At first, Simon had come to the church every day, but then it became clear he’d grow no muscle nor develop no callus, so he’d changed to every other day. Then every third. He’d tried every seven—he missed the concept of ‘the week’—but the length felt disrespectful. Too long in between. So, every five.

“You know,” Jeff had said once, “five is God’s favorite number.” They were at the Rusted Bucket for happy hour.

“You sure it isn’t seven?” Simon’s faith was vestigial through his study of the Renaissance in his art history program. Jeff had gone into mathematics and kept God close at hand. Simon had always wondered why it wasn’t reversed. “Or forty?”

“It depends on your reading.” Jeff raised a hand to block the sun. “We’re in His image. Five fingers, five toes.” He squinted like the appendage was made of glass. “Christ fed five-kay people with a lunchbox. It fits.”

Back in the church yard, Simon finished eating. He browsed his phone, but it seemed like an average day. Fewer and fewer people were acting out this far into the loop. The internet was up. The power grid was active. Sewage ran. Most of civilization’s infrastructure could maintain itself for twenty-four hours, unless someone decided to act out. Phone service got spotty, on occasion.

Sometimes Simon left his phone at home. He was tired of waking up to the same unread text messages from April 29: Jeff asking to talk. Simon was starting to forget what they’d fought about on April 26. Then, Jeff was dead on April 30.

It had to have been religion. The fight. And about Simon moving away from Lubbock in two weeks without telling Jeff ahead of time. But Simon’s girlfriend—ex, now that the UTR made personal relationships more difficult—had taken a job in Minneapolis, which was a hard distance. Jeff had pointed out how Maggie wasn’t exactly a ‘hard distance kind of gal.’ Simon had taken the moment to spill, and then the fight started.

“Damn it, man,” Simon said from beside the grave. He wasn’t sure if he was speaking to himself or Jeff.

He’d lost people before the time-loop. Back when days passed normally, a year and a half was long enough to address the initial stages of grief. The intervals between tragic reminders expanded, filed down by time. After the UTR, though—waking up every morning to his alarm and the same unread text messages, on the same day—it made the previous five-hundred-something hit as hard as those first two.

He glanced up. Someone watched him from the far corner of the yard. A guy, a teenager, around learner’s permit or driver’s license age. Long and unkempt hair, face speckled with acne. Getting looped during puberty proved either God didn’t exist or He was especially cruel.

Not everyone was as lucky as Simon. His buddy Joaquin hit the loop boundary at a gas station thirty minutes from his apartment. Maggie was on the first night of a work trip in San Diego, high at a party. Simon’s cousin was halfway to Hawaii on a red eye over the Pacific.

Simon wiped his hands clean on the dry grass and picked up the shovel. Maybe if he ignored the kid, he’d go away.

“Hey.” The kid hadn’t moved.

Simon sighed and rested the shovel on the dirt, then one hand on the shovel, the other on his hip. “Yeah?”

The kid stayed outside the fence, half-shaded by the church. “What are you doing?”

Early in the loop, there was a group who’d come watch, but they stopped when they realized Simon wasn’t there to chat or pray. “Don’t worry about it, I have permission.” The pastor stopped showing up after a few months, then most of the congregation.

“Can I help?”

“No.” Firm and direct was best.

The kid left.

Simon finished digging four hours later. Sometimes he stayed after to say a few words, but he was tired, so he just went home.

Five days later, the kid returned. Simon was waist-deep in the ground, two-thirds done. He’d started early.

“I brought my own shovel,” the kid said. He held it up. Shiny, unused, probably taken from an unmanned hardware store.

It was too late to ignore him. Simon thought—very briefly—about violence. Just once, to warn the kid away from future visits, but then the hair on his neck rose. In the wild red days of the early Recurrence, he’d joined in on the frenzy one time, to see what it was like. He’d vowed never to again. Maybe acquiescence would turn this into a one-and-done. “Fine.”

The kid came through the squealing gate shovel in hand, shoulders bowed, eyes downturned.

Simon had rarely seen anyone so pathetic. “Just this once,” he said, before he could stop himself.

The kid nodded and sat on the edge of the grave, his legs dangling almost long enough to brush the bottom. “I’m Jasper.”

“Simon.” Already too chummy, but then he realized he hadn’t introduced himself to anyone in months. His stomach grumbled. When was the last time he’d had a casual conversation with anyone?

“I’ve seen you here.” Jasper lowered himself into the grave. It was tight for two tall people.

Simon already regretted his acquiescence. The digging was sacred, or the next closest thing. The greasy-haired teen held the shovel like he’d never dug a hole. Did kids dig anymore? Simon didn’t know. He continued in silence, careful not to clip Jasper’s shoes.

They finished the grave in record time. Jasper kept his mouth shut until the inevitable question: “Why’re you doing this?”

Simon bit his lip. He hadn’t explained himself in a while. He told himself it wasn’t penance because penance meant he’d done something he’d regretted. Simon hadn’t done anything—well, no. It was more like he’d done nothing. Which, he supposed, was doing something. So, maybe penance. Or prayer.

“A friend of mine died,” Simon said. “Suddenly. Two days before the loop. We hadn’t talked in a while, and… I should have reached out. But I didn’t.” He climbed out of the grave.

Jasper looked up at him. “How? Did he die, I mean.”

“Aneurysm.”

“What’s that?”

Simon offered Jasper a hand and pulled the kid from the earth. “Burst blood vessel in the brain.” He got his water bottle, took a drink. “The arterial wall bubbles outward and ruptures. Causes swelling and brain death.” The doctors said Jeff had passed out in seconds and wouldn’t wake up. “Sudden. Invisible.” Another drink. “Unless you catch it on a scan you get for something else.”

Jeff had been a healthy guy. Always running, hitting his gym routine, holiday 5Ks. Too young for regular scans. The doctors were at a loss.

Simon wondered again what might have happened if he’d responded to the texts. Would it have delayed the aneurysm, so Jeff was unwittingly looping his last day alive? Or worse, delayed it just enough so Jeff died mid-loop, on May 2nd, again and again?

“Oh,” Jasper huffed, like he’d expected more.

Simon supposed he had, too.

“I get it.” Jasper dropped his shovel. He hadn’t brought water. He’d kept his shirt on, and it clung to him, wet. “One of my friends died too. Myles. The day before the end of junior year. It was a…” His eyes bounced back and forth. “I can’t remember what it’s called. He broke his ankle. The doctors said it…” More bouncing eyes. “It caused a blood clot or something. Traveled to his lungs. We were walking back from the park. He got dizzy and fell over.”

Simon nodded. “Sorry.”

Jasper wiped his face and smeared dirt across his cheek. His hair was tied back. He looked older. “You know what’s fucked? The year before, the quarterback got killed by a drunk driver. And everybody was really bummed. The district named the new athletic center after him. Commissioned a mosaic.”

Simon watched the kid work himself up.

“And they planted a tree for Myles. I helped dig the hole in front of the school. After commencement.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts. “But nobody watered it. So it died. And by the time school started, they’d removed it. Now it’s all landscaped. You know.”

Simon’s eyes flickered towards the merciless sky. “Yeah. That’s fucked.”

Jasper kicked a clump of dirt into the grave, then glanced sheepishly at Simon. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s my fault,” Jasper continued. “The tree. I could have watered it. Went and saw it getting wilty and said, hey, that looks wilty, and brought it some water.” He stared into the grave. “I could’ve done that.”

“It could have been sick,” Simon said. “Any number of things. Pests. The heat. Pesticides.” West Texas was hard on trees. “It wasn’t your responsibility.” He wondered if anybody in a high school administration knew how to pick a healthy tree in the first place.

Jasper nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. “And now I can’t leave. All my friends went to college, but I took a gap year. I guess the joke’s on me.” He kicked more dirt. “I hate it here.”

Simon patted the kid’s shoulder. “Yeah.” He hadn’t meant to stay in Lubbock this long. He thought of Joaquin, restarting every day thirty minutes from his home. Maggie, in San Diego. They didn’t text anymore. He hoped they were okay. “Do y’all keep in touch?”

“Sometimes,” Jasper said. “Not as much as we used to.” A long breath. “Thanks for letting me help. I think it… helped.”

“Yeah.” Simon gathered his things and went to the gate. He paused, half-in and half-out of the yard. Jasper hadn’t moved. “I…” Simon cleared his throat. “I do this sometimes. Every week, or so. If you’re bored.”

Jasper nodded, but didn’t say anything.

On his way home, Simon passed the Rusted Bucket, the landscaped high school, Jeff’s apartment. He paused on the sidewalk outside. Jeff’s body was still at the hospital. In the distance, an ambulance wailed. Someone was still responding to emergencies.

He thought of Myles’ tree, forgotten in the warm and heavy air of a Texas summer. Of the unread text messages on his phone. He shook his head. Unread wasn’t right. He knew better. At this point, he knew them by heart and could recite them from memory.

Jeff wasn’t the sort to say grace at meals, but Simon knew he prayed. “I just don’t see the point.” It was another bender at the Bucket, a week ago, by some perspectives. Just before the fight. They’d started getting tilted about religion. “If prayer worked, why are things the way they are? It feels like a waste of time.”

“Prayer shouldn’t do anything concrete,” Jeff snapped. “But it helps me cope, alright? Talking to the Big Guy. The ritual of it. It puts the struggle into perspective. I think that’s enough for me.”

Simon wondered if it was enough for him. He flexed his fingers, held them up to the sun. Between them, the light smeared across the horizon. About ten hours to the loop boundary, to another May 2nd, for everybody and everything in the observable universe. Four days until the next grave. Maybe six. He’d see how he felt on the morning of.

Was Jeff shouting down at him from the afterlife? Was he wasting his time? Simon closed his eyes, just for a moment. Just for long enough to feel the day. His hands hurt. His arms ached. A light breeze ruffled his hair before the heat returned.