Chapter 2 Noelle
2 Noelle
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Why do I hear my alarm? It’s Saturday.
Annoyed, I turn it off and curl up under the covers, but half an hour later, I’m still awake. I climb out of bed with a sigh, put on some clothes, and turn on the coffeemaker. As I’m waiting for my caffeine, I pick up my phone and pull up Wordle. I use my usual starting word—I’m a creature of habit—and just like yesterday, I get one green letter and one yellow. I do the same second word.
Huh, that’s odd.
For my third word, I do “campy,” like I did yesterday. Three green letters. Again. Could it be…?
I type h-a-p-p-y , and sure enough, it’s the word.
Hmm. The site must be broken, but just to be sure, I look at the calendar on my phone.
June 20.
What?
How is it June 20? That was yesterday. Something must be wrong with my phone. The date got messed up, and that’s why Wordle loaded the wrong word. Hurriedly, I turn on my work laptop at the kitchen table. I type in my PIN and look at the date in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
June 20.
Is someone playing a trick on me?
I open up the proposal, and it quickly becomes apparent that something is wrong here too. I know I have the latest version on my laptop, yet all the changes that Tyler and I made yesterday? They’ve vanished.
No, no, no.
I’ll have to redo it all.
I go to my inbox. The email I got early yesterday morning isn’t…
Oh. There it is. It just came in.
I pour myself a mug of coffee. At least my coffeemaker is still working properly, and I have that delicious pandesal for breakfast. I remember setting it on the counter, right next to the fruit bowl. Except the fruit bowl contains three oranges when it should only have two, and the pandesal is nowhere to be found.
And that does it.
“Fuck!” I cry.
What the hell is going on? Nothing makes sense.
I call my parents.
“Noelle?” Mom says. “Is something wrong? It’s seven thirty in the morning.”
I ignore her question. “What day is it?”
“June twentieth.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Is—”
“Sorry, got to go.”
I end the call and cover my face with my hands. All the evidence points toward it being June 20 again, but how could that be possible? Am I losing it?
No. There must be an explanation. Maybe I just had a very vivid dream last night. I dreamed June 20 before it happened… and somehow, my subconscious even knew the answer to today’s Wordle.
Yes, that must be it. It was simply a vivid dream and an unlikely coincidence.
And since it’s actually Friday, I have to go to work.
I finish my coffee and cereal, then get changed and head to the office, where I have a sense of déjà vu all day. For example, I know at four twenty that Tyler is about to come over to my desk and tell me that the proposal is ready. Even before I read it, I know exactly what mistakes he’s made. And I know what Fernando will say as he heads to the door at six o’clock, while I’m furiously typing.
“Last one here again?”
“Just want to get this proposal finished,” I say.
“Don’t stay too late. It’s Friday, after all.”
It’s like my dream is becoming reality… or was it already reality?
“What day was yesterday?” I ask Fernando. I try to sound composed, even though I’m freaking out internally.
He tilts his head and gives me an odd look. I can’t blame him.
“Thursday,” he replies.
“The nineteenth?”
“Yes, Thursday, the nineteenth. Why?”
“Oh, the date on my calendar is messed up. Just wanted to check. Thanks.”
I finish the proposal and head out just after seven. I debate whether to go to the night market, eventually deciding that I should. I’m starving, and it’s on the way home.
The market is exactly as I remember. The crowds, the person in a Pocky box costume, the young couple with their satay sticks.
Goose bumps break out on my skin, despite the warm night. This is wrong. I seem to be reliving the same day, but nobody else thinks anything’s amiss. They’re all going on with their lives as though this is perfectly normal.
But one thing is different: the dumpling booth is nowhere to be found.
“Excuse me,” I say to the man at the next booth. “Was there a woman selling dumplings here earlier?”
“There’s a dumpling stand over there.” He points to the left.
“No, no. Was there one here ? With an older woman?”
“Uh, no. I’m the last one in this row.”
“But—”
I snap my mouth shut before I sound even more ridiculous, then open it again to order some noodles. I eat them standing up and consider the situation.
It must have something to do with those sketchy dumplings. They didn’t taste sketchy, and my stomach didn’t complain afterward. But the booth had no name, and there were no other customers.
Those dumplings must have had the power to send me back in time.
Don’t be silly, Noelle. That’s impossible.
I try to calm myself down by perusing the other offerings at the market. The pandesal was good, though, so I return to that booth and buy two. I sit down at the same bench as before, near the man and his son, and bite into my food. It’s just as delicious as it was the first time. Once I’ve finished, I consider eating the other one. After all, there’s no guarantee I’ll actually get to eat it if I bring it home. Because what if this happens again, and when I wake up tomorrow, all evidence of today has been removed?
At the thought of having to fix the proposal yet again, I feel exhausted to the bone. What the hell is happening? I don’t want to live this day again. I don’t want to stay late at the office again. I just can’t .
My hand clenches around a paper napkin. Around me, people are laughing, smiling, enjoying some food on a warm summer’s night. I feel removed from it all, sitting here alone and freaking out. It’s ironic, perhaps, that repeating the day is disrupting my routine, but there it is.
A tear leaks out of my eye, and I wipe it away.
“Hey.”
I look up. There’s an East Asian man crouched on the ground, about a meter away from me. He has a concerned smile on his face and a tray of food in his hand.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, because I think I’m trapped in a time loop isn’t the sort of thing you can say to a stranger. At least, not without them concluding you’re in even worse shape than they initially feared.
The stranger is about my age. He’s dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He doesn’t look as if the duct tape holding him together has been ripped off; he doesn’t look as if he’s freaking out because the day is repeating itself. I seem to be the only one with that problem.
Though since I didn’t eat the dumplings today, maybe tomorrow actually will be June 21. The fact that the booth isn’t here suggests that the dumplings did, indeed, have something to do with my weird predicament. It seems like the most logical conclusion, even if it’s utterly preposterous.
I imagine how I must look to him. Dark brown hair that reaches below my shoulders. Ambiguously Asian features—I have been mistaken for a wide variety of ethnicities over the years. Slightly red eyes, thanks to the crying. An unremarkable thirty-two-year-old woman, despite the remarkable, terrifying thing that seems to be happening to me.
“Is there anything I can get for you?” he asks.
I shake my head, and he hesitates before standing up and walking away.
When I get home, I put the ube halaya pandesal in a container, make sure my alarm isn’t on, and change into my blue plaid pajama shorts—the last two nights, I wore my red ones. I’m not sure I’ll be able to fall asleep, worried as I am, but eventually, I do.
Once again, I wake up to my alarm.
And once again, I’m wearing red plaid shorts.
Shit.