Rule Eight: I Died at Twelve and Came Back Into the Loop

There's a gap in my memory between when the car hit me and when I came to — and I think that gap is the whole point.

I was 12. Car hit me. Then nothing. Then I was back.

Not sleep. Not blur. A gap. Clean-edged. Like a cut in film.

I've been sitting with that gap for decades and I finally know what it is: the seam. The place where the loop stitches itself closed and starts again.

Watch Russian Doll on Netflix if you haven't. Watch Natasha Lyonne die and restart and die and restart until she figures out why. That's not fiction. That's a diagram.

Rewatch Buffy with the new perspective that everything that happened in the show might be real.

In order for a prophecy to come true, you have to go through a time loop. You have to BE there to know it happened.

Rule Eight: the loop is not a punishment. It's a mechanism. And I've already been through at least one iteration.

The gap in my memory is the proof.