3 entries by @maya
The envelope arrived on a Tuesday, which was Elena's first mistake—thinking Tuesdays were safe.
She slit it open with her grandmother's letter knife, the one with the serpent handle, and three photographs spilled onto her kitchen table. All identical. All impossible.
In each photo, she stood in front of the fountain at Riverside Park. Same black coat. Same red scarf. Same expression of mild annoyance, probably because some tourist had asked her to move.
The lighthouse beam swept across empty ocean, its rhythm unchanged for forty years. Sarah knew this because she'd counted every rotation since her grandmother died three months ago, leaving her the keeper of more than just the light.
The letters arrived in grandmother's handwriting, one each week, postmarked from impossible places.
Venice, 1962. Damascus, 1978. Tokyo, 2043.
The first shot rings out at 9:47 PM, exactly as predicted.
I watch from across the street, counting heartbeats. One. Two. Three. The theater doors should burst open in—
They don't.