in the reflection of the pharmacy window, something is moving.

Not her neighbour. Not the cat or the sparrow.

Something behind them.

A figure, faint and distorted, like a reflection that doesn’t match what stands in front of it. It turns its head - slowly, deliberately - and looks straight at her.

Mila steps back, her breath catching.

The figure smiles.

And then, for the first time since she woke up, the clock changes.

8:01.

Just one minute forward.

Mila swallows hard.

“Okay,” she says, her voice trembling despite her effort to steady it. “If this day exists… then it has rules.”

Outside, her neighbour's frozen foot trembles, barely, almost imperceptibly.

The world hasn’t completely stopped. The time is not out of joint. Yet.

It is kind of… loosening, becoming fluid.

And whatever is moving in the reflections…

It isn’t trapped there.

It has been waiting for April 31.

Mila doesn’t look at the reflection again.

Not because she isn’t curious - she is.

There is something about the way it has smiled. Not threatening, but familiar. Like a memory she couldn’t quite place, tugging at the edge of her mind.

She forces herself to breathe slowly and steps back to the kitchen. If this day has rules, then panic probably isn’t one of them.

“Think,” she whispers.

The clock has moved once - 08:00 to 08:01. That meant time hasn’t been frozen. It has been… rationed. Released in drops.

She glances outside again.

The man in the street - his suspended foot has lowered, just barely. The cat’s tail has shifted midair, and the sparrow’s feathers flutter, as if a breeze has touched them. The world is advancing, but not evenly. Not naturally.

Like something is deciding when it can move.

Mila grabs her jacket and heads for the door. The hallway beyond is just as silent as her apartment, but not empty. Another neighbour stands halfway out of the elevator, the car keys dangling from frozen fingers, mouth slightly open in a word that will never finish. Or will finish in God knows how many minutes or hours.

“Hello,” Mila murmurs as she locks her door and heads out. She realizes the neighbour cannot hear her or respond, but the force of habit is stronger.

She tries to run down the stairs, but her knees feel heavy, as though the air itself resists her leaving. When she pushes open the building door, it doesn’t swing - it gives in, inch by inch, like opening something sealed.

Outside, the stillness wraps around her.

Up close, the frozen world is more detailed and seems even more wrong. Not like the Upside Down in her favourite show but that same eerie feeling...

A drop of water hangs in midair near the fountain between the church and the pharmacy where the shadow lurks, perfectly round, catching light that doesn’t shift. The bus is at the curve, standing frozen in time. Even the shadows look unfinished, stretched at angles that don’t match the unmoving sun.

Mila steps into the street.

The moment her foot touches the pavement, the clock in her pocket ticks.

08:02.

Her oldest neighbour’s foot lands.

Not fully. Just enough to touch the ground before stopping again.

Mila stops in her tracks.

“…So it’s me,” she says under her breath. “It moves when I move.”

Or when she acts.

Carefully, she takes another step.

Tick.

08:03.

The cat drops a few centimetres, still suspended, but closer to landing on the sparrow. Somewhere in the distance, a traffic light flickers between colours too quickly to settle on one.

Mila’s pulse quickens.

“Okay,” she says, louder now. “Okay, I can work with that.”

She takes another step.

Tick.

08:04.

And then -

Something moves that shouldn’t have.

Not a fraction. Not a slow release.

A full, deliberate motion.

Across the street, in the reflection of the pharmacy window, the figure steps forward.

Mila stops instantly.

Everything else freezes again.

But the reflection doesn’t.

It isn’t bound by the same rule.

It tilts its head, studying her, and this time there is no distortion, no blur. It is clearer now.

Too clear.

Mila’s breath catches.

It is her!

Not exactly. The same face, the same shape - but sharper somehow. Like a version of her, stripped of hesitation, its eyes steady in a way hers have never been.

“You figured it out quickly,” the reflection says.

Its voice doesn’t come from the street. It comes from everywhere - glass, metal, the thin sheen of water on the pavement.

Mila’s throat tightens. “You’re not me.”

The reflection smiles faintly. “I’m what you didn’t choose.”

A chill runs through her.

“No,” Mila says, shaking her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t have to,” it replies calmly. “This day doesn’t belong to sense.”

Mila glances at her phone.

08:04.

Not moving.

“Why is this happening?” she asks.

The reflection steps closer - though the real street between them remains untouched. It is like watching someone walk inside a different layer of reality, one that only overlaps in surfaces.

“Because there are too many versions of you,” it says. “Too many almosts. Almost left. Almost stayed. Almost spoke. Almost loved. Almost had kids. Almost died. Almost married. Almost changed jobs. Almost moved far away. They don’t disappear, Mila. They accumulate.”

Mila feels something twist painfully in her chest.

“And April 31?” she asks quietly.

“A correction,” the reflection says. “A space that doesn’t belong to the calendar… so it can belong to everything else that hasn't happened.”

The silence that follows presses in on her.

“So what,” Mila says slowly, “this is where all the what ifs go?”

The reflection’s eyes soften, just a fraction.

“Yes.”

Mila swallows. “And you?”

“I’m one of them.”

A memory flickers in her mind - standing at an airport years ago, one-way ticket in her hand, heart racing… and then not boarding. Staying. Choosing the safer path. The smaller one. The one stifling her for years, making her sick literally and metaphorically.

“You left,” Mila says.

The reflection nods.

“I did.”

For a moment, neither of them speaks.

Then Mila straightens slightly. “And what happens now?”

The reflection studies her carefully.

“That depends,” it says. “Do you want this day to end…”

It takes another step forward, its gaze unwavering.

“…or do you want to see what your life will look like when you stop almost choosing?”

Mila’s mind is racing. The question settles into her like something heavy and irreversible.

Do you want this day to end… or do you want to see what your life will look like when you stop almost choosing?

So many sleepless nights spent wondering, so many days daydreaming of what could have been.

She looks around at the suspended world – the always-the-same street, the unmoving shadows, the breath caught in every chest but hers. It's clear now - it is a question waiting for her answer.

Mila exhales slowly. “If I choose… there’s no going back, is there?”

The reflection doesn’t hesitate. “No.”

“Then what happens to… this me?”

The other Mila tilts her head slightly. “You don’t disappear. You become the version that has made a choice. Finally.”

It looks at her, feeling all her unspoken fears and regrets.

“Maybe even much happier that you could ever be by staying here”, it adds.

Mila lets out a quiet, almost disbelieving laugh. “That sounds like disappearing.”

“It feels like it,” the reflection said gently. “But it isn’t.. You may become your most vibrant, visible self yet.”

Silence stretches between them.

Mila thinks of all the almosts.

Almost leaving.

Almost being happy.

Almost dying.

Almost living. Living the life about which she has dreamt of so much it pains her when she only has a fleeting thought about it.

All the versions of herself that have stood at the edge of something and stepped back.

Her chest expands with relief. She realizes she has always needed a push, someone, something, to push her forward and make her choose to be happy.

“I’m tired,” she says softly. “Of almost.”

The reflection’s expression changes - something like approval, but warmer. Softer.

“Then don’t,” it says.

Mila closes her eyes.

And for a moment, she is back there – at the airport. The memory sharpens, no longer distant or faded. She could hear the hum of the engines, the roar in the skies above, feel the weight of the passport in her hand, the pull of a life waiting somewhere else, the life she wanted and deserved to have but was too afraid to embrace the unknown.

In the memory, she hesitated.

In the memory, she stayed.

But this isn’t just memory anymore.

April 31 doesn’t belong to what has happened.

It belongs to what hasn’t.

Mila opens her eyes.

“Show me,” she says.

The reflection smiles - not eerily this time, but fully. Like something finally aligning.

It reaches out.

Not through the glass, but into it.

The surface of the shop window ripples, like water touched by wind.

Mila hesitates - just for a second.

Then she steps forward.

The moment her fingers touch the glass, the world breaks.

The frozen street dissolves into motion, but not the same one as before. Faster. Brighter. Louder. Time doesn’t tick - it surges.

Mila is no longer standing in the street.

She is running from the cab to the airport building.

The airport. A real one. Crowded, alive, overwhelming. Voices overlapping, footsteps echoing, the sharp scent of metal and movement in the air.

Her heart is pounding - but not with anxiety but with anticipation.

With urgency.

She looks down.

A passport in her hand with a boarding pass and a ticket inside.

The same one.

Only now, her grip is firm.

Her suitcase by her side, along with her laptop bag and her purse.

A voice calls out - final boarding.

Mila doesn’t think.

Doesn’t calculate.

Doesn’t almost.

She runs. First to the self-service baggage drop-off counter. Nobody's there, she is done within a minute.

Through the crowd, past hesitation, past the versions of herself that would have slowed her down, that would have found a reason to stop.

She runs to the gate, runs like her old boring life is chasing her and reaches the gate just as the doors begin to close.

For a split second, there it is - that old instinct. The pause. The doubt.

Is this right?

She shakes her head to shake off that feeling, that lull of false security. She steps inside and lets out a long sigh.

The doors shut behind her with a solid, irreversible sound.

The flight attendant greets her, takes her boarding pass, shows her to her seat and helps her with her laptop bag.

Mila sits down there, catching her breath, her heart racing - and for the first time, it doesn’t feel like something is missing.

It feels like something has begun.

Outside the window, the city blurs into motion. Not frozen anymore or waiting.

Alive.

Mila looks through the window as the plane takes off.

She knows she will never come back.

“Finally,” she whispers.

No echoes. No reflections answering back.

Just her.

The plane takes off, carrying her into a life she hasn’t rehearsed, hasn’t overthought, hasn’t almost lived.

And somewhere - far outside the calendar, beyond days that counted and days that didn’t - April 31 folds in on itself and disappears, taking all the almosts and whatifs with it.