City of Cycles

A short story exploring a man’s growing apathy in the face of a disaster as he prepares to loop back in time in a bid to prolong his city’s survival. Check out City of Cycles’ corresponding Stories Across Borders episode.

Nader stretched, then slowly flopped back against the headboard of his bed. He had hardly slept a wink and he was reluctant to leave the comfort of his bed. The responsibilities of the day were doing little to increase his motivation. One responsibility more than others.

A faint tremor in the ground, barely the lightest of vibrations, was a reminder to Nader that he didn’t have much choice in the matter though. It was a sensation most wouldn’t have even noticed. Nader only recognised it because he knew what to look for. He had experienced it before. It was the source of his work for the day.

With a great amount of effort, Nader forced himself out of the safety of his linens and to his feet. He prepared a simple breakfast of eggs and toast and a large mug of coffee and then sat on his balcony overlooking the city. 

It was early in the morning and the city was just starting to stir to life. A small trickle of cars on the streets marked the beginning of the commute to work for many, or return journeys for those who had finished night shifts. A few other people in the apartment building were also enjoying breakfasts out on their balconies. They didn’t know what was awaiting them.

But Nader knew. He had seen it happen over and over again. He had lived through it over and over again. The eruption came like clockwork for Nader. In only a few hours, the faint tremors he was noticing would become much more significant. Not long after, the volcano nobody had known was there would explode and the city would be engulfed in a pyroclastic flow.

It couldn’t be stopped. It was inevitable. At least, for the time being. It was part of Nader’s job to buy them time. Not that he needed to rush. He had plenty of time to get to the office and set off the time warp.

He’d felt more urgency at first. But this was his tenth warp. He knew the routine. He would finish his breakfast, he would shower and dress for work and then he would head into the office. Once he was there, he would head past the volcanologists and physicists entering their exclusion pods and he would do his part of the activation sequence before entering his own.

Like clockwork.

It was exhausting, if he was honest. But it was the only option to protect the city. They couldn’t evacuate everyone. They had tried that before. Only a third of the residents survived. All they could do was keep pressing the reset button to give the volcanologists more time to figure out how to prevent the eruption - or at least significantly reduce the damage it caused.

Nader was starting to wonder if such a solution really existed. They had conquered time itself. Or, at the very least, they had enough mastery of it for a short jump backwards. But they were about to jump for the tenth time and they still couldn’t sate the bloodlust of the Earth itself. It was as if the planet was determined for the city to die. Nader wished that the cycle could finally end. He had hoped that they could jump forward instead, but travelling to a destination that doesn’t exist yet had proved impossible.

All they could do was keep repeating themselves, all but a few of them unaware that such a thing was even occurring. They were surviving on borrowed time. The more Nader thought about it, the more tired he felt. The more hopeless it seemed. Perhaps some things were just meant to happen. 

He felt a stronger tremor through the floor. It was still faint, but this time it was strong enough that others could notice. In fact, he noticed some of his neighbours on their own balconies glancing around nervously. It was about time for him to finish getting ready and head in to work to prepare the next jump.

Half an hour later, Nader was in the driver’s seat of his car, one of many crawling along the highway. Even knowing he would make it to where he had to go, the glacial speed of the morning traffic was mildly annoying. It was annoying every time.

As he always did, Nader eventually escaped the highway and found himself pulling into a parking space at the office. At least, that’s what they called it. In reality, while it looked like an ordinary office building from outside, inside it was more of a laboratory. 

He turned off his vehicle and sat there for several minutes. There was work to be done, but every loop it took more and more effort to exit his car and set about his tasks. It seemed counterintuitive to him when he thought about it. His innate self-preservation and his desire to help those who were otherwise doomed should have easily provided enough motivation to make his way inside every morning. 

Instead, every cycle he just felt more and more worn down. They were making no progress. Nothing they had tried had worked and most of the things they had yet to try still would take hundreds more loops to achieve. Even then, they likely wouldn’t work either.

Nader reached for the handle of his door and found his hand frozen before it reached it. Maybe it was time to accept that some things couldn’t be changed. The endless looping couldn’t just be affecting his own mentality. Surely, everyone else was also coming to the same hopeless realisation as he had. They were playing god, but they were losing the game. They would always lose the game. The only way not to lose was to stop playing.

Nader turned the engine back on and pulled away from the carpark. They likely wouldn’t be able to make the jump work without him. It took a lot of work from the whole team. He should have felt guilty, but Nader only felt free.