REWIND
What would you do if you had the
chance, just once, to live 24 hours and then have it erased to start over?
That’s what happened to me. I can’t
tell you too much about how - they forced me to sign a confidentiality
agreement and it was clear that things would become very unpleasant for me if I
ever told anybody anything specific about them… or the experiment. It began
when I answered an ad to take part in a clinical trial for money. That much I
can say (or hope I can). I definitely can’t say how I got involved with the ‘Rewind
Protocol’. That was what they called the experiment. The trial was only a
recruitment scheme…a test. And apparently I passed with flying colours,
something about my psyche being malleable and resilient at the same time.
At first I didn’t believe what
they were telling me. It wasn’t until they demonstrated the ‘Rewind Protocol’
that I finally believed and agreed to take part. Oh, of course the money that
they offered helped, and when they deposited 50% into my bank account up front,
I knew they were very serious. Of course I had misgivings. What if it were all
true? What would happen? What if something went wrong? But in the end I set
aside my reservations and did it because my family needed the money and because
I wanted to do something that mattered. I would become a pioneer of sorts.
That’s how I ended up sitting at my desk at 11.54 p.m. that fateful night, knowing
that come midnight, everything I did for the following 24 hours would be erased
the following day.
It was a curious feeling. At
first, you think the possibilities are endless, you feel like there are so many
things you should do with this time that you'll never be able to fit them all in.
And then when you start to pin things down, there aren't so many. You struggle
to think of something to do. You can’t just act normally, you need a thing to do with this amazing chance that you have. The chance to do well, the chance
to see how things would work out, try them and then have them erased. Then,
later you can decide whether or not to do those things, after you've already
seen the outcome.
It might not sound like much, but
it felt like a lot of power.
I was sitting at my desk, but my
laptop was closed. I was gazing out of the window at the stars above my garden,
listening to the tick of the clock by my bed. I suppose I was expecting
something to happen at midnight. A shimmer to come over the world, a flash of
light, a feeling deep within me that it had started. But nothing happened. I
sat there, and watched the seconds count out the minute to midnight, and the
minute after. Nothing felt different. How did I know it had worked? How did I
know that now was the time to do things, that the things I did from now were
the things that were going to be erased?
Maybe my clock was fast.
I waited until seven past
midnight. It must have started by now. I stood up, and I sat back down again.
What should I do? I felt nervous, like the tingling of excitement you get on
Christmas Eve. The first thing I thought of was dyeing my hair. If it looked
good, I could do it again when time reset, and if it didn’t, well I wouldn’t
bother. But it was just after midnight, and I had no hair dye.
I had to do something though.
I had to mark the occasion.
I went downstairs. In the fridge
were the cheesecake muffins my sister had made for her friend's birthday. She
was going to take them into school tomorrow for all of her friends to share.
She was a good cook, and earlier that evening she had warned me in no uncertain
terms that I wasn't to touch them . I had eyed them enviously as she
stacked them in the fridge.
I could have one now. Even if she
noticed, it would all be undone in 24 hours. I took one and bit into it,
relishing the rebellion. It was good, alright. I wandered around the kitchen as
I ate, wondering if anything looked different. I wanted something to mark the
fact that these 24 hours were special, but there
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