Ten Minutes to Midnight, On Repeat [Wraith]
The sign outside The Pit blinks like a dying confession, red tubes buzzing over rain-streaked glass that’s been smeared by a thousand nervous hands and one or two drunken apologies no one remembers making,
while inside the room smells like old fryer grease, cheap beer, and the recycled breath of people who keep promising themselves they’ll leave right after this drink, this song, this year, this life,
and the jukebox in the corner coughs out something that might have been a hit a decade ago if anyone had loved it enough to care,
but tonight the only thing with ambition is the clock above the bar, dragging its tired hands toward midnight like it’s dreading what happens when it gets there.
Max leans back in a cracked vinyl booth that sticks to his shirt like the bar itself is trying to claim him for long-term storage,
raising a plastic cup of flat beer with the kind of bravado that always crumbles as soon as he is alone with his browser history and his reflection,
yelling over the off-key band that sounds like someone taught a hangover to play guitar,“Can you believe we’re spending New Year’s here?” like he isn’t the one who suggested it three group chats ago with a shrug emoji and a joke about “embracing the chaos.”
Sarah blows across her cheap whiskey, the ice cubes clinking like little broken promises tapping out code against the glass,
eyes moving over the room full of faces that all look like they’ve been stretched a little too thin over the skull,
saying, “At least the nachos outlived most of our plans,”and they laugh, because it is hilarious if you tilt your head just right and forget that the cheese has the same expiration date as most of their resolutions.
Jake keeps checking the door like opportunity is going to walk in wearing a leather jacket and ask if the seat is taken,
fingers tracing circles in the ring of moisture on the table like he is trying to scry some better future from watered-down beer,
asking, “What if this is it, guys? What if we’re still in this place next year, same chairs, same songs, same arguments, same excuses stuck in our teeth?”and Emily, who has already rehearsed leaving town three times this week in the privacy of her head, swats the thought away with a tired smile and an “It’s just a bar, calm down,”even as her gaze drifts toward the regulars, those permanent fixtures hunched over drinks that taste more like endings than celebrations,
a man folding receipts into tiny birds that never fly,
a woman staring into her cocktail like it’s the last crystal ball on earth and it keeps showing reruns.
The Pit breathes in bodies and exhales resignation,
three guys in frayed suits sit at the counter like they wandered in from the funeral of their better years and never got the address to go home again,
and Max nods toward them, muttering, “Look, future us,”earning a half-hearted middle finger from Sarah and a huff of laughter from Jake that sounds just a little too close to panic.
The clock above the bar limps toward midnight, its second hand juddering like it wants to quit but union rules won’t let it,
and the entire room shifts with that slow, uneasy tide that comes right before a countdown,
where everyone pretends the next set of numbers on the calendar will bulldoze the wreckage of the last twelve months into something less embarrassing,
even though their tabs are still open and their habits still have keys to the apartment.
The bartender wipes the counter with the same rag he’s been using since the last recession,
shouting over the rising noise, “Ten minutes, people, last chance to pretend you’re changing everything in the morning,”and someone cheers like that’s not the most honest threat they have heard all year.
The screen in the corner plays the televised party in some downtown square,
shiny strangers in sequins and corporate joy screaming into cameras while confetti falls like permission to forget,
but in here the only glitter is the way the neon reflects in spilled beer and sticky puddles on the floor,
small, shimmering lies about glamour at the bottom of rubber soles.
Then the countdown begins:Ten; Max clinks his cup against Sarah’s with the solemnity of a man toasting to “no more bullshit,”even as he already knows he will be back at this same table, this same date, next year, still half in love with excuses and half in love with the idea of leaving them.
Nine; Jake pictures moving away, changing jobs, learning to sleep without the buzzing anxiety that lives in his bones like a squatter,
and the fantasy tastes just like the whiskey; sharp, warm, gone too quick to matter.
Eight; Emily wonders if she’ll ever actually write that book, or if the only thing she’ll ever finish is someone else’s fries,
and she laughs to herself because the joke stings less if you sell it first.
Seven; Sarah thumbs open a notification on her phone that reads “You up?” from a number she should have deleted during last year’s hangover purge,
and for one long heartbeat she almost answers.
Six; the old guy at the bar stumbles off his stool, knocking it over with a clatter that sounds exactly like the last nerve in the room snapping,
swearing, “I’m not drunk, I’m just checking the floor for better options,”and everyone around him laughs harder than the joke deserves,
because he just accidentally said the quiet part out loud for the whole damned building.
Five; the music turns up, a distorted roar of borrowed joy,
the band shouting lyrics no one can make out, and no one really cares to,
because all anybody is listening for is that clean, sharp moment where the year flips and reality pretends it blinked.
Four; the TV crowd screams, the bar crowd joins,
two different cities of people promising themselves they will drink more water, be more patient, stop texting people who treat their feelings like spam mail,
everyone planning to become slightly upgraded models of themselves while wearing the same cracked casing.
Three; they all stand, or try to, glasses raised, sticky, trembling, half-full and half-honest,
breathless for a miracle they know damn well they didn’t earn.
Two; the air tightens, as if the room itself is inhaling,
the clock above the bar dragging itself toward the edge like a jumper on a ledge who still hasn’t figured out if they’re jumping or not.
One; the shout goes up, a messy roar of “Happy New Year” that sounds more like “Please don’t let me be this person forever,”liquid fire down throats, arms flung around shoulders, mouths pressed where they probably shouldn’t be,
and for a heartbeat The Pit shines, ugly and sacred and absolutely alive.
Then the lights stutter.
The neon sign outside hiccups and sputters,
the bulbs overhead flicker like someone breathing heavy over the switch,
the sound glitches, the televised crowd freezes mid-cheer,
and the clock above the bar trembles, its hands shivering,
before rolling backward with a casual cruelty to ten minutes to midnight.
Nobody moves at first.
Max’s grin falters, holding his glass halfway to his mouth,
Sarah’s hand stalls in mid-air over a bowl of chips gone stale,
Jake’s laugh curdles into a quiet, high-pitched sound with no idea what emotion it belongs to,
Emily blinks once, twice, like maybe blinking is a reset code she never got the manual for.
The band stops playing mid-strum, one chord hanging in the air like a ghost who missed its cue,
and then starts right over at the same song, same wrong note, same tired opening line,
like the loop was inside the speakers all along and only just decided to admit it.
The clock reads 11:50 again.
The bartender checks his watch, then the clock, then the watch again with the look of a man who has run out of ways to blame maintenance,
mumbling, “Must be busted,” though his voice cracks on the lie,
because every person in the room feels the same thing slide under their skin—this isn’t a glitch.
This is a sentence.
Panic crawls around the edges of the table like a spilled drink no one can find a napkin for.“We’re stuck,” Jake whispers, and the word lands on the wood with the weight of something that does not intend to move,“This is it, this is our loop, this is…hell,”and the worst part is, no one can quite disagree.
Max lists his plans like a defense: new job, new gym, new city, new him,
as if sheer volume could batter down the walls of whatever cosmic joke they’ve been written into,
Sarah slams her glass down so hard it should have shattered,
spitting, “What plans? We never leave this table, we just rearrange the ashtrays,”and Emily wants to tell her she’s wrong, but the words get stuck behind every time they’ve said “tomorrow” and meant “never.”
Around them, the bar picks up the countdown again, voices a little shakier now, as if everyone is waiting to see if the trap springs a second time,
and when the clock limps its way back to midnight once more,
when the shouting begins again,
when the lights fizz and the neon coughs,
when the hands slam back to 11:50 with smug precision,
The Pit stops being a dive bar and becomes a confession booth that never offers absolution.
Time stretches like gum on a shoe,
every loop another layer of regret tacked onto the ceiling,
another round of “this year I’ll” that never makes it out the door,
another orbit of the same orbiting fears,
friends trapped in a snow globe full of warm beer and stale air,
shaken every ten minutes by a god with a sense of humor and absolutely no mercy.
Jake sinks back into the booth, defeated eyes watching the clock restart for the third time,
whispering, “I guess this is our hell,”and it fits too well:no fire, no pitchforks, just infinite almosts,
endless second chances that never cross the finish line,
forever trapped at the threshold of “Maybe.”
But Sarah, stubborn even with despair clawing at her ribs,
leans in, eyes lit by something fierce and ugly and defiant,
saying, “Fine. If we’re stuck here, we’re going to wreck this place with something that matters,”a vow not to escape, but to change what “stuck” means,
to turn The Pit from a waiting room for better lives they’ll never live into a workshop where they break and rebuild themselves in public,
every loop another draft, every countdown another punchline they deliver first.
Max snorts, then laughs, then clings to the sound like a lifeline,
Jake’s shoulders shake, but this time there’s a hint of mean hope under the dread,
Emily pulls a pen from her bag and starts writing on the table itself, gouging words into the veneer,
a list not of grand resolutions but of tiny revolts:tell the truth more often than not,
quit calling loneliness “fate,”leave when staying becomes a slow-motion drowning,
sing louder than the band even if her voice cracks.
The clock above the bar limps onward.
It will hit midnight again, and again, and again,
resetting them to 11:50 like a broken game that never ends,
but somewhere between stale beer and recycled air,
between bad nachos and worse timing,
they begin to understand that hell is not just the loop,
it is the choice to live the same ten minutes like they are already dead,
and if they have to be here forever,
they might as well make those ten minutes bleed.