Kol looks at their watch. 

11:11

Feels auspicious. Precarious. 

A moment of importance?

11:12 would have been a moment too late. All the magic lost. 11:10, too early. You can’t wait for magic, only stumble upon it, and it is a soul-wrenching kind of letdown to see either number and to know: you fucked up. Instead of an auspicious flicker, a portal opening through a paralleling, mirroring, monumental sequencing of numbers… you find you’re nothing but someone who’s out of time, off kilter, out of sync, late to the party, or too early for even the gift of worms in your time-glitching beak. 

Kol casts their eyes around the room. What is it 11:11 needs them to see? To know? For what reason has this spectre surfaced from the darkness to tap their shoulder? Kol scratches their head. Zing! They think, maybe the thing, the grand something of wonder that 11:11 wants them to recognise, was in whatever they were thinking about just now. Kol casts their thoughts backward; they were thinking about tennis, and Roger Federer having two sets of twins. 

Two sets of two. 

11:11?

Should they take up tennis? Is that the message? 

No. 

Watch reruns of Federer bloopers? Take up having twins as a hobby? 

Maybe and maybe. Kol notes both down on a list titled Things to Dazzle Myself out of Boredom in Iso. But they seem lame as far as auspicious neon magic goes. 

If not thoughts, then actions, thinks Kol. They loop their mind back and recall that the situation was exactly as it is now; they were staring aimlessly out the window of their bedroom, waiting for a uni Zoom class to start. What message is 11:11 trying to send them in that?

You’re on the right path Kol 

Lol, no, that doesn’t seem right. 

Frolic outside Kol

No. It’s raining, and there’s only so many state-approved exercise outings a person can take each day. The chair they’re in is comfy; is 11:11 telling them to take up carpentry? No. To grow a bigger butt for comfort? In these times of sitting around, maybe. Kol writes down starch snacks on their shopping list. They look at their watch. 

11:12

No! 

Too slow, too late, the moment passed, the mile missed, the iron too cold to strike anymore. Kol hangs their head in devastation, any meaning they might have found in their life dissolved from existence. 

But then a tiny morsel of useless knowledge glimmers in the back of their head; their watch sits a stitch ahead of their phone in time, so maybe… they press the home screen, hope bubbling, and there it is, auspiciously glowing…

11:11 

Floating beneath is an untouched preview of a text, one they’d sent themselves last night:

Don’t ever fucking drink again.  

…

…

…

Nah. 

11:11 is full of shit. And what the fuck does drunk Kol know anyway. 

A digital flicker shifts the numbers along. 11:12. They sigh with relief… dodged a bullet on that one.