GROUNDHOG DAY mixed with SIXTEEN CANDLES and a splash of DOCTOR WHO. A boy forever reincarnated as himself meets his soulmate for the 200th time, but can she solve the puzzle and break the curse to make herself his last?
*****
Martha Beckett's life...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Irasshaimase!" the chefs greeted as Martha and James entered.
"Ojama shimasu," James replied. They had returned to the scene of their first date, but asked for a table instead of the bar. They sat and filled out the order form – three selections apiece, all of which they would share.
Martha stared at James and waited for him to speak. James stared back. She raised her eyebrows. He batted his eyelashes. She sighed and asked, "Okay, so is it just alcohol? Or are you immune to other drugs?"
The first plates of sushi arrived. James said, "Every last one of them – stimulants, depressants, cannabinoids, opioids, hallucinogens..."
Martha picked up a yellowtail and said, "Got a favorite?"
"Drug?" He poured soy sauce into his dish and scrunched his mouth to the side in thought. "Marijuana, I guess? Nice payoff, no withdrawal. But if you're talking about the high," he dabbed a chunk of wasabi in the dish and began to mix it into the soy sauce, "nothing beats heroin."
He continued to stir the sauce but his eyes glazed as his mind appeared to leave the restaurant.
"So... you were like, what, a junkie or something?" she asked, half joking.
"And then some," he said as he guided a tuna roll into his mouth. His affect had dimmed and his eyes stayed on the dish in front of him. Martha tried to think of a new topic – sports, school, the party... but before she came to it, he said, "I think it's important that you know... There was a stretch starting somewhere around my twentieth life that was very dark for me..." He paused and brought his eyes back to her. "After the confusion of the first few lives, I got used to the gout and started to enjoy all that the gout afforded me: the skills I could learn, my partial clairvoyance, the money, the fame... But then it began to feel pointless. Because no matter what I did – good, bad, big, small – everything always reset. And so, I slipped into nihilism. Not the fun, Sex Pistols kind, but the real thing. But it didn't start as nihilism. I think, at first, I wanted to see if I could be sent to hell."
He set down his chopsticks and took a drink of his ice water. Martha set hers down as well. Their date had taken a left. She had no idea where he was going with this and struggled to read him. He was morose but matter of fact; a strange mix of shame and resignation. If this was a confession, it was a peculiar one. Probably not the first time he's made it to me.
Calm and deliberate, he continued, "So I started doing horrible things. I hurt people. I hurt bad people. I hurt good people. I didn't discriminate. I made it random. I wanted to provoke – God, the devil, whoever – to show me that morality existed, that there was some form of order, any kind of meaning to my choices – to my existence. And..."
He stopped and smiled politely – sadly. His chest rose as he took a deep, slow breath. Finally he said, "And I received no answer. So I surrendered. Some lives I spent catatonic. Others I spent punishing people for... believing, I guess. If I wasn't in prison or a psych hospital, I was homeless. And it was a long time before I came back. "
