CW: Non-graphic attempted suicide

Day 62:

So since my last major update, let's see what I've tried to get myself out of this mess. I've seen a lot more movies with Madeline, and I've been keeping a list to make sure that I don't repeat any, but beyond making me wonder if it's actually possible to get tired of cuddling, that hasn't as of yet fixed anything. I was going to take a flight somewhere, but as an unaccompanied minor the airports aren't big on that, meaning I had to settle for the next best thing, taking a Greyhound to LA. I was hoping to wake up somewhere else, but as soon as the clock hit midnight, there I was again. Staying up at home didn't work: well, staying awake was easy, but it didn't work. It felt like I was being woken from a dream, when for a second you reached out desperately looking for that power or happiness you had abandoned. Things are always nicer in dreams than in reality. Dropping the toaster in my bathtub was remarkably painful, and something I never wish to experience again, but that too didn't save me, and all other attempts at injuring myself proved healed the next day. One day I brought a kitchen knife to school, hoping to slit Frank's throat, but even though I think I found the right opportunity I haven't been able to work up the courage yet. I'm not that desperate yet, and I'd still think I'd live with it for the rest of my life even if I could wake up the next day unscathed.

So it's back to the drawing board. Maybe Mr. T will have some ideas.

Day 63:

"You've only been stuck in this loop for two months? Those are rookie numbers. Come back after a year or two and we can talk," Mr. T chided, not entirely seriously but still just enough to make me wince.

"But if I have a choice in the matter, surely there's something I can do about it. I've tried everything Phil did in the movie, except for stealing a groundhog. I couldn't find any."

"I'm sure I've told you this before, but it's about accepting your fate. And finding a way to live with it. Not resignation, like you're feeling right now. Acceptance, like the stages of grief. Learn some more piano pieces to pass the time or something."

"Acceptance hasn't worked for two months."

"You're being impatient. How do you think I felt this morning when you asked me to help out in your prank, knowing that even if I don't remember it, I'm just playing a role?"

"Sad, resigned?"

"No, I accepted that if I don't help you out, then I'm going to have to do this all over again, and also that since I have no control, I may as well enjoy it. We're Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain: Sisyphus wasn't happy or anything, but after pushing a boulder for so long you learn to find it meditative."

"I guess you're right."

Day 84:

"Well, I've learned all the good Chopin waltzes decently well," I said to Mr. T. "I have a simple routine: I sweet-talk Madeline enough where she invites herself over, I play a piece, she says I'm awesome, then we watch a movie together. You're right: this feels rewarding. Any other suggestions?"

Mr. T laughed, a resonant, hearty laugh like he always had when I told him about my adventures. I wasn't sure if it was because he truly found me funny or if this was his way of accepting his place in the universe. "You should try writing a novel. You have the time. There's this great article about how a philosopher is defined by the time they have, that I remember Frank mentioning—"

"Critchley, right? We had to read that in my philosophy class at community college."

"You two are on the same wavelength and it's really interesting, like these are some wild coincidences you've mentioned. But I think you should try writing a novel—or even if not that, something. To keep track of your experiences."

"But I've never done it before."

"You haven't hotwired a car before, and look where that got you. You have all the time in the world to figure it out," Mr. T said, laughing again.

That night, after I got back from the bus stop, I opened a Google Doc. The title came to me immediately, even though I didn't know yet what the novel was about: What We Make Today. Tonight was the test to see if my progress was saved between days, like the deviled eggs. While I couldn't change everything, after I left a sternly-worded note saying that eating French toast fifty days in a row wasn't enjoyable, my breakfast options became more diverse—even though I couldn't control much about my life, at least I could pick my meals.

"Dear benevolent overlords, please don't erase the Google Doc. Ever. I can do that myself if I want. Let me at least have something to do. Thanks, your humble subject," I wrote, and went to bed.

Day 85:

Immediately upon waking, I checked my computer, and was pleased to see that my document was there. Times New Roman, eleven-point font (what sort of loser would write in that?), full of untapped possibilities.

I knew I wanted to write about Heller in some way—what I thought would happen, what had already happened—but at the same time, I knew too that I wanted to write about my own world. The real world. Sure, my experiences weren't nearly as fantastical as what I'd overheard and witnessed myself at Heller, but they were interesting in their own way. There was something to be celebrated there, and walking to school down the path that was the same as the one I had once taken to walk to my own school, I knew there was a fundamental truth to be found. When I read The Things They Carried ages ago, there was a distinction made between "story truth" and "happening truth": "story" truth, to me, was the lessons I was supposed to take away from my experiences: Sisyphean punishment, dramatic irony, and all. "Happening" truth was that I had eaten French toast for fifty days straight, and no matter what fancy term you used to describe it, it was still good French toast.

A story then, like Catch-22, like The Things They Carried, a tale of connected vignettes and scenes in whatever order they spilled themselves from my brain, all to make meaning out of my predicament and what had led me here—a celebration of what I had done wrong and the many things I had done right. There was precedent for authorial self-inserts, Tim O'Brien being one of them, and I felt comfortable leaving myself as narrator. First-person was soothing. And certainly, there were many more characters to this story, but would a reader know which ones were part of the dream world (where I was now) and which ones were part of reality (where I wished to be)? Was this like Zhuangzi's butterfly, who flittered about not knowing which was which? Were any connections I could draw between the two fate or coincidence? I'd figure it out after school, after my extracurricular.

Day 87:

While I knew my own history very well, I did not know the history of this Heller: it was clear to me that certain facts like the origin of How To Be A Good Person had different interpretations here. I asked Frank during Chinese class:

"What's the actual story of where How To Be A Good Person came from? I know it wasn't divine epiphany, unless God is a fan of Rick Astley. I'm not going to tell anyone anything. I just want to know more about all that's led up to the current moment," I asked. Frank maintained eye contact for a few awkward seconds, hoping I'd flinch, and then shook his head.

"Since you asked so nicely, and I know you're one of the good guys, here's what really happened. For a few weeks then, I'd started to get a bit annoyed at some of my peers for being generally irritating. Not that they knew any better—not that I knew any better—but the healthy sort of contempt we all have for each other. And around this time, Juliet had started to get a sense that I was in some way detached, or apathetic, or otherwise not quite fitting in with my peers. So she suggested that I put my galaxy-sized brain to use and tutor her a bit, and this seemed like a reasonable request to grant. The right thing to do. And so when I was tutoring her, she suggested that I codify my wisdom in a manual or how-to guide, and I was bored and figured this beat sitting around and playing video games, so I did exactly that, and this is where we ended up. I know that everyone else gets a story about my infinite, bountiful wisdom, but the truth is that this wasn't planned at all."

"A natural follow-up to the wise camel stuff."

"How do you know about that? Did Ernest tell you?"

"Money equals power, power equals camel, camel equals five. Five celery sticks. Yeah, I got all that—it was a thing at my middle school—and I suppose that's how we ended up at celery juice, too," I said smugly.

"You're completely right. So that's the story of how we got there, and it was a natural evolution from there to making a club."

"Like Bialystock and Bloom, if you've seen that." Frank's jaw dropped (if I'm to be a writer, I should learn better ways of describing physical actions like that).

"Wow, it's like you're a slightly snarkier, less Machiavellian version of me. You'd make a good secretary or treasurer or something."

"I think I'll pass."

"I knew you would," Frank said, and we returned to work.

Later that day, when I was walking back to my place with Madeline, I thought to ask her the same question, even though I knew there was no way her answer would be nearly as informative. Or as truthful. Frank didn't sound like he was lying, but one never knew.

"I hate to talk about school stuff off the clock, but I was just wondering, where did all this good person stuff come from anyway? Like I know Frank invented it, but when and why?"

"Oh, that's simple: Frank was tutoring Juliet one day and realized that she was kind of into him, and thought that if he made a cult, he'd get her and all her friends to worship him even more. Like Charles Manson. He tells everyone this story about wanting to help people improve and making change at Heller, but that's all a lie."

"Interesting, huh."

An online writing guide had told me that outlining novels was a good way to go about beginning the process, so I began writing all the ideas for vignettes I had. I knew I wanted a story in a non-chronological order, which meant that at the end I could randomize the order of my stories and still assume meaning would create itself—not that I'd ever take the lazy way out and do that. Meaning does create itself from nothing, sometimes. This would take a while, but I'd get there.

Day 93:

I wonder if Phil liked being stuck in the loop. The sense of control and certainty, knowing that whatever he was doing there would be easier than when he returned to reality. I'm warming up to this, too. Writing, diagramming this story and sketching out short scenes, has proven my escape: the words come naturally to me too, even though I've never done this before. I don't think he ever tried writing a novel. Maybe he should have.

During school, I go hunting for stories that I want to tell. Stories I can fuse with my own, little bits of characterization I can impart to my own creations. Everyone's proven remarkably forthcoming, and I've really honed my interviewing skills. I think it's because I'm still the new kid: people forgive me if I ask them why it is John avoided Regina or why it is that Mr. Galantine occasionally talked in a British accent. And sometimes these stories reminded me of my own lived experiences, and sometimes they were something entirely new. What if Heller was a graveyard for everyone's high school memories? Did that mean that somewhere out there in the real world, someone had lived through a cult at their high school?

Life is good.

Day 95:

"So why is it that you randomly talk in a British accent sometimes? I've never seen it for myself, but everyone else swears you do and that you always have a different explanation," I asked.

"Because we defeated the British," he shot back immediately.

I guess I couldn't argue with that.

Day 97:

The thought has occurred to me that while my experiences stretch beyond junior year of high school, nobody at Heller knows what their future holds. I can make some reasonable predictions—I don't think the club is going away—but how am I to know if there will still be a pandemic, if there still will be a war in Ukraine? Was it my place to be a Nostradamus predicting famine and doom for my classmates? I suppose the distinction is moot if I'm melding past and present anyway, if people don't know at which universe's UCLA I experienced these events. Who's even going to read this anyway?

I told Mr. T that I was writing a novel, but he didn't seem impressed. All he said was that he wanted to read it someday.

Day 100:

I feel like I should buy myself a cake or something. One hundred days of solitude. Not original, I know, but everyone loves a good Marquez pun. I remember back in the day everyone thought "Love in the Time of Coronavirus" was original. And here I am now, doing it again where nobody else has thought of it and now I'm the trailblazer.

Speaking of solitude, the more I learn about everyone else around me the more I realize what untapped possibilities there are I'll never get to experience. Everyone else always seems to have something going on that's just out of my reach: no matter how I try, I can't find a way to get boba with them or get them to spill the details. If I had more time, I knew I could, but as it turns out time is a precious commodity around here.

Even though I view myself as above these people, despite simultaneously envying what I cannot have—no matter how infantile—I still find something new to learn from them every day. Funny how that works. And that makes me feel even more lonely, seeing all my interactions with everyone else through this didactic lens. Moments of pure human connection are elusive around here, though that strikes me as a problem with Heller as a whole. Solitude. What a pleasant-sounding word for such a dismal concept.

Day 103:

I remember reading One Hundred Years of Solitude when the pandemic hit, back when I was in my Marquez phase, but the thought occurred to me that I should read it again, just to see if there were indeed a connection, so I went to the library instead of hanging out with Madeline and read it on the comfort of my own couch where I had grown used to a warm body nestled against mine. The book was good. Pertinent to my life? I don't think so.

I think it's the author in me that wishes everything in life had a flair for the dramatic, but the real world isn't a place of literary allusions and Chekhov's guns: I wanted to see some connection between the ice in my boba and Colonel Aureliano Buendia's discovery, but the more pragmatic part of me knew I was grasping at straws. And as I try to make meaning of my own predicament, I think it's a sobering reminder that not everything has been placed on this Earth to torment me or to titillate my brain. I'm not living in The Truman Show.

Day 114:

I'd say I'm about a quarter of the way done, and I think I'm getting the hang of this rough draft business. The hard part comes afterward. It's not enough to write the truth—anyone can do that. I have the tougher task of telling a cohesive story alongside it, and the sort of recursive, tangled story that only someone stuck in a time loop with no meaningful hobbies except playing piano and watching movies could write. I was watching Planet Earth with her the other day, and the thought occurred to me that if I ever wrote this, nobody would believe it. I could go back to the real world and tell all my friends that I spent sixty-odd evenings chilling with someone I'd, before this, talked with maybe twice outside of class, and their first reaction would be "fall in love with one of your catfishes?." But does it matter if any readers believe my story, as long as it's objectively true? If I wrote about the paintings on the walls (one thing I do remember from my high school), people wouldn't believe me even if I had pictographic evidence.

I've been trying to think of ways, safe ways, to bring up that I'm writing a novel. It seems like the sort of thing that would be a good conversation starter—"hey, I was thinking of writing a roman à clef—what's that, you may ask? It's a fancy French term for..." and that sort of thing. The nice thing is, if I tell someone about it, and they don't like it, they'll forget the next day.

"So you wouldn't believe this, but I've been writing a novel," I said to Madeline as we were walking back to the bus stop after a scintillating double-showing of Iron Chef and I had steered the conversation to books. She did not unclasp her hand and scamper off; rather, she sounded, dare I say, interested?

"That's great! What's it about?"

Ooh, that's the tough question. "It's about a lot of things. Missed chances, moral dilemmas, the intersection of art and life."

"I mean the plot, not all that boring stuff English teachers make us look for. What's next, the color of the curtains?"

"I'm just messing with you. I was going to write a novel about this place. I mean, if you put this shit on TV nobody would believe you. I'm surprised nobody's told the story yet."

"You're so cool," she said, squeezing my hand.

Day 119:

There was a scene in Groundhog Day where Phil got the answers to every Jeopardy! question right, and I tried this with Madeline today. I've been practicing. I don't think she was that amazed or anything. I think she thought I was just that smart to know who Vercingetorix was off the top of my head. In my defense, I did know that.

"Don't you ever get tired of 'Liebesleid'?" Mr. T had asked me earlier that day. "Hearing it however many hundreds of times by now. It must really suck."

"It's a habit by now."

"Have you tried other pieces?"

"Well, of course, and they work, but it didn't feel right."

"For someone who's stuck in a loop, it seems like there are an awful lot of things you're choosing to do by force of habit and not because the universe has it out for you."

"I guess you're right. And speaking of pieces you've heard hundreds of times, guess what my morning alarm is."

"No way. That is too delicious," Mr. T guffawed.

"Truth is stranger than fiction."

Day 120:

I have that song memorized now. Something something something, then put your little hand in mine, there ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb, yada yada yada. I guess I only know the bit that repeats every day, so maybe that's not so impressive.

The novel's going well, too. I've been spending more and more time re-reading what I've already written, to keep the story straight and add more that I've remembered, and that's making this take longer. I don't think a good novel is something that can be rushed. Maybe I'll spend years working on this. And even if that eternal torment gets to me a little, it will make a good finished product. What artist hasn't suffered for their work?

But speaking of that, I'm running out of things to ask my classmates about. It was maybe interesting when I was asking them to spill the tea on Beth and her many exes, but it's the factual details that are more tedious.

"Say, Beth, what's your typical Starbucks order?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"Survey for AP Stats."

"Oh, OK, I guess, Earl Grey latte?"

"Interesting..." I said, pretending to meditate on this information greatly. I took my pen, wrote half the words, then tried my hardest to look at Beth like she had given me a bad answer.

"Wait, is that bad? Did anyone else say that?"

"Well, it's what we like to call an outlier. And I'm not going to say it's good or bad, it's just interesting. I have no other word for it."

"I have to tell Frank and Juliet about this," Beth said, hurriedly walking away.

So perhaps the AP Stats thing was a fib. That was story truth. Happening truth is that Beth told Juliet about my powers of psychoanalysis, and she naturally had to ask me about this during history class:

"So, putting aside how you broke my heart today, I order green tea lattes at Starbucks. What does that mean? Is that special?" Juliet asked, miraculously switching from rage to an affected smile in the span of thirty seconds. Do none of these people drink coffee?

"Yes, you're a special snowflake," Madeline interjected.

"Well, it's a very refined drink. Hot or iced?"

"Iced on warm days, hot on cold days," she explained triumphantly.

"Such mastery of thermodynamics has never been seen before," Madeline continued.

"That aside, you should be proud of yourself. It's very dignified."

"Aww, thanks," Juliet said, leaning over to give me a hug. Why was everyone around here so touchy? That I could never figure out. Like it's not just people being touchy with me, everyone's like this with everyone. There must be something about how soul-sucking this place is that drives people to find comfort in others, or this is what the world was like before COVID and I've forgotten. Ooh, that would be a good line. I love stealing good lines from people.

"So why did everyone want to tell you their Starbucks order? Are you moonlighting as a barista?" Madeline asked as we were finishing our boba.

"AP Stats project," I said, fumbling when she didn't seem to buy it. "That's what I told them. I asked Beth because I was curious what the club people drank if not boba, and obviously I needed a pretense. It wasn't my fault that people got carried away."

"People get carried away here all the time. That's how we got How To Be A Good Person and the club. And who knows, maybe I get carried away too sometimes," she said, flashing a smile.

"Oh really?" Her flirting was not nearly as interesting when I'd heard every line fifty times, but she was trying her best. And that's something I can respect.

Day 125:

I've wondered a lot if I'm doing a noble thing by preserving everyone's stories. When I finally return home, What We Make Today will be the only relic of their existence. I've started taking pictures and videos to store online; while my phone's camera roll doesn't seem to save evidence day-by-day, that isn't the case for my Google Drive. The other night I left my phone strategically placed to record us while we were watching Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. She didn't notice, despite the stellar frontal view (I should get into cinematography), and after I returned from the bus stop it went into my "evidence locker," as I'm calling all the evidence that Heller is more than a hallucination.

One day I'm calling Heller a mirage or some mental prison meant to punish me for my misdeeds, and the next day I'm desperately trying to prove its existence. It would be so funny if after all this, none of this proof carried over, and I wouldn't even have my novel to prove anything. I know I shouldn't be getting so hung up on this idea of "truth" and proving it, but if I've spent however long writing a novel, it would be nice if all that work weren't in vain. At least I'd have gained the experience, even if I had nothing tangible to show for it. It builds character.

Looking at the video again, I don't seem as happy as I could be, or really, as I should be for someone in that unique moment. I'm going through the motions—I'm resigned. Defeated. Whatever you want to call it. Working on this novel and writing my daily journal entries are the highlights of my day, and even if Mr. T would say that finding the joy in the daily routine is the next step in my personal growth, I don't think I can bring myself to do it. Telling myself I'm happy is easy; looking happy is another thing entirely, much less being happy.

Day 132:

I was able to play "Liebesleid" yesterday for the first time. Not as hauntingly wistful yet witty like Mr. T's interpretation—mine evokes the jerking of a marionette, and I can't say that's an intentional choice. It feels good to have accomplished something. I wonder if I can accomplish something else.

"During class earlier, Frank said your favorite violin piece was 'Liebesleid'—I didn't know you liked that one too," I observed with feigned, practiced nonchalance.

"I love that piece! How did Frank know that?"

"I don't know, he just said that he despised the piece. But I know it from Your Lie In April, if you've seen that."

"He hates the piece? It's so romantic though. If someone were to ever serenade me with that, I'd swoon."

"I can play the piano version, but I just learned it on violin too."

"That's so cool! But isn't it a beginner piece on the violin? I think it's far more impressive that you can play it on the piano."

"Kind of, but violin isn't my primary instrument, so it took me a while to learn it."

"I should tell Frank to learn it," Juliet mused.

"Give him 132 days and I'm sure he'll be able to figure it out."

It's always about Frank, isn't it. Every story, every side-plot, comes back to Frank. I'd like to think I've charted my own path with Madeline, but even that wouldn't have happened without him. Maybe I should be grateful he's made these last few months so interesting.

Day 134:

I think I'm over halfway done, and I already know what the ending is going to be. This is going to be after I visit UC Berkeley the second time on the first day of school, to say hi to some old friends and take a meeting, and I'm walking back to the BART station. It's a cold evening, but I'm still wearing just a Cal T-shirt; nobody can tell I'm not a student there. And in that moment, I realized that for all I thought about closure and the "last times" I'd ever see people or do certain things, opportunities came again and again to relive the past—after all, I had left Cal the last time thinking I'd never see those people again, but look at what I ended up doing.

Every day, when I go to bed, I pray that I've sufficiently pleased the universe enough that I'll wake up in my own home, and that the closure I feel every day when I leave Heller or wave goodbye to Madeline is final. But it never is. So that's one advantage the real world has: it's possible to get a clean break.

Day 140:

"So you're writing a novel? How's it going?" Mr. T asked.

"I'm a bit over halfway done with the rough draft, and then there's going to be a lot of editing to do."

"Editing is very important and all, but no amount of editing can disguise a bad story. And I'm not saying you're writing a bad story or anything—I'm sure it's a good story—but as long as what you write has heart, you'll be fine."

"We'll see about that."

Camus wrote, "Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them." I've been trying to keep that philosophy in mind as I write my modern myths. Even if I don't explain everything with crystal clarity, my readers will be able to do the rest. They'll be able to see the connections to their own life, and empathize with my characters even if I don't tell them exactly how. They'll be able to see good, evil, and all that lies between without any sort of moral signposting. Lastly, Camus wrote, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." I wonder what he'd have said about Groundhog Day. Most scholarship I can find about the movie links the film to Buddhist reincarnation, but I think Sisyphus is in some ways a more fitting analogy, and there are one or two really insightful essays that think the way I do. That would be a fun project, actually, if this goes on: watching Groundhog Day a hundred times through and journaling along the way.

Still, any comparison I can make between my own situation and Groundhog Day, Sisyphus, The Truman Show, or anything else is ultimately a part of the whole story, an incomplete picture. But I do admit it feels better to be able to liken my situation to something else, like I'm standing on the shoulders of giants.

Day 141:

"Have you ever read The Myth of Sisyphus?" I asked Frank.

"We discussed it during a club meeting last year. What about it?"

"What do you think the takeaway is?"

"You mean the takeaway I gave in the club meeting, or what I actually think is the lesson we should take from it?"

"The latter."

"Any high school student who compares themselves to Sisyphus is too edgy for their own good."

"I can't say fairer than that," I laughed.

Day 148:

The finish line is getting closer. I've considered some days not beginning the Madeline sidequest so I have more time to write, but I've also found that I can only write for so long with intense focus before I begin to feel exhausted, so it's good to have something that fills the rest of the afternoon. I do my piano practice in the mornings these days. I hope I'm not waking up any of my neighbors in the process. Come to think of it, none of my neighbors have ever interacted with me. I've seen them taking out their garbage and driving to and from work, but clearly they have better things to worry about than me. I wonder what their stories are.

Some details from my time loop adventures have been making themselves into What We Make Today, but I decided it wouldn't make for a good plot element. It undercuts character development to have people become blank slates every midnight, on the dot. I think the best stories are realistic: people behave in comprehensible ways, and even if events are more dramatic than average, they all could happen. What "could" happen is a nebulous idea itself, since everyone has their own threshold for weirdness. Like if you had asked me if someone starting a cult at their high school were realistic, I'd have laughed at you and told you not to copy the Third Wave, but when confronted with the fact that there is indeed a cult at this high school I've had to reappraise my assumptions. That's how science works, too: if new evidence arises, you adjust your hypothesis.

Day 153:

Juliet said something interesting today, which is a rare enough occurrence that I had to document it. I had asked her before class if she ever felt like she wasn't living up to her potential, and she said, "I've always been told by other people I'm never living up to my potential. But only I know what I'm capable of. It's one thing I dislike about our philosophy: self-improvement needs internal drive, not someone else making the decisions for you." At the club meeting, beneath her lingering awkwardness at being around Frank after having confessed her feelings during fifth period, I could see no other traces of dissent. I will never know how she rationalizes those two contradicting perspectives: this is what Orwell called "doublethink." And that's not a concept he praised.

I've been ruminating on The Myth of Sisyphus a lot recently, even though I know according to Frank that makes me an edgelord. Out of the many interesting ideas there, there's this idea that in the return of the boulder to the base of the hill, Sisyphus is stronger than it: his steps are "heavy yet measured." He is conscious of his fate, not an unwitting participant. I've never felt like that before going to bed. I've always slept like a rock, except on a few of those first days when I could still be taken by surprise, without any real meditation on the day or what it means that in a few minutes I'll be back where I started. Quite frankly, I'm too tired at the end of the day to figuratively survey the landscape ahead of me. Five months of the same will do that to you.

Day 162:

Sometimes I wonder if by writing What We Make Today, I'm writing fanfiction of my own life: a tale viewed through rose-tinted glasses, where my flaws aren't embarrassing and my successes heroic. Even if I'm sticking to the facts, I'm choosing the right sort of facts: there are some stories that won't make it in here, and I know I can tell myself it's because I didn't think they were "thematically relevant" or whatever, but truly it's because I wouldn't want them to be preserved for eternity. I hope I'll forget them someday.

With that in mind, I'd better figure out what sort of ending I want to give myself, and I know I already decided what the final scene is going to be, but the ending is more than the last page or the final thought. Knowing my style, it's going to be ambiguous and bittersweet. But what I'd give for an ending where I skip merrily off into the sunset without a care in the world. First, everyone I'd ever met would shake my hand and wish me well with some pithy quip or sincere, if brief apology. I'd take my first tentative steps on the path to whatever comes next, then look behind me one last time and see them wave, as doleful music begins to play—gosh, there are so many good choices here. And then I'd take some more steps, and the music would swell a bit, and before we know it, I'm gone, having left that world behind. The camera pans out on the sunset and it all fades away—or would a sunrise be better, this being the metaphorical dawn of a new day? Sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days—seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers, blossoming even as we gaze.

I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? That isn't going to be my novel. The world doesn't work like that. But it would be nice. It really would be nice.

Day 165:

I'm done with the novel, or the heart of it. I want to write a brief epilogue, just a few pages, once I've done all the editing I desire. There's a Chinese proverb, "to put the eyes on a dragon." Back in ancient times, a painter was painting dragons on the walls of a Buddhist temple, and this painter was so talented that their dragons were facsimiles of the real thing. A monk came by and asked the painter, "Your dragons are so realistic, but where are the eyes?." And the painter explained, "The eyes contain the soul of the dragon—as soon as I add the eyes, the dragons would fly away." The monk did not understand why the painter would paint in this way, so the painter took a brush and cautiously added the eyes to the dragons. And as soon as he did this, there was a crack of thunder, and the dragons flew off the walls. Only then did the monk understand what the painter meant. So it means to put the finishing touch on something.

I'm not quite there yet. But I'll get there.

Day 171:

Editing is harder than I thought. There's a lot of reshuffling of content I've been doing, small edits that have cascade effects with how I want the rest to turn out. I think with every pass my themes grow more sophisticated and my structure clearer, but I also get the feeling that I could do this endlessly if I wanted. Well, on the bright side, I have nothing but time. That makes me the ultimate philosopher.

I did show Mr. T the beginning of my novel, since it came up again and I thought I'd feel better with a second pair of eyes. He skimmed the first chapter or two, nodding appreciatively, and said, "I hope to read this in its entirety someday." Then the bell rang before I could ask anything else. I suppose I could show him different chapters every day. That wouldn't be the same. Instead, I'll choose to believe that I'll make good on that promise someday, to let him read the entire thing—that's my version of staring the rock down as it tumbles down the hill.

Day 180:

"You're magical! How did you know I liked deviled eggs? How did you know any of this? It's like you know exactly what I want, before I even say it."

"I didn't know. I simply said the first thing that came to mind—I'm a big fan of deviled eggs and knew I had some left. We truly are on the same wavelength."

"It's crazy. It's so rare I do this sort of thing that I forget how nice it is to just spend some time one-on-one with someone, eating good food, chatting, enjoying pleasant company."

"I agree completely. You know, I used to, with a friend, watch movies together every few weeks. We'd get on a video call and every time we'd take turns picking something. Nothing special to it, just a good movie and good company."

"I haven't seen any movies in so long! What's your favorite?"

"There's nothing more iconic than Casablanca, if you've heard of it."

"Humphrey Bogart, right?"

"Have you seen it?"

"Never, but I've been meaning to," Madeline said, making haste for the couch.

I'm intending to finish the novel tonight; I have one or two chapters I want to proofread again, and then in its current form I think I'm done. I don't think I need an epilogue, after thinking about this again: my original ending idea still feels like the best way to end things, and here I'm glad I resisted the temptation to doubt myself. And, the more I think about it, there's no need for me to be so concerned about writing the perfect novel. Perfection is a continuous process, as is everything in life. If there's something I want to change later, I'll change it. So putting anything that's explicitly an epilogue, or even a fancy "Fin" like they do in the movies, feels too definitive. Like I've resigned myself to the fact that I can't possibly improve more.

If I wake up tomorrow in my own bed, I'll be overjoyed—even if I wake up tomorrow, in this universe, I'll be happy. And even if I don't, I think I've gained a finer understanding of my present situation, which puts me one step closer to being a happy Sisyphus. When Camus said that "one must imagine Sisyphus happy," he wasn't saying that Sisyphus is happy: he's saying that it's beneficial to our outlook on life if we choose to believe that he's happy, because that means we're happy in our own predicaments. Choosing to believe that Sisyphus is resigned to his fate gives him no hope for our own. It's not like Phil was keeping a journal or anything as a coping mechanism. He simply went to bed every day, albeit with more of a fight than I am, knowing that Sonny and Cher would wake him up again. By the end of the movie, I think I can imagine him happy. He's content, I'd hope—proud that he's accomplished everything he could in Punxsutawney, proud he's finally been able to snag Rita. That's me. I think: I think I'm happy too.

I think it's fitting, too, that I'm at day 180 of my journey. That's how long the typical school year is; it's also a 180-degree turn, a complete about-face. If we think of time moving forward, it means I'm finally able to look backward. As a society, we don't value being able to look back enough, and while I think saying "the future is only what we make today" is a very accurate sentiment, it's only part of the whole: there are some ways that the past irrevocably defines us, and we have to learn to live with that. There's no such thing as true closure or a tidy ending, since we are the sum of our experiences. I sure know I've been changed by these last 180 days of solitude.

There's a poster that was on the wall of one of my old English teacher's classrooms that said, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday." I think that's very true. There are a lot of quotes about the passage of time, history, and all that, and I could quote something from Gatsby about boats being borne back ceaselessly into the past or even something about the fundamental things applying as time goes by, but there's a better quote. The last line of The Truman Show.

So, to my future self reading this, in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.

Discussion Questions:

What narrative purpose is there behind returning to the isekai saga one last time? Why end on this chapter instead of the previous one?

Juliet says that "self-improvement needs internal drive, not someone else making the decisions for you." Why would this only be brought up now? What evidence has been provided for this framing of good personhood?

Do you think this was the last day for Bill? Does it matter?