Loop Love

They say everybody has this one special person in their lives. One who really changes them, makes them a better person. The one person you can’t live without. I met mine 10 years ago, Sahasra. There have been many ups and downs in my life these past ten years, but the only person who got me through it all, who was able to understand me just the way I am, was Sahasra. Even though I love her a lot, I’ve never had a chance to tell her about it. Maybe I was scared, scared of losing my one person.

But I decided that today is the day I’m going to tell her how I feel. Why today, you ask? Well, today’s my birthday. Thank you for your wishes. It’s also the day I finally completed the project of my dreams. I look down at my watch, and it’s 15:45. I’m fifteen minutes early for our meeting at the coffee shop.

I usually hate waiting for people, even Sahasra, but today is very special. For the first time ever, I feel confident about telling her how I feel. I know she will not meet me before 16:00, but waiting for her has also been a very special moment. Let me tell you a story, my first and, hopefully, my only love story. I saw Sahasra for the first time when I was in 9th grade and she was in her 7th grade. Even though I knew Sahasra for a very long time, I don’t know when exactly I fell in love with her. Ding dong, I looked at the door wondering if it was Sahasra.

When I realized it was not Sahasra, I looked at my bag, just to know if it is safe or not. This is not just a bag: it’s my dream project and my everything. I didn’t even show this to my parents or Sahasra because I want them to get surprised when I reveal the project to them. I slowly started getting lost in thoughts and looking at my bag.

A red dress woman started walking towards me and questioned, “Wait, are you Aditya?”

With slight confusion I replied, “I am Aditya, but how do you know? It looks like I’ve never met you. Can you tell me your name, so I can recall?”

“I’m Katyayani. You don’t know me, but I came to many of your presentations. I really love your passion for quantum physics; I wish I was half as smart as you.”

“Thank you so much for attending my presentations and for thinking I am smart.” I smiled.

“So you really love time then?” Katyayani asked.

“I wish there is a better word than love to explain about craziness about time,” I said.

“I know you are currently working on a project. How is the progress?” she asked.

“It’s not working,” I replied.

I am not the person who lies about anything but I had to today because I want to show this to my world before the real world sees it.

“It was great meeting you,” I said with a little uncomfortable tone.

“Okay then bye,” she said and walked to the coffee counter.

All of a sudden, the entire coffee shop turned so quiet and I was not really comfortable with that silence. I was able to hear the badum, badum of my heartbeat. Somehow I really hate silence and I can never bear it. I get confused, I make mistakes, and I act really weird. Sedatephobia is the name of the phobia. Bzzz. I looked at my phone.

“I am extremely sorry. I will be fifteen minutes late, but I promise I will buy you coffee,” Sahasra texted.

I left the conversation on read, not because I am angry, but I want to see her in person and experience her reaction. These text messages have emotions, and I am sorry, but I hate all the emojis.

A random woman walked into the coffee shop with so much anger; she was shouting at her boyfriend. Wondering how I knew that’s her boyfriend? Expressions dude, they tell all types of stories. She ordered a hot chocolate and left the coffee shop. The coffee shop became silent again, but just to distract myself, I started to play my watch. I made this watch from scratch, so I can mess this up and create it again. It was almost 16:14, and I already completed two cups of black coffee. Sahasra hadn’t reached the coffee shop yet. I slowly started to get more tense. Should I call her?

“Happy birthday Scientist,” someone said.

I looked back and it was Sahasra.

“Thank you Writer and advance happy birthday to you.” I said.

Yes, her birthday is tomorrow, and yes, I really love that feeling. Sahasra sat in front of me and started telling her own theory of why she is late, but I wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying.

“What is the time?” she asked, I was blankly looking at her. “Hello, what is the time?” she asked again.

“Oh, I am sorry, it’s 16:20, but what happened to the watch I gave you?” I asked.

“I am not a scientist, I am a writer, how do you expect me to use that watch with a 24-hour clock?” she replied.

“So shall I go get a coffee?” I asked.

“It’s my treat, I am late.”

I stood up. “It’s okay I will get it. Sit peacefully and think of a good story to tell me. And it better be a love story.”

I ordered the coffee, thinking about how to tell her I have feelings for her and how it’s really complicated for me because I’ve never told these words to anyone.

I turned back to wave and look at her, but her chair started to fall back. I ran to the table, but Sahasra fell down on the floor, I tried waking her up and I checked her pulse. Sahasra is dead.

I didn’t know what to do, I started to shiver. As we were sitting in the corner, no one was able to see what was happening. I immediately looked at the bag and opened it. I opened the time chip and the travel gram to start the machine. This might seem funny, but for its first time ever, time travel will be experienced in a coffee shop of all places. I hit the start button. It started to initialize all the values. I set to the backward mode and now we are traveling back in time to 15:55 on July 28th, 2094. In a flash, I am back to 15:55 and we are traveling for the first time in the world. With a lot of tension and nervousness, I just kept looking at my watch.

I immediately texted, “Will you be fifteen minutes late?”

Sahasra replied, “Yes, but how do you know?”

I said, “I just guessed.” I am happy Sahasra is alive and everything is going according to the plan. I was very confident that everything went according to the plan, but I never realized Katyayani was looking at me when I started the time machine. This is a very mixed feeling, when you know the person you love the most was dead once and you saved her, but you now have to face someone you lied.

“I know I lied to you, I was being selfish and I wanted to keep this a secret, but life had some other plans,” I said.

“It’s okay.”

I tried explaining her the situation, but I was not sure if I really cared about the situation, even though Sahasra was running in my head, talking to her was my only option. Everything was okay until Katyayani started questioning me about time travel.

“So you understand these theories?” I questioned.

“I just learned them,” Katyayani replied.

“I study multiple things, but the most common one is bioengineering and artificial humans,” Katyayani replied. I wanted to ask more questions but suddenly someone entered the coffee shop. He was really tall, maybe 6 foot 5 inches, and he ordered a coffee with weird combinations. “Where did this guy come from? He wasn’t there thirty minutes ago,” Katyayani asked.

“It’s the Chaos theory: one small piece can change a lot, and now we changed the entire thirty minute circle. How many things do you think should have changed? I really wish this sequence can help in saving the life of Sahasra,” I replied.

“How did she die?”

“I really don’t know and I really have so much time to find out.”

“So you mean while time travelling we can change situations and we can save the world from happening bad things?” Katyayani asked.

“We can do anything with this machine, maybe we can even trigger WW4,” I replied.

Ding dong, I immediately looked to see if it was Sahasra, but it was a random guy and the door made a sound again, it was Sahasra. “Katyayani, let’s talk about this later.” I said. Katyayani calmly left to her table.

“Sahasra, you came early!” I said.

“I expected it to be longer, but luckily there was no traffic,” Sahasra said. I was really happy after hearing this because the events are happening slightly differently.

“Happy Birthday Scientist,” Sahasra wished me.

“Thank you Sahasra.”

I think it’s high time to tell her that I have feelings for her and I really don’t want to wait anymore. “Sahasra, I think I have feelings for you. I really love you Sahasra,” I said. She became really silent and I really couldn’t understand Sahasra’s expressions.

“Are you kidding me? I don’t have any feelings for you. You are just my friend,” Sahasra said. I was trying to control my tears and I was not ready to show her my tears. “I am really sorry Aditya, but I have no feelings for you.”

Tears were about to roll and I closed my eyes for a fraction of second. Sahasra started to hold her chest and in a fraction of a second, her body collapsed to the ground. I looked at the time, it was 16:19 and I started hearing the voice of someone.

“You don’t need to save her Aditya. She doesn’t love you. Why do you need to save her life again and again?” Katyayani asked.

“I know Sahasra won’t love me and it’s okay.” I turned back, set the time back to 15:55, and started the machine.

We are back to this time again, but now I am really scared about everything that is happening. Can I ever save her? What is happening to Sahasra? I started to get so many questions and I see Katyayani looking at me very seriously, but I have no answer for her. The events started to happen differently again. Two couples came inside: they were not here before. I was trying to think and process everything happening, but nothing is making sense. I was waiting for Sahasra, but I haven’t heard from her and she is not even responding to any of my messages, which is making me really worried and I called her.

“Sahasra, where are you?” I asked. “I am really sorry, I am on my way…” Her voice was cut off by a loud SCREECH, followed by sounds of broken glass and crushed metal. I immediately collapsed down. I looked at my watch, it was 16:20. I was not able to control my tears, but I have no idea what happened.

“Maybe I should go into the future and see what happened?” I said.

“Nothing will be happening, the most you will see is her dead body,” Katyayani said.

“I will go to an alternative event to see the future,” I said. I took my travel gram and set the time forward to 16:55. I was still in the coffee shop, but the real twist was unseen. Katyayani clasped Sahasra’s neck so tightly she was suffocating. Sahasra was gasping for air to survive and pried at Katyayani’s fingers. I tried stopping her, but she shoved me. My head hit the table and I started to bleed. I know I cannot stop her. So I immediately opened my travel gram and set the time to past and clicked go. We are back to 15:55.

“Why are you trying to kill Sahasra?” I shouted. “Tell me why!”

“I love you more than she loves you Aditya,” she replied.

“I already love Sahasra and I don’t think I will ever have feelings for you,” I screamed.

“I already knew that. When I saw you for the first time in your presentation, I fell in love with you; I guess it is called love at first sight and I started following you from that day. I know every step of you and that’s when the ‘Plan Sahasra’ started,” she replied.

“So you think I can’t kill you?” I questioned.

“No you can’t, because the girl you love is under my supervision and your time chip is with me,” Katyayani said.

“But you can’t do anything with my chip because it activates only with my fingerprints,” I said.

“But I can break it and kill your dreams about the project,” she said.

“No, no! Don’t brea-” I didn’t even complete my sentence and she broke it.

“I am sorry Katyayani, you are going to die and you have 5 minutes. The chemicals inside the chip will kill you and with a lot of pain.”

“Sahasra will die now, and you will die too,” she screamed in agony.

“You can do nothing because I changed the plan and I will meet Sahasra at my home. See you never Katyayani.”

I started to walk out of the coffee shop and my locket started to vibrate. I open the notifications and it shows The Loop Error.

“Did this really happen?” I screamed.