Timestamps in Reverse
Marcus opened his eyes at 6:47 AM, which was already wrong.
He always woke at 6:30. Always. His internal clock was precise enough that he rarely needed an alarm. But this morning, seventeen minutes had somehow vanished, and he felt more rested than he should have after a night of anxious half-sleep.
The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. Sarah should have been in the kitchen by now, the coffee maker gurgling its morning song. Instead, he heard nothing but the peculiar silence of a world holding its breath.
He swung his legs out of bed and immediately noticed the second wrong thing: his feet landed in his slippers perfectly, as if they'd been positioned there. But he distinctly remembered kicking them off haphazardly the night before, watching them skitter under the bed.
"Sarah?" he called.
No answer.
Marcus pulled on his robe and walked toward the kitchen. The apartment felt different—not threatening, but off, like a photograph taken from a slightly wrong angle. The morning light through the windows seemed to be dimming rather than brightening. He checked his watch: 6:46 AM.
Wait.
6:46.
He'd looked at his phone when he woke up. It had said 6:47. He checked his phone again. 6:45 AM.
His heart began to race. Malfunctioning devices, he told himself. Some kind of electromagnetic pulse, maybe. Solar flare. He'd read about those. But even as he thought it, he knew that didn't explain the light outside growing softer instead of stronger.
He found Sarah in the living room, standing at the window, perfectly still. Her back was to him, her coffee mug held at chest level. Steam was descending into the cup.
"Sarah?"
She didn't respond. He walked around to face her and felt his stomach drop. Her eyes were open, but they weren't seeing him. She was staring through him, through everything, and as he watched, her lips moved—but backward. The expression on her face was un-forming, going from slight concern to neutral to the ghost of a smile.
She took a step backward. Then another. Moving in reverse, like a film playing the wrong direction.
Marcus reached out and touched her arm. Her skin was warm, her pulse steady beneath his fingers, but she didn't react. She just kept moving backward, step by step, until she was in the kitchen. He followed, unable to look away, as she placed her mug on the counter. Coffee flowed up from the cup, an impossible fountain, streaming back into the coffee maker.
"What the hell is happening?"
He ran to the window. Outside, on the street below, a man was walking backward down the sidewalk. A car drove in reverse down the street, its taillights glowing red. A jogger ran past, their ponytail bouncing, but they were running backward, facing where they'd been rather than where they were going.
Everyone. Everything. Moving in reverse.
Except him.
Marcus grabbed his phone with shaking hands. 6:41 AM. Five minutes earlier than when he'd first woken up. No—five minutes later in reverse. He was moving forward through time, but the rest of the world was rewinding.
He tried Sarah's shoulder again, shaking her gently, then harder. "Sarah! Sarah, can you hear me?" Nothing. She was at the refrigerator now, un-pouring orange juice from a glass back into the carton.
Think. He had to think. This was impossible, but it was happening. He checked his phone again: 6:38 AM. No, wait. The numbers were going down, but from his perspective, he was experiencing time normally. That meant...
His mind raced through the implications. If everyone else was moving backward through their day, and he was the only one moving forward, then they'd started this reversal at some point. Probably at midnight, when one day became another. Which meant they were all moving from 11:59 PM back toward midnight again.
And him? He was moving forward from 6:47 AM—or whenever he'd actually woken up. If he was moving forward and they were moving backward, he'd eventually catch up to them. He'd reach midnight from his side, and they'd reach midnight from theirs.
What would happen then?
The thought sent ice through his veins. He had no reason to think he'd cease to exist, but he had no reason to think he wouldn't, either. And something about waking up outside of time, being the only thing moving correctly in a reversed world—that suggested this wasn't natural. This was a glitch. An error. And errors got corrected.
He had until midnight. Roughly seventeen hours. Seventeen hours to figure out what had gone wrong and how to fix it.
Marcus dressed quickly, pulling on jeans and a sweater while Sarah un-dressed in the bathroom, her morning routine playing out in reverse. It was deeply unsettling to watch. She un-brushed her teeth, toothpaste retreating into her mouth and back onto the brush. She un-showered, water flowing up from the drain to the showerhead, steam gathering rather than dissipating.
He had to leave. He couldn't think here, watching his girlfriend move through her morning backward like a puppet on strings.
Outside was worse.
The city was a symphony in reverse. Cars drove backward through intersections, their drivers' heads turned to look behind them even as they moved in that direction. People walked backward down sidewalks, their conversations happening in reverse—not just the words, but the sounds themselves, strange reversed phonemes that hurt to hear.
A pigeon flew upward toward a building, landing on a ledge, then un-flying backward to another ledge, all while facing forward. The sight made Marcus dizzy.
He tried to interact with people. He grabbed a man by the shoulders, shouted in his face. The man didn't react, just kept walking backward, phasing through Marcus's grip as if he were the ghost. Marcus tried pushing a woman who was about to back into a mailbox—his hands went through her.
He wasn't just moving forward in time. He was separated from it entirely. A ghost in a world that had already happened and was now un-happening around him.
The streets grew more crowded as the morning rush hour un-happened. People were returning from work, backing into their apartment buildings, un-starting their days. Marcus checked his phone: 6:15 AM. He'd been outside for what felt like fifteen minutes, but the clock had moved backward half an hour.
Time was relative. He was experiencing it normally, but the timestamps didn't match. For every minute he lived forward, how many were passing backward for everyone else?
He needed information. He needed to understand what had happened. His apartment was out—too painful to watch Sarah. But maybe there were clues somewhere. Places where the reversal might have started, or things that might explain it.
The library. The thought came suddenly. If this had happened before, if there were records or theories or anything that might help, the library would have it. And it was public, well-lit. Less lonely than wandering the streets watching humanity un-live their lives.
Marcus started walking. Or tried to. The crowds were thick now, people backing through the streets in the un-morning commute. He could move through them, but it was disorienting, bodies flickering around him like he was walking through projections.
The library appeared ahead, and Marcus felt a surge of hope. But as he approached, he saw people backing out of it, the doors opening and closing in reverse. The lights inside were dimming. It was un-opening for the day.
"No, no, no." He ran forward, reaching for the door, but his hand passed through it. He couldn't interact with anything in the reversed world. He could see it, hear it, but not touch it.
He stepped back, breathing hard. His phone showed 5:47 AM. An hour had passed. No—un-passed. Whatever was happening, it was accelerating from his perspective, or he was accelerating through it.
Think. What could he interact with? He'd dressed himself, so his clothes were real. His phone worked. His body was solid. Anything that existed outside the timestamp reversal...
His apartment. His things. The world as it existed in his personal timeline.
Marcus turned and ran back the way he'd come, dodging through the backward-moving crowds. He burst into his building, took the stairs two at a time, and crashed through his apartment door.
Sarah was in bed now, un-waking up. It was terrible to see, her consciousness seeming to drain away as she un-opened her eyes and settled into sleep.
But Marcus wasn't looking at her. He was tearing through his desk drawers, pulling out notebooks, old planners, anything with his handwriting. If he'd written something about today—about yesterday, from the reversed world's perspective—it might still exist. It might be real.
He found his journal from three months ago. Flipped through it. Normal entries, nothing unusual. But then, near the end, a page he didn't remember writing.
The handwriting was his, but messier, more frantic:
"If you're reading this, it worked. You're unstuck. You have one day to fix it. The reversal starts at midnight—YOUR midnight, not theirs. You'll wake up after it begins. Everyone else will be moving backward from their midnight to yours. When the two midnights meet, the loop closes. You'll either fix it or you'll be trapped in the moment forever, or you'll cease to exist. I don't know which. But I know why it's happening.
You made a choice yesterday. You'll know which one. The universe is giving you a chance to un-make it. Find the moment. Find yourself in the reversed timeline. Stop yourself from making that choice.
You have until midnight. The closer you get, the faster time will move. You'll feel it accelerating. That's your warning. That's your countdown.
I'm sorry I can't be more specific. I wrote this before I un-wrote it, and the details are already fading. But you'll know. When you see it, you'll know.
Good luck. Fix this. —M"
Marcus's hands were shaking. He'd written this. Would write this. Had written it in a future that was now the past, in a timeline that was reversing. His head hurt trying to understand it.
A choice. What choice had he made yesterday?
He thought back. Yesterday was Sunday. He'd slept late. Had breakfast with Sarah. They'd talked about... God, what had they talked about? The mundane details were already slipping away, unimportant in the face of the impossible situation he was in.
Wait.
The fight. They'd had a fight. Not a big one, but tense. Sarah had asked him about Thanksgiving, whether they were going to visit her parents or his. He'd said something dismissive. She'd gotten quiet. And then...
Then what?
Marcus pressed his palms to his temples. There was something there, something important, but it was like trying to remember a dream. The harder he grasped for it, the more it slipped away.
His phone buzzed. 5:15 AM. Another half hour gone backward. He looked at Sarah, now deep in sleep, her face peaceful. Whatever happened next, he couldn't let anything happen to her.
He had to find himself in the reversed timeline. Had to see what he'd done, what choice he'd made that had broken time itself.
Marcus left the apartment again. Outside, the world was darker now. The sun was un-rising, light draining from the sky. People were backing through their early morning routines, un-waking, un-dreaming. Soon it would be night again, the previous night, and somewhere in that darkness was the moment everything had gone wrong.
He walked through the streets, watching the city reverse around him. A restaurant un-served dinner to its late-night customers. A bar un-closed, lights flickering on, people backing in through the door to un-drink their drinks and un-tell their stories.
And then he saw it. Saw himself.
He was standing outside an electronics store, looking at TVs through the window. The timestamp on the store's display read 9:47 PM. Marcus remembered this. Last night, he'd gone for a walk after the fight with Sarah. Needed to clear his head. He'd stopped at this store, watched the news for a few minutes.
Marcus moved closer, watching his reversed self. The other Marcus was standing perfectly still, facing the TVs, but his expression was wrong. Not blank like everyone else, but... concentrated. Like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
As Marcus watched, his other self reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Moved backward a few steps. Looked at the phone, then at the TVs, then back at the phone. And then, in one smooth motion that looked almost natural even in reverse, the other Marcus typed something. Looked at it. And pressed delete, the words un-appearing.
What had he been typing? To whom?
Marcus tried to remember. He'd been standing here, watching the news. There'd been a story about... about climate change. No, that wasn't it. Political corruption. A scandal. Someone had been caught doing something terrible, and Marcus had been angry about it, angry enough to...
To do what?
He watched his reversed self pocket the phone and turn away from the store, walking backward down the street. Marcus followed, his heart pounding. This was it. This was the moment. He could feel it.
His other self walked backward for two blocks, then stopped at a corner. Pulled out the phone again. Looked at it for a long moment. And then, with sudden determination, typed something and hit send, the action reversing so that the sent message became an unsent draft, became nothing.
But Marcus remembered now. Remembered what he'd sent.
A text to his brother. His brother who he hadn't spoken to in five years, not since their father's funeral, not since the fight they'd had about the will and the house and all the petty grievances that had seemed so important at the time.
The text had said: "I'm sorry. I should have called years ago. I want to fix this. Can we talk?"
And his brother had responded. Almost immediately. Had said: "Yes. God, yes. I've been waiting for you to reach out. Call me tomorrow?"
Marcus had stared at that message for ten minutes. Then he'd deleted both texts. Told himself it was too late, that five years was too long, that his pride was more important than his brother.
And then he'd gone home. Gone to bed. Woken up in a world running backward.
"Oh God," Marcus whispered.
The universe was giving him a second chance. A literal, temporal second chance. The reversal would take everyone and everything back to midnight, back to the moment before he'd made the choice to delete those texts, to delete the possibility of reconciliation. And he was moving forward through it so he could find this moment, so he could see what he'd done and undo it.
But how? He couldn't touch anything in the reversed world. Couldn't interact with his past self. Couldn't send the text again because his phone existed in his timeline, not theirs.
Unless...
Marcus looked at his phone. 4:33 AM. Time was accelerating now, minutes passing like seconds. He could feel it, the world speeding up around him, people backing through their evenings faster and faster, the sun un-setting in fast-forward.
At midnight, both timelines would meet. His forward-moving present would collide with the backward-moving past. And in that moment, maybe—just maybe—he could interact with the world again. Could reach across the divide and stop his past self from making the wrong choice.
He had to be there. Had to be at that exact street corner at exactly midnight, ready to intervene.
Marcus ran. The world was a blur now, days reversing in fast-motion. He saw Sarah backing through their day, un-having the fight, un-making breakfast, un-waking up. He saw himself backing into the apartment, un-going to bed, un-checking his phone one last time before sleep.
The streets were rivers of backward motion, people flowing in reverse through their Sunday evening. Marcus pushed through them, a salmon swimming upstream through time itself.
He reached the corner. 11:47 PM. The reversed timeline was approaching midnight, and he was too. He could feel both midnights getting closer, like two magnets drawing together.
11:52 PM.
His past self appeared, walking forward now from Marcus's perspective, which meant walking backward in the reversed timeline. Coming toward this corner, phone in hand, about to make the choice.
11:56 PM.
Marcus positioned himself exactly where his past self would stand. He could see it now, could see the timeline converging. The world was flickering, reality stuttering between forward and backward, trying to reconcile the impossible contradiction of his existence.
11:58 PM.
His past self was steps away. Marcus reached out his hand, even though he knew it would pass through. Had to try. Had to—
11:59 PM.
The world stopped.
Not slowed. Not paused. Stopped completely. Marcus hung in a frozen moment, his hand extended, his past self frozen mid-step, phone half-raised. The entire universe held its breath.
And then Marcus felt it. Felt himself splitting, or merging, or both at once. He was in two places, two times, two versions of the same moment. He was reaching forward and standing still. He was the ghost and the living. He was the future trying to fix the past.
His hand—both hands, all hands—touched the phone. Felt it. Solid and real and present.
The screen showed the draft text: "I'm sorry. I should have called years ago. I want to fix this. Can we talk?"
Two fingers hovered over the delete button. His fingers. Past fingers. Present fingers. Future fingers that remembered deleting, that had lived through the consequence, that knew what would happen if he pressed it.
He didn't press it.
Instead, he—they—moved to the send button. Pressed it. Watched the message fly away into the digital ether, irreversible and true.
The response came instantly, the same response: "Yes. God, yes. I've been waiting for you to reach out. Call me tomorrow?"
And Marcus—all versions of Marcus—smiled. Typed back: "I will. I promise."
12:00 AM.
The world lurched. Time shuddered, found its footing, began to move forward again. Properly forward. Everyone moving in the right direction, living into the future instead of backing into the past.
Marcus blinked. He was standing on the corner, phone in his hand, his brother's text glowing on the screen. Had he just sent that? He felt strange, like he'd just woken from a dream, but also like he'd been awake for days.
His phone showed Monday, 12:01 AM.
He looked around. People were walking normally. Cars were driving forward. The world was moving the way it should.
And he remembered. All of it. The reversal. The race against time. The moment when everything had hung in the balance.
The journal entry he would write. Had written. Would write again, just in case.
Marcus looked down at his phone, at his brother's message. At his own promise: I will. I promise.
He started walking home. Sarah would be asleep. Tomorrow—today—he'd apologize for the fight. He'd tell her about the texts, about reaching out to his brother. He wouldn't tell her about the rest. How could he? She'd think he was crazy.
But as he walked through the cool November night, he pulled out his journal. Found a blank page. And began to write.
"If you're reading this, it worked. You're unstuck. You have one day to fix it..."
Just in case. Just in case he ever needed to remember that second chances were real, that time could bend, that the universe sometimes gave you the opportunity to undo your regrets.
Just in case he ever needed to be reminded that some choices mattered more than pride.
Marcus walked home through the forward-moving world, his brother's text saved on his phone, his promise made and waiting to be kept. And above him, the stars wheeled through the sky in their proper direction, time flowing forward like a river, carrying him toward tomorrow.
He called his brother at 9 AM. They talked for two hours. They cried. They laughed. They agreed to meet for Thanksgiving.
And Marcus never told anyone about the day the world ran backward, about the seventeen hours he'd spent as the only thing moving correctly through time. He just held Sarah a little tighter, answered his brother's calls a little faster, and lived each day forward, grateful for the chance to make different choices.
The journal entry remained in his desk drawer, a message from a timeline that no longer existed, or had never existed, or would exist again if he ever forgot the lesson.
Some nights, when he couldn't sleep, he'd take it out and read it. Remember the feeling of time running backward, of racing toward midnight, of reaching across the divide between past and present.
And he'd look at his phone, at the thread of messages with his brother, each one a small choice to connect rather than disconnect, to forgive rather than forget.
Time only moved in one direction. But sometimes, if you were lucky, you got to see where the other direction led. Got to see what you'd lose if you made the wrong choice.
Marcus had seen it. Had lived it. And he never wanted to see it again.
So he moved forward, one choice at a time, one text at a time, one tomorrow at a time.
The world kept turning. The clock kept ticking forward.
And Marcus kept the promise he'd made to himself, at midnight, when all the hours converged and time gave him one chance to get it right.
Post a Comment