Original Day
Lay in bed for five hours reading Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and simultaneously watching Al Jazeera streaming online. I fall asleep after hour three for about fifteen minutes, a time frame I’m only aware of because the last thing I remember was Mubarak’s speech and then I woke up to a reporter announcing it had been fifteen minutes since Mubarak’s speech. Shower. Class on the West Bank. Listen to my professor speak five languages in the span of two hours. Trivia at Galactic Pizza. We’re tied for the lead for much of the game, fuck up the last question which I had right the first time and changed at the last minute. Very pissed at myself. Trek to Jay Gabler’s home with Sarah Heuer, drink one beer. Get a ride home from Jay which I feel guilty about because it requires him to give up his sweet parking spot across the street. Watch Archer and two Daily Show’s, go to sleep at 3:30 a.m.

Second Replay
Lay in bed for five hours reading the rest of Spenser; I only got about halfway through it the first time around. Al Jazeera streaming again. Fall asleep for fifteen minutes. Shower earlier and head to West Bank earlier because I’ve finished Spenser. Listen to my professor speak five languages in the span of two hours, freak him out by saying “fünf” at the exact same time as him. Trivia at Galactic Pizza. Demolish the competition because this time I know better than to second guess what I had originally thought was the formula for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. Trek to Jay Gabler’s home with Sarah Heuer, don’t drink a beer because I fucking hate beer. Why did I drink a beer the first time? Get a ride home from Jay which I feel even more guilty about this time because it’s like the second ride for me, even though it’s the first one for him. Watch Archer and two Daily Show’s, go to sleep at 3:30 a.m.

Fourteenth Replay
Wake up at 8 a.m. and put a pot roast in the crock pot. No need to read Spenser; read it many times already. Shower and put my hair into a circular series of ponytails around my head, just to see what kind of reaction I’ll get. Listen to my professor speak five languages in the span of two hours, remember that I speak some Turkish and cut him off by going on a minute long rampage about horses and mountains and pasta in Turkish. Trivia at Galactic Pizza. Earn the first ever perfect trivia score that Galactic has ever seen, prompting Dustin and CBass the trivia boys to give me two sincere high-fives each. Sprint to Jay Gabler’s house with Sarah Heuer on my back, just to see if I can. Turns out I can’t – even though Sarah only weighs like a hundred pounds, I overestimated my own strength and we both collapse near Moxie on Lyndale. Call Jay Gabler to pick us up. Drink four beers at Jay’s, fall asleep with my head in Sarah’s lap. Call a cab to get home because I’ll be damned if I’m going to make Jay drive me home three times in a row. Watch Archer (still funny) and pass out on the floor. Wake up at 3:30 to my dog licking my ear, bat him away and pass out again.

242^nd Replay
Wake up at 8 a.m. and order sixteen orders of hot wings from Domino’s. Realize I have the first four books of The Faerie Queene memorized, plan to use this to my advantage in class later. Shower and shave my head completely clean. Have a long conversation with my professor in German, top off class with a recitation of FQ’s third book entirely from memory. Professor starts to cry a little. Trivia at Galactic Pizza. Perfect score, series of high fives, but I really freak people out when I am able to accurately guess how many points each of the other teams would also earn. The Master Blasters accuse me of being a witch, Drew my favorite waiter asks me wide-eyed if I’m from Harry Potter. Fashion a makeshift sled out of pizza boxes and demand that Sarah Heuer drag me to Jay Gabler’s. She refuses, rightly so, and the ennui and anger I’ve been building up over these last 241 replays explodes out of me when I bludgeon her to death with her Blackberry. Call Jay Gabler to help me dispose of the body. He refuses, rightly so, and the panic I’ve added onto my ennui and anger at the unexpected murder of one of my dearest friends explodes out of me and I attempt to tackle Jay to the ground. I fail, because he’s 6’4”, and he drives away angrily, vowing to never speak to me again. And also that he’s going to call the police. Walk home via 94E and 35W North. Make it nearly home, pass out in the doorstep of ChinDian on the corner of 15^th and Hennepin.

4,875^th Replay
Wake up at 4 p.m., vow to skip class. If I have to talk about what Spenser might have meant when he said “swelling sayles” one more time, I’ll stab everyone in the classroom through the eye with the door stopper. Eat the entire contents of my fridge, just to see if I can. I can’t. Throw up in my bathtub. Trivia at Galactic Pizza. Give up entirely and refuse to answer any questions, even though I know the answers to all of them. Annoy Dustin and CBass by reciting the questions right along with them. Drew once again asks me wide-eyed if I’m from Harry Potter. Hug Sarah Heuer tightly, remnants of my guilt for having murdered her in my 242^nd replay. Call Jay Gabler and scream at him on the phone for twenty minutes for not being able to break this hellish cycle; not that he would be able to. Which I’m aware of. But doing it makes me feel a little better. He asks what’s wrong, I scream “I CANNOT ESCAPE THIS DAY” and throw my phone against the wall. Run out into the street and in front of an oncoming car. When he slams on the brakes and gets out to ask if I’m okay, I punch him out and steal his car. Drive home. Go to bed immediately.

10,000^th Replay
Don’t get out of bed. Pull all the hairs out of my head one by one. Watch my dog sniff at and subsequently chew on the pile of hair. Call Sarah, tell her I love her. Call Becky, tell her I love her. Call Jay, tell him he’s definitely the tallest person I know. Climb up the hill in my back yard, stand in the middle of the train tracks. Wait.

–Katie Sisneros