We were looking at some old photos on my dad’s laptop while sitting on our front porch. My grandma continued to talk about the time my brother washed dishes in this house many years ago. I came across a photo of myself at 15 years old with a full beard that I never had any recollection of growing. My dad made an offhand comment about wanting to sell the place, claiming that it was no longer convenient for everyday living.

It was Thursday of the first week of classes and I found myself waking up at 17:05. I dragged myself onto the street before promptly screaming. I had missed another day of classes. In fact, Monday and Wednesday were the only days I had actually gone to class. I could see the other students already starting to prepare for their upcoming exams while I was certain that I had already been dropped from my Tuesday/Thursday classes.

They ran up to the window to shout at the people in the lobby downstairs, asking them to join us. We talked on the balcony for a few hours until it was nearly midnight. Someone “accidentally” scratched my ass before I stood up and said I was retiring to my hotel room. When I got to the hall, I had forgotten what room I was in so I took out my phone which had an AR app for showing you your room. It had a Batman theme and I managed to find my way to room 426.

We were inside a waiting area of an amusement park when a guard ran in the doors and asked if anyone knew how to stop a Ferris wheel in broken English. I sure as hell didn’t but I was curious what circumstances would make one ask such a thing so I went out to take a look.

A typhoon was coming so my friend and I went to the supermarket to stock up on food. I had my mind set on getting some cereal and beef jerky before we headed off to separate aisles. I had a hard time looking for what I wanted and decided to check my Snapchat while walking between potential locations. I wondered if my friend had already gotten what he needed. One of the Snapchat stories was a weekly cartoon series about two people who were able to transform into one. I started to get sleepy.

I had woken up at my brother’s place and he was preparing breakfast with his wife.

There was a showing of Little Witch Academia and for some reason I had thought that the English version was getting redubbed. The various voice actors were talking about their quirks, both in real life and for their characters. One person claimed to have a genetic disorder where they were missing two of the nucleic bases (one of them being cytosine). As a result, they tended to get overworked easily and stressed over minor things. They started to show everyone a short workout routine, to which many people in the audience took out their phones to record.

I remembered that I had gone to sleep at 3AM and when I woke up I checked my phone to see that it was 6PM. It was already dark out as I glanced through my dorm room window out into the yard. The next time I checked my phone, it was nearly midnight and the sky was getting brighter already. I decided to take a shower.

I had failed both my Chinese and Japanese language exams that I had taken in the same week. Such was a natural result of not having taken classes for either in years nor studying prior to the exams. Everyone else claimed that the exams were easy and only required a quick review of some vocabulary.

“How did we get away with this?” I asked, “… or are we committing a new crime?” I couldn’t figure out where I was in time and space. The reconstructions were so authentic that there would even be an illusion of free will when we carried out the same set of actions.