Chapter 4: A Wrong Time

4
A Wrong Time

Everyone has, at least once in their life, woken up in morning and forgotten what day it is.  Then look at their calendar and realize it’s not actually Friday, October 21^st, but Tuesday, October 25^th.  Then laugh and say, “Of course!  Yesterday was Monday.  It’s all come back to me.” 

But what if it doesn’t come back to me?  What if I’m staring at my calendar which states that today’s date is Tuesday, October 25th, but the last three days never happened?

I close my eyes.  I open them again.  I push my glasses farther up my nose, the calendar page expands slightly.  A red sharpie slash across a square indicates that that day is over.  Some have more than one slash across one square.  The worse the day, the heavier the marks.  There are three new slashes where there shouldn’t be.  Yesterday was Friday.  Not Monday.
I stagger to my desk, head throbbing like an alarm blaring, “GET MORE SLEEP.  GET MORE SLEEP.”
I twist my lamp-switch, a ‘click,’ and orange light illuminates the collage of lined paper, scared with bits and pieces of bad poetry, ones from 10:00 PM 2:00 AM, and 3:00 AM.  Some crushed into wads and impaled with pencils.  I take the conquering page on the top, the poem that finally won my satisfaction.  The date in the corner reads, “October 21^st.”  So, it is Saturday.  I set the page down, grabbing my phone from behind the lamp.  The screen reads in bold letters: 8:54 AM.

And underneath:  Tuesday, October 25^th.

If phones are anything like me, then they also have the ability to lie well.

I toss the phone on the mound of paper and they crinkle like leaves.  I cross my room, the cement basement floor cold against my bare feet, turning my head to dodge the bare light-bulb that hangs from a ceiling, far too low for one my height.  With a foot I sweep aside the stiff magazines from my closet, pull open the door, and grab my black hoodie from the top of the laundry pile, pulling it over my head.  I take the magazines, piling them back on the shelf beside the record player.  This basement is only partially my own due to my Mom’s antique collection.  Unless I consider myself one of her “Cool thrift store findings.”  Which isn’t a complete lie.

.    .    .

“Mom?”

Silence.  A bowl sits on the counter with remnants of milk and cereal flakes, and beside it, Mom’s “Best Galaxy Costumes” book splayed face down.  I glance in the dark living room.  The couch; empty.  The TV screen; black.  If this were a Saturday morning, Mom would be watching her Sci-fi.  Nothing would possess her to eat cereal on a Saturday morning, or be rushed enough to leave her bowl on the table, or her Sci-fi cosplay book open for me to find.

I pull the curtain cord, the grey morning light filters into the dining room, and I turn to mom’s Star Wars calendar on the other side of the wall, covered in notes and X’s across the days.  The last X ends on the 25^th.  Tuesday.
What happened to the 22^nd, 23^rd and 24^th?