Heartbeat

Just an ordinary woman with an ordinary life. Or is she?...

It was dark. Probably very early in the morning, if I had to guess. I had woken up to the feeling of my dog’s rough tongue licking my face vigorously, and yawned sleepily.

“Lila, stop it,” I protested, gently pushing the eager German Shepherd off of my chest. I glanced at the digital clock that glowed dimly on my bedside table. “It’s nine o’clock? Really?” I looked towards the window across the room from my bed. Only a small sliver of light from the street lamps outside shone through my blue satin curtains. I shrugged, figuring that it was probably just really cloudy, like it was every day, and climbed out of bed.

I shuffled to the tiny kitchen of my apartment and blearily poured myself a bowl of cereal as Lila pranced around the tile floor. I sat down on my little couch, turning my television to the news channel as I ate my breakfast. I nearly fell back to sleep again but caught myself before I could faceplant into my bowl. The news was quite boring, but there was never anything else on. Just the same old boring newscaster with what seemed like the same old boring news every single boring morning.

My life was not the most exciting one, but it wasn’t bad either. I had a job as a waitress at a local diner, and the people there were always nice. Mostly because it was always the same people. The people there had gotten so predictable that I had memorized the things that they always ordered every single day. I quite enjoyed my conversations with the regulars. They weren’t very in-depth conversations, but they were always so friendly to me.

I would go to work every afternoon at 2 o’clock, and not leave to drive home until 10. I was always so exhausted from my shift that I was practically asleep already in the car, so I never seemed to remember going to bed the night before.

After my breakfast, I decided to hop in the shower like I did every morning. As I was walking to the bathroom, I heard an odd sound. I stopped and listened closely. It was the faint sound of a beep that seemed to match up with my heartbeat. Or maybe it was the other way around. I peeked into all of my rooms, searching around for the source of the noise, but it never seemed to get any louder or softer and it didn’t seem to be coming from any one direction.

Now quite anxious from the incessant sound, I went back to my original plan of taking a shower and tried to ignore it. As I was drying my long, brown hair in front of the mirror in my bathroom, I looked at the calendar that I had hung next to the mirror. The date was April 20th. It was my 32nd birthday! I gazed at my reflection and smiled. I still looked like I was 18, and I never even used moisturizer! I looked down at Lila who was sitting next to me and wagging her tail, her tongue lolling out of her mouth like it had done since my 12th birthday when I had gotten her. I smiled as I looked at her excited face, then paused. Lila was 20 years old and still this energetic? Most dogs don’t live past 15. I frowned. Something was odd about this. Questions that had never occurred to me began rushing into my head as the sound gradually got louder and louder. And how was it that I looked like I hadn’t aged a day in 14 years? And every day was exactly the same as the day before? And why could I never remember what I did the night before? I stumbled, overwhelmed by the thoughts crowding their way into my mind, and caught myself on the edge of the sink.

Am I going mad? I wondered as I stared at my reflection. I ran my shaky hands through my damp hair and grabbed a bottle of pain medication from the cabinet.

After swallowing a couple of pills that seemed to dull the beeping sound, I quickly got dressed and walked to the cafe where I would meet my best friend every morning for coffee and conversation. I sat at our usual table and as soon as she arrived, before she could even put down her purse, I asked, “Emma, don’t you find it strange that nothing ever changes around here?”

“Of course not, Zoe,” she replied, laughing slightly at the question and settling into her seat.

I rubbed my temples as the sound of the beeping began to increase in volume again. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re in a coma, of course,” replied Emma, casually sipping her iced mocha like that was completely normal. “You’ve been reliving the day you got into that freak car accident over and over for two weeks.”

I opened my eyes.

Author's Note

Is it suspenseful enough?