Rewriting the Night
You remember that night like a fragment of a dream—bar lights dancing off half-empty glasses, your closest friends cracking jokes by the neon jukebox. Amid the playful noise and dim swirl of color, she appeared at your table as if conjured by chance. Maybe it was the sincerity in her laughter or the way her eyes shone whenever she teased you about your taste in music, but you felt something instantaneous and dizzying. You talked until the streetlights dimmed to early morning hush, sharing stories of childhood mischief and half-formed ambitions. She wrote her number on a creased napkin. You tucked it into your pocket, heart pounding like the bass line from the DJ’s final track.
The next morning, that napkin was gone—lost between the night’s blur and the taxi ride home. You spent weeks searching for her in the same bars, scanning crowds for her silhouette. But no matter how many times you revisited the places you’d been, the spark you found was nowhere in sight. People said it was a fling, a brief crossing of paths. Yet part of you ached, convinced she was more than a casual memory.
Years passed. You pursued new goals, watched friends settle, chased fleeting passions. Then, by a strange twist of fate, you uncovered a tattered $TIME watch from an old estate sale. Its faint hum stirred rumors of leaps through time. At first, you dismissed it—an artifact from a legend. But nights alone at your cluttered desk got you thinking: maybe, just maybe, you could anchor yourself back to that night. If the watch really could nudge open a door to the past, might you rejoin the exact moment you glimpsed her smile and snag that napkin for good?
The watch sits on your table now, flickering in uncertain pulses. You close your eyes, seeing her face in the haze of the bar’s neon glow. Perhaps it’s reckless to meddle with fate. Perhaps you’ll fail. Still, that memory clings to your mind—the voice you never forgot, the number that slipped through your fingers. And so you contemplate the ultimate gamble: to rewind the night’s tape in hopes of one more chance at the story you left unfinished.
Micro stories are a content feature offered by $TIME's dev Woj. Handwritten and accompanied by art, they serve to deepen the story world we're creating here. Enjoy!
