Monday evening

Bathed in golden sun, suburb for miles, white aircon units, rooted on every same old faded out houses windows, expel an atmospheric white noise, similar to teeth grinding under stress, that chokes all voices besides the arriving worker shuttle.

The tan mark on the chin emphases the routine of every day sun gaze burning the skin. The neck is locked in pain, torso straight, unable to look right or left, he moves like a Moaï statue, avoiding the armrests along the narrow aisle, towards the exit of the shuttle.

"See you tomorrow Starface!", says the driver, eyes locked on the road.

Starface grumbles on his way, "Told you many times. Stop. Just stop calling me like that".

"Yeah, yeah, tomorrow.", answers the driver with disregard.

The shuttle's engine starts abruptly, to squeal the tires in front of the next house, and repeats the process to the horizon.

In front of his door, he turns the golden handle and enters. The house comprises a long hallway, with a door on the left wall leading to the kitchen, another at the end to a bedroom containing a French window onto a garden, and the right wall invaded by small screens above a long counter at hand reach.

A yellowish paper note is pinned to the counter, with the swift handwritten words 'be right back'.

Upon reading the note, he starts grumbling.

"'be right back', right back. Yeah, but when? It started with more details, where she went, with who, or at which hours she will be back. Now all is undefined and infinite. I waited for you all my life, and now we are together, I keep waiting, like nothing never started."

He passes near the kitchen, at a glance sees the neat cleanliness of the untouched room, continues to the bedroom, undresses himself, throws the work clothes on the floor, and slowly lays down on the bed, rasping in pain on each head and back movements, while the drone sharply swallows the dirty laundry on the floor and disappears as fast as it appeared behind a hole in the wall.

Time passes, sun goes down, while he sweats profusely on the bed.

Door opens, the wife arrives exhausted, her orange skin burnt by the sun, the head spinning, she rushes to the bedroom like a kayak madly rushing down rapids, hits all the walls and goods on the way, and crashes on the bed.

"Sorry did i wake you up?", she giggles and sighs in pain as her burning skin rubs on the sweat-soaked bed.

"House! Change temperature to cold."

"Please! Don't change to cold, you know i work at IceIcy, I hate it when its cold."

"So you want me to burn alive?"

"No", he answers hesitantly, assembling his tough for a few seconds, "But you know, we don't see each other as often, nor eats together that much, maybe we should—"

"You are wrong. Let me sleep. We saw it all. Again, and again, and again... Please... Let me sleep."

With his tongue tied, he lets out a final grumbles. "I can let you sleep, but can't let you go."

Tuesday

Yet another scorching sun knocks on the window. A putrid smells engulfs his nose, while the ceiling reflects the blinking of his wife's smartwatch. Panicked, he sits up, oblivious to his back and neck, screams and swarms like a pathetic seal in his wife direction, to put his hand over her mouth. No breathing, she is dead in her night soil. In an attempt to keep his sanity, he tries to recall her by pressing his lips on hers, but a taste of cold iron surges, he retracts and touches his lips looking for blood but only find saliva. Approaching delicately her face, he opens her mouth and finds a golden key engraved with lyrical ornaments. Once he grabs the key, he is violently stricken, like hurled into a fever dream, walls warp and the key melts in his hand, he falls on the french window and fissures it, before getting on his knees. He tries to weep, but the coldness dries it all as the screens on the counter call him to work and the squeal of the shuttle's tires grows louder by the minute.

He quickly grabs a uniform from the wardrobe, passes the empty kitchen, looks a last time to his wife and reads the screens. A cheerful sound comes up with the following message:

"Deep condolence for your lost. A chapter of your life has ended, and you will be granted a bonus, so you can challenge new wonders. Since you are a bachelor, your are not eligible for this housing and have until Thursday to leave, and join the bachelors housing. Rejoice yourself for a new chapter, we, at IceIcy, we hope you find a new family. Your taxes, mails, invoices and deliveries will be automatically adjusted."

In his grumbling, "Trillion coins company, can't even play an appropriate emote sound for condolence, nor print my name, her name, in the message.". At the door, he reads the note a last time and repeats to himself "Be right back, be right back, be right back...". He closes behind him and boards the shuttle while a lacquered black car stops in front of his house and company employees in white clothes enter.

Tuesday

Wednesday

Monday

He wakes up in his bed, stunned by the sun coming through the intact french window, laying alone in the sweat-soaked bed.

The screens blink, calling him forth, he moves like a Moaï statue and reads the message:

"Since you are a bachelor, your are not eligible for this housing and have until Thursday to leave and join the bachelors housing. Rejoice yourself for a new chapter, we, at IceIcy, hope you find a new family. Your taxes, mails, invoices and deliveries will be automatically adjusted."

In his grumbling

"No... my wife! My wife!"

He sees the handwritten note on the counter.

"Be right back! Oh no, she didn't came back. I need to find her."

He leaves the house in hurry with his sleep garment and sandals.

Outside, an unfamiliar scene unfolds as the whole neighborhood wanders and wonders on the green grass on a Monday morning. He walks towards his left neighbor who oozes with his wife and his kid under the sunrise, stunned like people ripped from a fever dream.

"Hey, Hey! Have you seen my wife? She didn't come home last night."

The husband answers doubtfully.

"Last night? You mean Wednesday night?"

"Who cares, which night. Yesterday was yesterday. Have you seen her?"

"She was in our house a couple days ago. To tan under the sun all day."

"With you? What did you do with her?"

"Nothing neighbor, calm down."

"Don't tell me what to do! I will be always there for her, mark my words"

"Always there, yeah... Since kindergarten, everybody knew you felt on her. You were always here for her, here and there, there and here. So much that she couldn't even breath, every relationship she had, you prowled, like a hyena waiting for crumbs of affection. You think she loved you! You groomed her to ashes. Bet she left—"

"Where is my wife!", he says fiercely in front of the neighbor family just to be received with a chin punch, and falls on the grass moaning, "You are wrong, I love her, I waited for her—"

"I am sorry, I don't know where she is, and please... Don't involve my family in this. The situation is currently quite feverish as it is."

He gets up without grace, grabs his work clothes at the house, and passively waits for the shuttle.

Tuesday

Wednesday

Monday

Neighbor's wife wakes up.

"Darling, what day are we?"

"Huh, Monday... Again?"

"What's happening? Turn on the news!"

A voice echoes in the house, tells about a bizarre phenomenal happening all around the world, people disappearing and crime rising. People galvanize over anything, sowing seeds of darkness to reap crops of rampant madness.

He leaves the house, and sees the desperate neighbor door to door, talking to everyone, seeking his wife. As guilt sinks into his heart, with the overwhelming ignorance of the situation, he takes his bike and decides to go for a ride on the scorching sidewalk of the suburb, seeking... peace of mind.

On the road, he encounters a first group, brandishing panels of incoming end of the world and blooded knifes in front of a house giving off the smell of slaughterhouses.

"Death is the key! We have the key to paradise! Come lost lambs and enter the house of god, for your flesh is impure, we have the key to scatter the evil in your blood. If you don't trust us, come back on Monday and you will see the house of god clean of all sins."

He presses the pedals and avoids eye contact. Out of the corner of his eye, he contemplates a line of people waiting to be chopped off, and accelerates more than ever. A few miles later, he observes the shuttle and changes the sidewalk. On the way back he encounters another group, this time, throwing their smartwatches into a brazier.

"Death is the key! We are living in a simulation! Throw your smartwatch in the fire and die! The smartwatch is the link! If you keep it, you will be endlessly be summoned to this world and work endlessly until your mind break, rinse and repeat! Luckily the simulation bugged so we could see the truth, but nothing lasts forever! We must hurry and die, before they hotfix and close the last hurdle before our freedom."

Same scene, a queue of people waiting to throw their smartwatch, he accelerates to his home the fear crunching his stomach. On his way, he notices the neighbor still looking for his wife waiting in work clothes for the shuttle. He put away his bike, kisses his wife and kid inside the house, and commands them to not go outside nor open to anyone, and joins the neighbor standing with his own uniform.

They nods at each other, and turn left to observe the shuttle slowly arriving with each tire screech.

The shuttle stops in front of both men and suddenly the door of the right neighbor breaks and a vociferous mad man with a knife staggers, "My wife! Nooo! She killed herself. No more Monday! No more! I am done!", then stabs himself repeatedly in the neck, dying on the green, dyeing the grass.

The smartwatch blinks with a cheerful notification, "Your shift has been extended, and your pay increased in consequent. See you soon on IcyIce!". Numbed by the pain and the horror of the situation, he keeps his tunnel vision and boards the shuttle to work, all for his wife, for her.

Tuesday

Wednesday

Monday

The day starts with violent cries, and quickly fall into a deep silence, like thousands voices shutdown. But as memory and experience is kept, work is still done by the clock, better than ever.

Tuesday

Wednesday evening

Someone knocks at the door, it's the neighbor's kid.

"Hi, Have you find your wife?"

"No"

The kid fumbles on himself.

"She... She told me last time. She would invite me at the palace, how to use her golden key."

He holds the kid's shoulder

"What do you know of this golden key"

"I don't know, that why I asked. Everyone is talking about it, like a meta-, metapho-something one... But she had a real one. Maybe she is in the palace right now."

"Where is the door?"

"I don't know, she said she would invite me, so maybe in the house."

A voice resonates. The kid's father is glaring at the distance.

"Sorry I must go, tell me when you find the palace!"

"What's your name kid?"

"John!"

The kid rushes out to his father, and they go back into their house, letting the desperate single strangled into unanswered pleas.

He knows it, he has the key, he is the key, so for all Wednesday night, haunted by madness, he opens and closes the doors repeatedly, the door of the bedroom, the door of the wardrobe, the door of the french window, the door of the house, every doors until their frame broke, all while the neighborhood families by candlelight vigil wait in fear the reset, still he, alone, opens and closes doors, chopping aircon units white noise with blunt sounds.

Thursday morning

New day, new hopes, the neighborhood is partying, people are roaming outside, and by the corner of the eye, scrutinize the mess of a man.

All doors of his house are broken on the floor. His hands cover his head, sat on the grass against the wall, while the ac unit whooshes his hair, the clothes stuck to his skin, soaked in sweat, he waits for his wife and ears the sound of a car coming, the black lacquered car of the company. He stands up and sees two white clothed employees and a meek family of three whose faces express most joy than he received in years, in awe of the house, their perfectly arched smiles shoot arrows of disgust into his heart.

One of the employee addresses him, while the other takes care of the family.

"We are from IceIcy, you were supposed to vacant the place yesterday. What is this mess?"

"Where is my wife? She is not with you?"

"Come on. Mr, you signed a contract with us. You know the rules, please leave now."

"Where is my wife!" he answers with an angry tone, breaking the happy sentiment of the day.

Behind, the family jumps in fear while the employee reassures them, all under the judging glare of the neighborhood.

"I won't leave this house without my wife!", he stabs himself, one time, two times, the curtain falls on the third, gravity releases all masses, world lights bends, the day is reset.

Monday

A violent cry of fear and realization engulfs the neighborhood.

"We must stop him", says the neighbor in his bed, "end this madness".

He sits on his bed, put on his sandals, and says to his wife.

"I will be right—"

Monday

Ceaseless violent cries in the background.

"What?!"

The neighbor jumps out of bed, hurts himself on the door frame, ran towards the door, hand on the handle...

Monday

Monday

Monday

As the days reset, neighbor swiftness increases, news go and by, squeal tires and car crashes, alls race as pest, uniting on path of singularity towards the lunatic's nest. As he gets tired of killing, as deathbed's fleas never answers his pleas, he finally faces his fear and stabs the hand parasitized by the golden key.

A company employee opens the door and shoots him in the head.

Monday

A company employee opens the door and shoots him with a tranquilizer.

The neighbor calls him out:

"Why the first idea you had was to put a lead bullet in his head, instead of neutralizing him! We have the technology, taser, sleep powder, flash—"

"Well well, less paperwork, less consequences, and a dead man can't defend himself.", he answers with a routine smile.

Monday

"Hey darling!", he finally sees his wife, fair-skinned as in her youth, throwing smiles at him like shuriken. They run and catch up, kiss, hug and chase each other again. They run downhill, run uphill, in this infinite spectrum of happiness maze, "Wait for me!" he says joyously.

Outside, glaring from another reality, inside a laboratory thousands deep below, an old man is watching over him, or what is left.

A VR helmet screwed onto his shaved head, the neck plumbed with foil tubes, arms and legs torn off, only a transparent torso shows the grotesque reconstruction of his organs. Despite all its tears, he still shows an irreducible smile of serenity, a mix of a magnificent pinned butterfly and gutted starfish.

The old man's smartwatch blinks with a message and a cheerful emote sound.

"Thanks for your years of services, you are now eligible for retirement housing."

He puts his hand over the watch to muffle the sound.

"Well Mr. Starface. It's time we say goodbye. I hope you envoy this new creation of mine, the palace of eternity, and lives forever with your wife, for you... and for us... to have a future."

A voice calls him.

"Hey John! The shuttle leaves soon."