Gianna Gonzalez, “Don’t Look At Our Eyes!”
Two men walk into a bar. This is, of course, the setup to a joke. The two of them know each other very well, or they think they do. Maybe they don’t know each other at all. One of them has seen the other die a dozen times. The first has not thought of the second in the years between the accident that changed both their lives, and the moment they incidentally showed up in the same spot.
The accident. Not even an accident, really. But when you’re an athlete, one bad twist is all it takes to destroy your life. The second man has thought of the first, has imagined some convoluted reunion, a million times since it happened.
The first man experiences these few minutes again and again. His best time so far is half an hour. He replays them, unintentionally, running out the door just a second too late to stop the car from striking his old friend. He walks back in the door. Two men walk into a bar. It’s 6:25 again.
The second man’s fingers tighten around his shot glass. The first man orders a root beer. He leans against the bar elbows-first, not taking a stool beside the second. Then, he remembers that this may be the last chance he will ever have, and he sits.
By now, the first man already knows what the second’s issue is. It’s an envy problem. It’s the vitriol of a man who thinks that with one step back, he could change his past and save his future. Maybe if it was the second man in the time loop, he would kill the first. Maybe he would apologize and hope that that fixed something. Maybe he would just resent that he could not leave the bar, though by the number of shots he’s ordered, maybe he wouldn’t recognize that anything was different.
The first man wonders if God is punishing him. The second gets drunk. Eventually, after the first man has lost about 10 minutes trying to think of what to say, the second speaks.
“Why’d you do it?”
“Hm?”
“I was already less athletic than you. You had the scholarship. There was no reason to- you never explained it.”
Maybe God wasn’t punishing him, the first man thought. Maybe things just happened sometimes, and there wasn’t a reason for the time loop or a solution to it. It’s possible, he considered, if time loops were on the table, that some power of fate had decided the second man would die tonight. He couldn’t help but want to stop it, though. It would have been fine if he’d just heard the news from a mutual friend, but as long as there was a chance he could stop it, wasn’t he morally obligated to?
“You’ve had plenty of time to do something else with your life,” the first man finally decides to say. It was true. The accident shouldn’t have been the end of anything for anybody. And maybe, if the second had been talented in anything but football, he wouldn’t be here replaying the same moment, again and again.
The second man takes another drink. “True.”
The first man slams down the rest of his root beer, like it could provide him any of the fuzzy courage of alcohol. It would be so easy to tell the old burnout to screw off , that he never would have gone pro and what he did or didn’t do wasn’t important, but it seemed cruel for a man who was about to die. Plus, it cut down on the time he had left to live. The sooner the argument started, the sooner he ran out into the street.
Why had he done it? It was stupid. It could’ve gotten him suspended. He was a dumb highschooler, who let anger get the better of him. During practice one day, the second man had tackled the first. The first man knew he was better than that. Better than him. He lashed out, fought back, won. The second man was down. It was just one stomp. Just putting his weight on the opponent. A single foul, to feel like he’d won back… something. He landed on the second man’s knee, with full force. Thank goodness he was the star quarterback with an athletic scholarship. Thank goodness it was an accident. He hadn’t thought about it in years.
“It wasn’t your fault,” the second man continued. “You couldn’t have known how bad it would hurt me.”
“Let me think, for Christ’s sake.”
The second man nods. The first man, in all his times repeating the same set of minutes, had never gotten this far.
“I just want to know what I did. To deserve what I got.”
“Nothing. You didn’t do anything, man. The world’s unfair. Don’t dwell on the past so much.”
The two of them both seemed to hold their breath, waiting. The second man rubbed the first the wrong way. He always had. Maybe it was because he had believed in justice, karma, and fate, while being unlucky and untalented. If the first had been in that position, he would simply not form a worldview around deserving his unhappy lot.
“The world? The world didn’t shatter my knee. That was your choice.”
“Do you seriously want me to apologize? I’m just gonna say it. You never would’ve gone pro.”
The second man stood without a word and walked towards the door, moving in something between a limp and a drunken sway. The first couldn’t help but still think of this as a victory as he followed. Thirty-five minutes was a new record.
He stood in the doorway, almost fondly watching the second man stagger toward the busy access road. The speed limit was 50. He didn’t stand a chance, as usual. Before he stepped off the curb, though, he did something he’d never done before. He turned around, and looked the first man in the eye.
“Peter,” he said, “I played for the team.”
Just like every other time, the second man tripped over his own feet and fell. Peter didn’t even bother trying to help him anymore. He never made it in time. When it was over, he went back into the bar. It should be 6:25 again any second now. Usually, the second man brushed past right as Peter walked in. And yet, he wasn’t there.
Peter checked his watch. 6:52. It wasn’t changing back. There were no more chances. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, and numbly dialed 911.
