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Margarite has spent a lifetime looking back—at regrets, at missed chances, at the slow erosion of joy. She’s grown used to the weight of disappointment, sipping wine on her lanai as time fades into the Florida heat. But when a man in a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops tells her she’s lived this life before—three times before—and keeps making the same choices, she can hardly believe it.
She doesn’t remember being given do-overs. She doesn’t remember the warnings, the signs, the scribbles on bathroom walls urging her to choose differently. And yet, here she is, once again, lamenting the past, sitting across from the only person who seems to know the truth.
Becker has spent lifetimes trying to help Margarite. He’s rewound her story, given her second chances, and nudged her toward different paths, only to watch her tumble into the same old patterns. But this time, he’s done. This time, he’s walking away.
And for the first time, Margarite doesn’t want him to.
With one unexpected choice, the cycle shifts. Fate bends. And the future—her real future—might just begin with a single step.
The old woman sat on her metal chair with the frayed cushion and flecked white paint, looking out beyond the screen of her lanai to the sun-burnt lawn and the overgrown orange tree, long-necked birds digging their pointed beaks into the dirt to make a meal of what bugs the soil could produce.
She looked good for her age, the skin not as worn as that of many a person she knew even younger than her. But today, she looked old, for the scowl she wore was one of bewilderment, not anger, for she couldn't believe what the man sitting before her was saying.
"If I could do it all over again, I would have done things differently," she confessed. "I have a lot of regrets. A lot of regrets." She took the tiniest sip of her wine. It took her an hour to finish half a glass, something that made her granddaughter marvel at with each visit.
The man shook his head and sighed. "But you have done it again, Margaret. That's what I'm telling you. You've done it thrice and keep making the same decisions."
The scowl and look of confusion deepened. Margarite was talented, as she could pull off both looks simultaneously without much effort. "You're high. I'm not a cat. We don’t all get nine lives. What are you talking about?"
"We've had this talk before, Margarite. It’s always the same thing. You lament over your life choices. You tell me you have regrets -- oh! The regrets. So I say, okay. I'll give you a do-over."
"A do-over?" Margarite’s eyes widened.
"Yes," the man in the Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops agreed. "A do-over. But then you do it all over again, maybe a little change here and there, but generally nothing changes." He looked scornful as he muttered, “Nothing ever changes." He grumbled into his wine, then noticed she was still looking at him, slack-jawed. "Oh, for God's sake, Margarite. I'll lay it out for you." He put his hands on the table and leaned in. "Every time we meet in the same parking lot. You're on the ground; your glasses are broken, and the glass cuts you in the forehead, just above your eye. So you look worse than you are. You're just a little bruised; you'll see to that. You trip over a parking divider on your way out of the store. You were disappointed you didn't find anything you liked. I feel bothered when you are disappointed, Margarite. I feel bothered when you are sad. Nothing holds joy for you like it did. Shopping distracts you, and you’re upset that you no longer enjoy the distraction. The distraction doesn't trick you like it used to. You're too old now, and the curtain of reality has become a wisp of moth-eaten fabric, and you can see it all. All the mistakes, the time left, the time passed. You aren't even depressed because that would take too much effort, and nothing is worth much effort anymore.
So you're laying there, and I notice, and I sit with you, and you always tell me your life story. I always take pity on you, at first because I liked you, and now it sort of this sick fascination I have with humanity, you being the test subject - and you tell me you have regrets - oh how you regret, and I say, okay. Would you like to go back? If you could do it all over again, would you do it right? And you say, of course! I wouldn't be so stupid. I'd live, really live. Live for me. I wouldn't be so silly.” So there I go; I tell you I’ll send you back then and make it all okay. Rewind the clock. You say, okay, crazy man, do your best! And I do, I do a great job, I hold up my end of the bargain. But you are so stupid, Margarite. You're always stupid."
Margarite just stared at him. "If you sent me back, how come I Don’t remember? It's not very fair to send me back and not give me a hint that I’ve done all this before. That time is running out."
"I've told you a billion ways, Margarite! I've sent you actual signs, like that billboard on 41 by the donut shop that says, ‘Don’t MARRY Wayne!' TV programs, documentaries, your grandmother, everyone saying the same thing-- you only live once, Margarite! Make it last, Margarite. Make it worth it. Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! I tell you over and over again. I'm the sign at the bus stop, the scribble on the bathroom door that said, “Choose wisely, you idiot. I'm not doing this again!" I've given you a thousand signs, Margarite; I've told you your whole life. You never believe me, though. You always think you've got a better idea, and this is where we find ourselves, yet again." He turned away and sniffed, “Stubborn."
Margarite had a bewildered look. "How was I supposed to believe a bathroom scribble and the TV? The flap jack box is always lying."
"Not as much as you lie to yourself, Margarite." The man sighed and straightened the purple hat on his head. "Look. If I could just come and see you and tell you the truth, you'd call me a lunatic. I was your third-grade teacher. I was that woman you met on the train to Frankfurt. I can't be bloody everyone. There are other roles here that I can't play."
Margarite mulled this over. This would have been a good time for a cat to nuzzle her ankle, but Margarite had decided not to keep a pet, which further degraded her mental prowess until she wouldn't have been able to care for one anyway—a vicious circle. Humans were idiots. Becker prefered the Zielnders. A slightly different dimension, but those people knew how to read a message.
Margarite was staring at her lawn again, watching the breeze shake the orange tree leaves, the heat making an oasis; it looked like it was boiling the air. "I guess that's it," Margarite said, and the sound had such a finality to it that it broke Becker's heart. She always broke his heart at this point, no matter how many times they'd done this dance before. He was as stupid as the humans.
"Would you like one more go, Margarite?" he asked quietly.
She took the tiniest sip of wine. "What would be the point?"
Becker shrugged. This time would be different.
"I don’t suppose you could kill me. You wouldn't happen to know the Grim Reaper, would you? Put in a good word?"
"Sorry," Becker sighed. "Not my department." Margarite had been beautiful. Not physically as much, but mentally. She'd been sharp and funny when she was young, but it was her sense of adventure Becker had fallen in love with the first time he'd met her. That sense of adventure had been swept away from her at the exact moment she'd been swept away by an American GI after the war. That was another thing he didn't like about humans. Women were treated as second-class citizens more often than not. It was a waste of good talent. Sacrificing ying for yang and yang was too dumb that it couldn't work without the other.
"If I didn't listen to the signs three times in a row, I won't listen on the fourth."
Becker sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. "There are moments in life that decide the next, you see. Bedrocks in the timeline. Points of interest on a map. I can see it all here." Becker pulled out what looked like a tourist map, with green areas highlighted with blue. "This is your life. Maybe we just need to find where it all goes wrong. If I can insert myself at one of these points, we can fix your life, and I won't get in trouble."
"In trouble?" Margarite asked. "Are there robot overlords or something?"
"Well, yes, of course. But that's not what I'm referring to. See, if I were to show up and say no! Please don’t do it, Margarite—you’d go right ahead and do it anyway. Probably to spite me. I’m either crazy, or I'm wrong. You always come up with something. But if I can find the catalysts for your mistakes -- why didn't I think of this early? Oh, wait. I did. I find a catalyst; I change what I think is the direction, only for you to pop back on the radar of misery sometime later. You're quite terrible at making yourself happy, Margarite. I even thought seriously of having you see someone, but you're too traditional and stubborn for that."
"I am," Margarite agreed.
Becker continued to mutter over the map in his hands, raised and held so close to his face; the man had turned into one giant spread map with fingers. "One of the problems is I can't control anything. I can't control people. Orders from God. Free will and all that. The biggest mistake the all-mighty ever made, in my opinion."
Margarite nodded sympathetically.
"You've made many questionable decisions, but the main issue is...." he trailed off.
Margarite looked at him, or the map that had become him, expectantly. After a few moments of silence, she said, "For God's sake, what?"
Becker put down the map in his lap, fists crumpling the edges, and looked as if his following words might be an apology. "Your nose job."
Margarite put a hand to her nose. "My nose job?"
"Your nose job," Becker confirmed.
"Nose jobs don’t ruin people's lives," Margarite argued. "Not this one, at least. This one was quite good."
"I know. You've always complained to your kids and grandkids no one looks like you, but the trick is you failed to tell them about your nose job, and they failed to notice, you old devil."
Margarite laughed a good hearty chuckle. He loved it when she laughed, really laughed. That was one thing humans had on Zielnders. Zielnders were very empathetic but not very funny.
"Can you explain it to me?" Margarite asked.
Becker considered. "Before we continue, I personally think your old nose was just fine. Better, in fact.
"Keep going," Margarite urged.
"Well, the nose job made you a bit more...traditionally pretty, some might say, not me, but some. The nose job, your father scraped his pennies to help you with that one because you never asked him for a thing in the world besides that bicycle when you were eighteen, but that's a whole other matter."
"Now the bicycle has ruined my life as well?"
"Well, it didn't help."
Margarite rolled her eyes.
"Back to the nose job." Becker steadied himself. "According to this, it helped you get the job that brought you into the apartment in Frankfurt—the time of the nose job coincided with you not meeting a certain person who would have offered you another job. So it's the timing and the placement, you see. Your ex-husband liked your nose as well."
"Are you saying my ex-husband married me for my nose?"
Becker shrugged. "The surgeon did a very nice job."
Margarite looked around herself. "Of everything I've regretted, it was never my nose."
"Fate works in mysterious ways," Becker confirmed. "It was a Tuesday at 4 pm. You got the surgery. If you had been out and about, doing your usual bicycle around Frankfurt to that sewing job you had, you would have," he consulted the map. "you would have met a very nice--"
"Man of my dreams?" Margarite guessed.
"No. Margarite, men aren’t the end all; I thought you’d have assumed as much by now.”
"A girl never stops dreaming," Margarite said.
"A girl has become a victim to societal norms that never seem to suit her. Stubborn," Becker muttered. "No, you meet Sylvia. She's a little looney, but you grow to like her. Anyway, she's just a line in the sand. A jump to the next time point. I'm not going to explain everything; life needs some mystery."
"Why, I will forget it all once you send me back."
"Honestly, you'll probably forget all this by the end of this conversation. Your memory isn't what it used to be, Margarite."
Margarite looked astonished. "It's not?" But then her face cracked into a mischievous grin, and Becker was reminded what he liked about her.
Becker put the map onto the table and leaned closer to Margarite. "I send you back, but no nose job. Could you live with it?"
"I could weather the storm. How are you going to stop me? I'm very stubborn."
"I'll think of something. I have a few years, 19 as a matter of fact, to formulate a plan."
Margarite settled back into her chair. "Do your best. I'm ready."
“I’ll see you in nineteen years, Margarite." Becker snapped his fingers, and the world went black.
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