The Loop

Amanda Corkin, dressed in a bright yellow sundress, bustled about the kitchen, pulling vegetables out of drawers. Her friend, Tyler Rothson, was hosting a dinner party that evening, and she had volunteered to contribute a salad.

“Alright,” she said to herself. “Lettuce, onions, tomatoes, shredded carrots and cheese. What else am I missing?”

She paused, thinking hard.

“Croutons, duh!” she exclaimed, playfully hitting herself on the forehead. She pulled the croutons bag out of the pantry and popped one in her mouth; who doesn’t love a good crouton? Whistling to herself, she poured herself a glass of wine and sipped on it as she prepared the salad. She topped it with easy vinaigrette she’d gotten from Binging with Babish, one of her favorite YouTube channels.

After her salad was done, she set the bowl in the fridge to stay cool and decided to relax with a bit of television. She had just sat down in her favorite arm chair when the phone rang. Sighing to herself, she set her wine glass down and returned to the kitchen, grabbing the phone after its second ring.

“Hello?” she said. “This is Amanda speaking.”

“Hello?” said the other voice; it sounded frantic. “Amanda, I need to speak with you.”

“Yes?” said Amanda.

“Please listen to me!” the other voice exclaimed. “I have to tell you something!”

“Who is this?” asked Amanda.

For a moment, the other voice didn’t say anything.

“Hello?” said Amanda, now starting to become confused and worried.

“I said-at least, I’m trying to say- you’re going to die soon!” said the other voice. Horrified, Amanda held the phone at arm’s length, staring at it like it was a deadly snake.

“That’s not funny!” Amanda yelled into it and she slammed it back down into the receiver. Shaking her head in disgust, Amanda scowled at the phone, returned to her armchair, and sat down. She watched for nearly an hour before shutting off the television. She stood, stretched, and decided to do some work on her computer.

As she typed, the phone rang again. She picked it up and answered. It was the same voice as before only it was now crying.

“Please!” it said. “You have to listen to me! I’m trying to help you!”

“Please stop calling me!” yelled Amanda, and she hung up again. She leaned back in her chair, thinking. Although she was certain this was only a cruel prank, was it possible there was someone out there that, forever reason, wanted to kill her?

“No, I don’t think so,” she thought. The small group of friends she had, all of them were fine. Any ex-boyfriends, she’d not seen them for nearly three years.

Despite her best efforts to dismiss the idea, it still continued to stick in her head: did someone want to kill her? She hurried to the window that looked out over the street and peered through the curtains. To her relief, there didn’t seem to be anyone out of place there. On the contrary, everyone that passed by her apartment seemed to be enjoying themselves quite a lot.

“Maybe if I take a nap, that’ll help ease this worry,” she thought, and she lied down on her bed and eventually fell asleep.

She had been wrong. When she woke an hour later, she felt more rested, but that thought still lingered in her head. Almost to her relief, the phone rang again.

“Amanda?”

It was the same voice as before.

“Yes, this is Amanda Corkin. Please tell me, why are you saying I’m going to die?”

To her horror, there was silence on the other end.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

Silence.

“Please, answer me!”

Only deafening silence responded, causing the worry in Amanda to grow.

“Fine!” she said, and she threw the phone back down for a third time. Tears were beginning to form at the corners of her eyes, a combination of worry and frustration. She paced the room, looking at the phone, almost hoping it would ring again and that this mysterious person would finally provide some answers. Unsurprisingly, it remained frustratingly silent.

At last, Amanda picked up the phone and dialed. Tyler answered after the second ring.

“Hello, this is Tyler,” he said, and his voice, to Amanda’s private disgust, was chipper.

“Hi, Tyler,” said Amanda. “It’s Amanda. Look, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to able to make it tonight. I appreciate the invite, but something’s come up.”

“Are you alright?” asked Tyler, but she quickly hung up. She sat down on the edge of the bed, her face in her hands. She couldn’t go out, not now; it was far too risky. Maybe the voice knew something she didn’t. Maybe there was a serial killer secretly stalking her, and the voice had somehow learned this would be the night they’d kidnap her. It’s possible, right?

Ten minutes later, she had changed back into comfortable sweatpants and her favorite t-shirt. She tried, as best she could, to not make eye contact with the dress she had planned to wear to Tyler’s party. It seemed, though it was inanimate, to be mocking her. She ignored it as best she could and returned to the kitchen and pulled a tub of mango ice cream from the fridge. She then went to the kitchen and began to watch more television, debating internally if she should turn on a movie.

Around six o’clock that evening, her stomach began to rumble with hunger. She found a frozen pizza and threw that into the oven. As she made her way back to the kitchen, a paper plate laden with pizza in one hand, she made her mistake.

She stepped onto a rug that her mother had given her for Christmas last year. Though she liked the rug a lot, it didn’t have very good traction, making it slippery. Amanda slipped on the rug and fell forward, smacking her face, hard, on the wooden floor. She was dead immeaditely.

***

Amanda opened her eyes and sat up. To her surprise, she was not lying on the floor of her living room near the entrance to the kitchen. She wasn’t even in her apartment.

Rather, she was sitting in a room whose floor was covered with fog. Light streamed into the room, but she couldn’t see the source. There were no doors.

The white walls were almost completely blank, save for one. The wall that faced her had a mirror attached to it, and her own reflection looked back at her. She got to her feet and crossed over to it. For a moment, all she saw was her reflection. The mirror’s surface began to change. When it settled, she was no longer looking at her reflection.

She was now looking down, in a bird’s eye view, at her apartment. To her surprise, she saw herself, wearing her sundress, bustling around the kitchen, preparing the salad. She looked down at herself, and found she was still wearing the sweatpants and t-shirt.

It clicked with her what was going on.

 Apartment Amanda finished her salad and was making her way towards the television. Looking down, Mirror Amanda saw a rotary phone had appeared in front of her, sitting on a small table. She snatched up the handset, and the phone seemed to dial itself for Apartment Amanda picked up after the second ring.

“Hello?” she said. “This is Amanda speaking.”

“Hello?” said Amanda, her voice frantic. “Amanda, I need to speak with you.”

“Yes?” said Apartment Amanda.

“Please listen to me!” exclaimed Amanda. “I have to tell you something!”

“Who is this?” asked Apartment Amanda.

“Alright, I’m you from the future,” said Amanda. “I don’t know how, but I’m somehow watching you, and I know this sounds crazy, but you’re going to die soon!”

“Hello?” said Apartment Amanda, and her voice was starting to sound confused and worried.

“I said,” said Amanda, “at least, I’m trying to say- you’re going to die soon!”

As predicted, Apartment Amanda screamed back and hung up. As she did, tears began to roll down Amanda’s face. She knew what was going to happen but could do nothing to stop it.

Tears pouring down her face, she was powerless to stop the following calls. She watched herself begin to worry, the nap, waking up, and the call to Tyler. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away when Apartment Amanda placed the pizza in the oven. However, though she tried to close her eyes for the pizza’s removal, an invisible force kept her eyes wide open. She watched herself walk back towards the living room, pizza plate in her hand. The slip, the fall…

Then she was back in the room, as if everything had reset. The mirror, the bird’s eye view, only fog. An endless loop, watching Apartment Amanda fall apart with worry and her fateful death…

Amanda Corkin, dressed in a bright yellow sundress, bustled about the kitchen, pulling vegetables out of drawers.