THE ECHO IN THE HEADLINE: THE INK ON THE PAGE

THE ECHO IN THE HEADLINE

The ink on the page was dry, black, and screaming. My own words. My own byline. The Headline? “NEWZ FLASH: Tin-Pot Dictator Says US Cities Should Be Military Training Grounds.” I read it over and over, until the words bled together, until they were just a blur of black truth on white lies.

I didn’t just report it. I wrote it. And I don’t know how. I don’t know when.

My hand, it knows the rhythm of the typewriter. My fingers, they know the sting of the cheap whiskey. But my head? It’s a broken clock, and the hours are running sideways, or maybe they’re just skipping beats entirely. One minute, I’m stumbling out of a phantom library, pockets buzzing with neon lies. The next, I’m staring at a Ten Cent Rag article I swear I haven’t even touched.

“It smells like Martial Law to me,” I’d written. My own conviction staring back at me, mocking me. The phrase “telling Military Brass” echoed in the silence of my office. I remembered the cold sweat of writing that, the certainty of the facts. But the memory of actually writing it… it just wasn’t there. It was a blank.

This isn’t just amnesia. This isn’t just a bender that went too far. This is something else. Something more.

The Tin-Pot Dictator had made his move, and I was right there, on the front lines, firing the shots with my typewriter. But how? How did I get those quotes? How did I know about the Department of War? Was I there? Or did I just… dream it?

The thought hit me like a crack on the back of the skull. Time. It wasn’t just my memories being edited. It was the whole goddamn timeline. I’m not just forgetting. I’m jumping. I feel like I have two spinning record disks in my head. One is playing a truth from the future, and the other is playing a lie from the past. And I can hear them both, a deafening double track.

Or maybe, maybe this is the complete blackout? The final drop into the dark. Maybe I’m just finally losing it, and every word I write is a symptom of the disease. A dead, silent, descent into madness.

I need to find out what’s really happening to me. Before the clock stops altogether.

J.H.

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NEWZ FLASH: Tin-Pot Dictator Says US Cities Should be Military Training Grounds THE FOG AND THE FLASH: A MEMOIR OF DISORIENTATION THE ECHO IN THE HEADLINE: THE SPINNING IN MY HEAD Jack Hammer: A Rip in Time