Second Time Around

By Michael Teasdale

The back of the cab was warm and smelled vaguely of cigarettes. Morgan held Shauna’s hand, tears falling quietly in the darkness on the drive home.

Only emptiness greeted him when he opened the apartment door. He shuffled inside, dimly aware of his wife slipping off her shoes and wandering to the bathroom.

Morgan slumped down in the armchair, eyes fixed on the empty basket, with its slightly chewed edges, that lay in the corner of the room. The blanket inside was still covered in the light golden down of Buddy’s fur. He wondered if he should move it. Take it down to the garage before Shauna returned.

Instead, he sat. Immobile. Numb.

The bathroom door opened and Shauna wandered out, like a lost child. Her face blank, scrubbed free of makeup. Her eyes puffy and red.

“I’m going to bed.” Her voice cracked.

Morgan nodded only slightly as his gaze turned back to the empty basket.

***

Early the next morning a weight thumped down on his chest, and he felt the hot breath slobbering over him.

A smile creased his face, his brain still walking the delicate tightrope between dreaming and wakefulness.

“Stop, Buddy!” he laughed. Wait. Buddy?

He sat bolt upright, staring into the kind brown eyes of the golden retriever who let out a playful bark in return before spiraling around on the bed, kicking up the blankets in excitement.

Shauna, already awake, sat perched on the bottom of the bed, her face a mixture of wonder and disbelief, gazing at the dog that both had said tearful goodbyes to forever.

“I… I don’t understand.”

“It’s Buddy,” she said. “And look!” Shauna held out her cell phone… except, it wasn’t the same smartphone she’d used to book the appointment with the vet. He recognised it, but only as a relic from a decade ago, the type with a flip design and a two-megapixel camera that made everything look like it was smeared in petroleum jelly.

The date on the phone read January 1, 2010.

The year, like the phone, was a decade out of date.

Rubbing his eyes, he noticed the room. The drapes hanging on the window were the cheap ones that came with the apartment, rather than the blackout curtains they’d replaced them with. The painting he’d hung last winter was missing from the wall. Everything felt new and clean.

“Is this a dream?” Morgan asked.

Shauna shrugged. Buddy whimpered, hungry for breakfast.

Instinctively, he held out his hand and brushed it through the dog’s thick fur as the wet nose nuzzled him in response. The dog felt warm. Alive.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

***

Later that night, Buddy slept curled up in the middle of the bed. They lay on either side, hands intertwined over his fur, worried that by letting go, this beautiful breach, this wonderful glitch in reality, might suddenly be repaired.

They’d spoken of their fear. Not about living it again, but about losing it—a mere twenty-four-hour reprieve that would self-correct the moment sleep arrived.

Morgan thought about the drive home. How he’d silently wished for one more day, for the chance to go back and appreciate the time they’d had. Now, by some miracle, it was here, he wanted to hold onto it forever, to never let this moment slip away. As his eyes grew tired, he felt his heartbeat align with the quiet majesty of Buddy’s breathing.

“Good boy,” he whispered in the darkness and hoped it was enough.

***

Waking the next morning, he felt the absence envelop him. The bed was cold and empty. No Shauna, no Buddy. Without stopping to make sense of things, he pulled back the covers and almost fell out of the bed, stumbling down the hallway toward the living room where he leaned on the doorframe in relief.

Shauna sat cross-legged in the armchair, still in her pj’s, eating cereal while Buddy lay at her feet, gazing up at her, loyal as ever, his tail thumping against the wooden floor.

“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep another minute. It’s really happening. We’ve got him back somehow. We get to do it all again!” She held up the ancient cell phone.

The date read January 2, 2010.

***

For a while the fear haunted them. They tried to live exactly the same as they had before, afraid to change anything major for fear of the universe discovering its mistake. It took a year before they began to accept that no change was coming, that this really was happening again.

Even then, they changed only the small, intimate things and hoped that the universe wouldn’t notice. They took more walks in the woods, strolling hand-in-hand as Buddy trotted proudly ahead with a treasured stick clasped between his jaws. They stopped watching television and lost interest in video games. Instead, they spent the years that followed reading quietly on the sofa with their beloved pet curled up with them, fully enveloped in the warm golden reboot of his joyful existence.

One day, after many years had passed, Morgan woke to find Shauna crying at the breakfast table and she showed him the date on the calendar.

It had gone by so quickly this time.

When the day came, the vet was still kind and Buddy was still brave. They hugged him until it was over, and their tears flowed again as the cab that smelled vaguely of cigarettes drove them home.

Lying in bed that night, the absence was familiar but no less painful.

“We were lucky to get a second chance,” she said.

He nodded, choking back tears.

“Do you think… do you think maybe… tomorrow—”

He squeezed her hand as if to tell her not to jinx it and kissed her goodnight. They surrendered to sleep, their hands interlinked, leaving just enough empty space between them for hope that the universe might choose to fill it with love once again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Teasdale is an English author whose stories have appeared for a variety of publications including Shoreline of Infinity and Wyldblood. As well as appearing in a number of Havok anthologies, his work can also be found in books by World Weaver Press, Tyche Books, and Air and Nothingness Press. He lives in Transylvania, Romania, with three beloved cats and is an associate member of the SFWA.

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