Self-Mending Cups

The Phone

It'll be easier to live with being accused of the laziness. I'll get some level of trouble for going out last night anyway, may as well add to that list rather than start another.

I set the TV's volume so it becomes more like white noise. White noise with adverts but calming enough. Before I pick out a documentary, I switch to Sky Sports News. I open the iPhone. There are still no notifications. I consider giving it a reboot. It's rare the device designed in California but probably put together in a sweatshop needs a reboot but it's even rarer for me to receive zero notifications or message after a night out. When that night out was a birthday, it's unheard of.

But the phone is working and refreshing. The last email is from ten minutes ago, Just Eat are reminding me there's still a voucher code I can use tonight. I probably will. That's the sort of spam I don't mind.

Twitter continues to fill my feed with generic posts from organisations and outlets. The people are unrecognisable. It's like my account has decided to follow influencers instead of real people. Instead of friends.

I go to my recent call list, expecting to see a late night drunken dial to Melissa. There isn't one. I'm not sure how heartbeats work but mine has just done something strange. There is no one in the list that should be – they are all strangers. And Melissa, a person I call every day, is missing.

I wonder if I've picked up somebody else's phone but remember the email exchange with my sister this morning. It must be my phone. It is my phone, just not as I remembered it.

A voice on the television says, "Britain beat South Korea to secure a gold medal in today's Archery but the reduction in the number of events will mean limited opportunities remain to add to the tally. The Americans have been most hurt with sports like baseball and skateboarding removed from these scaled down games and in today's Archery, the runners up from Rio were unable to submit a team."

It's the second alarm I hear in one day.

I can accept a hack journalist making a typo about the location of the Olympics. It's too much of a stretch to think he'd have chosen the wrong sport too. A sport that wasn't even in the Games. I don't believe in coincidence.

My fingers work fast to bring up BBC Sport. The live blog has just posted:

Midweek sees the return of Archery to these Olympic Games and the sense Paris is growing in confidence as hosts. The IOC was under pressure to keep a trimmed down calendar but as we saw in this morning's skateboarding, the returning events are bringing in the most excitement.

Again, my lack of heartbeat knowledge means I'm at a loss to explain how I haven't passed out when it's no longer beating.

BBC Sport on this phone thinks it's reporting the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. My television is with me in 2021, watching events unfold from Tokyo.

I suppose it could be a BBC fuck-up. Before the virus last summer, there were moves to take the licence fee away from them. Perhaps cutbacks have left a bunch of people unable to work a calendar in charge.

I go to The Guardian's website. On the left-hand column the worst type of confirmation arrives. It reads: Thursday 1 August 2024.

They always say insane people don't realise they're crazy, they think they're normal. I feel absolutely fine. Perfectly normal. But I must be crazy. Our broadband is fast but it's not quick enough to jump three years into the future. My phone must be bugged. It's a trick. I have mates that could put a savvy programme on it, give it the façade of a working phone but I bet it's limited. The real Internet will be inaccessible.

I Google football results from a weekend from the 2022/23 season. There is a full scheduled list – instantly. Manchester United lost, so that makes me happy. The depth of articles beneath the result does not. It's too elaborate for a hoax.

I open the Wikipedia app and type in President of the United States. It isn't Trump. More good news, in a way. The change of President wouldn't have escaped me. Don't get me wrong, last night we started on the shots, but a new President – I'd remember that.

A voice in my head is telling me to do it: Google myself.

The first result is my LinkedIn account. I click to reveal my current job ends in December 2021. It's good to get a warning I'll be unemployed in five months. It'll be a long time without a job if the date of 1 August 2024 is to be believed. There are no entries afterward.

I swipe back to the search page. My heart is beating because now it chills. I'm lower down the page, in the news highlights tab. Lots of mentions. I've been detained. Charged. Suspected. Vilified. Then finally, released.

If this is a joke, it's a cruel one. Not really funny, at all.

I open the BBC news article about my arrest. Too much information hits me all at once. Libby had been missing since Sunday 1 August. This Sunday – today. The police had searched all the areas Libby visited with friends. None had seen her on the Sunday. One child told their parents she'd texted, saying she was angry with me, that I'd acted violently in the kitchen.

It was a smashed cup. An accident. I think it as I read my plea that's been recorded in the paper.

It was an accident.

Another article, this is from The Guardian, sees me still under arrest. I've claimed the police didn't do an adequate search. They should have checked the river. The water has unusually high for the time of year and Libby tended to walk too close to the edge.

It's true, she does. But reading it, the words sound desperate. No one is drowning in the local river.

More articles refer to the river, asking why the search area was never expanded. There's also the lack of material evidence. The house security cameras only recorded Libby leaving and me receiving a takeaway in the early evening.

When I'm released, it is under a cloud of suspicion. The Press had made their mind up, I was the villain.