"It Could Be A Sign."

The man at ten in the morning gave me a wary look as he accepted the package of sandwich bread, his payment left at the edge of the counter in exact change.

My favorite regular came in a quarter to eleven. She doesn't speak a lick of English but always bows to me at the door before letting it swing closed again.

Sometimes I can tell a spirit has taken a swipe at someone or said something inappropriate by their flinch or a flush to the face.

On rare occasion, those comments spark a full on fight like I was the one who gave them a lewd comment or an insult to their honor.

Everyone reacts differently to my collection. While it can be an inconvenience at times, I bake the best bread in the city so they have to come to me for something or another.

It doesn't get to me much though. My regulars know what's up, and those here for a sample either become regulars or are never seen here again.

Sometimes I think about hitting up the local priest to really give the spirits in my wake a piece of my mind. Ultimately it wouldn't change anything, though, and I've gotten used to the scared and disdainful reactions by now anyway.

The real treat comes when a "hero" comes by for a baguette or some brioche. The good ones give me a knowing smile and often tip well. The "targets" often buy what they came for civilly, but I've gotten good at reading the telltale signs of their nervousness.

The good ones are rare. The good ones are often labeled at vigilantes.

Right before close, Earth Man came in. I thanked him for his wonderful work saving the forest west of the city from those "foul" Kiowa Krusaders. He left sweating bullets.

I expect to serve a lot of humble pie tonight and have a new greeter in my entourage by morning.

For some context, the thought that came to me from this prompt that inspired this story was: Something about "hero" being a status generated by public perception but they were actually all evil

It is known that the ghosts of fallen heroes haunt their killers and cannot move on until the killer is brought to justice. But nobody is willing to ask the baker why so many ghosts are following them around.

I hope the oath wins over the curse. It's much more interesting to be sworn to amber and rot. That necromancer raising dinosaurs from oil in a modern fantasy would be killer. Sworn to take down the corruption of the corporate overlords. Bonus ancient diseases from raised bugs or using amber bound creatures as a focus. A curse is involuntary and dull. An oath is purposeful and full of volition.

let's make a "the [noun] of [noun] and [noun]" fantasy book title!

And then, the world went mad...

Before I would've said the world would go out in a nuclear blaze or something otherwise generically apocalyptic like that. Survival scenarios were always fun to think about in those kinds of settings. Then I stepped outside to go to work and the house across the street blew up. The wildest thing? I'm pretty sure I saw Susan flying into the distance wearing a blanket like some kind of sugar glider, but got distracted by her car hood banging to the road like it had been launched from the roof. I called the police to report the explosions and subsequent fire, but the operator just started flirting with me. Creeped out, I hung up and tried again only to get raucous laughter from someone else. I went to get a hose and maybe do something when I heard gunshots. GUNSHOTS! Gunshots in my sleepy little suburb, and I'm convinced they were shooting at me! What did I do?! I ran to my car and took off, console pistol in hand because I had no idea what was going on. I drove to my friend Dave's house, but he seemed bored by the madness I frantically described seeing in my trip over. "Time-loop, bud. You're lucky I stuck around this time to see you. Damnedest thing. I think you're the only one that doesn't know. Made me kind of a celebrity for a few years there, but now you're novelty has worn off. Oh, you'll get some attention still, but the North American Free People's Society has laid down some protection rules around you, but it's not like we can enforce any infrastructure in the beginning. Good luck with Today! I'll see you again Today." He just got up and walked out. He seemed listless about the whole thing. Strange accent as well. I found his corpse a few hours later. I'm still trying to convince myself that some worldwide mass hallucination happened, because I can't otherwise make sense of everything. Dave was right though, which makes it harder to believe. I ran into plenty of would-be-lovers, plenty of whackos trying to kill me, and quickly had a bodyguard contingent from this NAFPS group who shot a lot of people between casually chatting with me and maintaining a perimeter. I guess they have a daily rotation and it's considered some kind of honor.

Then the next day came.

There were all kinds of reactions. Orgies in the street, mass suicides, plenty of weeping in both joy and terror. Before no one wanted to talk to me about it anymore, probably because of all the questions I kept asking in the early days, I learned that everyone was in there for hundreds of years. Certainly explains some of the wild skills I saw from people who otherwise looked like normal service workers or business drones. It seems some considered themselves immortal, and being confronted by Tomorrow shook most up. The NAFPS is still around in some capacity. It seems there were groups that were preparing for Tomorrow all over the place, but never really expected it to come. It was clear who truly believed soon enough, from my perspective. I work with them as thanks for protecting me the day the world went mad, and I'm starting to believe them. This is all too orchestrated to be anything fake or hallucinated. It's just so hard to believe, you know? It seems that my celebrity status in the strange world I missed out on makes me a relatively trustable party for negotiations. I've been shipped to neo nation-states across the globe like the NAFPS as a kind of emissary of the world that was. To me it was just last Thursday, but I guess to them, that's when the world really started. I still miss Dave.

-Reflections from the diary of control entity, Jay, in simulation iteration 166,440. It can be noted that human society is starting to become stable, post-resumption. This researcher believes this to be a solid sign we are past the primal anarchic tendencies of the prolonged mortal persistence in a zero-consequence environment and refutes the claim of inherently chaotic nature in the species. Albeit did take several hundred years. The concerted effort to keep the control entity alive as a living monument to their culture and former society is of particular interest to this researcher.

Apparently, you are living in a time loop. Also apparently, you are the only person on Earth who DOESN'T remember the previous iterations. This is the first time you've experienced today; the rest of humanity has been stuck reliving today for years now.

These and memes like it make me want to get an easel and pallet and paint wizards in nature and I likely places.

"Well we're here now, so what do you think?"

"The script is all wrong. It's in a first era type when it should be second. The curvature of those lines make it ever so slightly oblong, and over here you can see where they corrected but you'll still have instability. I wish you hadn't brought me here."

"You're the only one I know that could tell me all that!"

"Yeah, and a picture would've been fine too. This thing could blow at any minute! I'm not equipped for demon hunting, especially the unbound sort this sloppy work will bring!"

"Shit."

"Shit, indeed."

Prompt #1181

"I feel like this is one of those things you should have told me earlier."

*Achoo!* "Uri-" *choo!* "Uriel!" *Sniffle*

"Yes (Choo!) my Lord?" Uriel replied, appearing in a puff of smoke.

"Call off *Aaah-* that Me damned *CHOO!* storm at that *muffled sneeze* atheist convention!"

"Thy will (achoo) be done." Uriel bowed.

God sank into his celestial throne with a heavenly sigh of relief.

It is often said that uttering the Lord’s Name in vain is forbidden because it is blasphemy. No, the truth is far more mundane and hilarious than that: Every time His name is uttered in vain, the Lord sneezes.

"John?"

"Steve?"

"I like the ears."

"I like the eyes."

"See you at practice. We never saw each other."

"Agreed."

Write a piece about two people who know each other from one social circle encountering each other in an unexpected place related to another

"There's just one problem."

"Hmm?"

"No pinkies..."

"Your secret is safe with me."