the nova turner paradox

vii. a nostalgic face

07:10

♫

Each loop, Nova's reason of death gets more and more creative. Sometimes it felt like a joke; like the god or the universe or whatever It is that is responsible for this mess is having fun creating anything that could make Nova die.

She had already drowned, shot by a gun, stabbed by a knife, got run over by five different vehicles (a truck, a taxi, a motorcycle, a police car, and heck, even a train), fell from my window at least eight times (due to wildly different reasons), poisoned, died on a fire . . . after about thirty loops, I had forgotten everything else. Sometimes, a loop plays exactly the same as the other ones, and I feel stupid when I don't catch it any sooner before she 'dies'.

I feel like Nova had gone through enough, and I don't think, if ever I'd get out of this loop, I would see her the same way again. Not after I'd seen her break her skull or lose her breath after choking on a rambutan seed, or after I'd seen her get run over by a car at least a horrendous amount of times.

When I opened my eyes for the nth time and saw the exact same ceiling of my room, I felt tired. Calculating all the hours spent with Nova all those loops, I guess I'd been awake for approximately 29 hours straight.

Seriously, I knew I was going insane.

I guess I was catatonic like that in my bed for a good ten minutes before I heard the same, rhythmic knock on my window. Tick tick, tick, tick tick, tick. This time I felt too tired to pretend to be shocked she was there; I've already used up all my lines ("Nova, what are you doing here?" "What the hell, Nova?" "Oh, god! Why are you there?" "What on earth?" (and many other variations of those)) so I just opened the window and said, "I knew you were coming."

She grinned, although it was evident she was struggling in my window.

"Hey," she said. "Mind pulling me in there?"

I didn't say anything else because I was already holding her forearm, pulling her in with all the strength I still had left in my mentally, and perhaps multi-dimensionally drained body. As soon as she was inside, I began to think of all the possible scenarios that could play out. Depending on the way I responded or pulled her inside my room (whether she had fallen on the floor, or fallen on top of me, or if I never pulled her at all) she would say a variety of lines. Each line depends on each different scenario that could occur in a loop, and sometimes it is all unique from each other, which, even for a little, makes the loop a little bearable.

In that loop, since she had successfully climbed inside with no problems at all, she joked about me having super strength, which I had heard twice from her already. It was the first time I had said, "I knew you were coming", so she had a new line to say.

"How come you knew?" she asked with an amused laugh.

"I just know," I said. "I dreamt about it."

"Oh, so you're clairvoyant now. Wow. Every day, I learn a new thing about you," she said, leaning her back against the wall beside my window while crossing her arms.

"Every day?" I said back to her, laughing. I sat at the edge of my bed, looking at her. No matter how many times it happened, watching her die and seeing her smiling and alive in my bedroom twenty minutes later makes me feel so much better. "What did you learn yesterday?"

"That you've got a car," she said, and I already knew that the 'plot' of the loop was already starting. She uncrossed her arms and walked closer to me. Next thing I knew, her long legs bent and suddenly she was kneeling in front of me. "Listen, Miss Cheerleader. I need your help."