Jack Hammer-A Rip in Time Part 2: Four Days of Forever

Four Days of Forever

The coffee stayed warm, the cake was polished off, and the questions stayed quiet. Four days of forever. That’s all the time I had to steal from the hourglass of fate, and I spent every second of it counting the blessings.

I woke up with Angela beside me, the morning light slicing through the cheap Venetian blinds, painting stripes across her shoulder. No shadows. No neon signs. Just the soft, steady rhythm of a life that wasn’t trying to kill me. She smelled like soap and sleep—a dangerous, intoxicating perfume that made the smell of gunpowder seem cheap and empty. I’d reach out and touch her, just to make sure the warmth wasn’t a trick of the light, and she’d murmur something that made me feel like I hadn’t spent the last decade drowning in a bottle.

The routine was a slow, deliberate killer of the past. I’d pour the milk, kiss Jackie Angel goodbye as she grabbed her school books, watching the way her eyes held the same light as her mother’s. No codes, no clues, just a kid chasing a future that looked bright and simple. It felt good. Clean. I was an honest man paying honest bills, and every time she looked at me, the scar tissue around my heart felt a little softer.

And the job? Bank manager. The ultimate straitjacket. I wore a tie, polished my shoes, and dealt with mortgages instead of murder. It was a joke, a cosmic gag played by The Controller. But the quiet certainty of the vault doors and the friendly nod of the tellers—it was a better kind of static than the one that brought me here. I told myself this was it. This was the life. This time, Jack Hammer won. I deserved this. This was my just dessert served up on a fine china plate.

I thought I had cheated the clock. I was wrong. The game never ends; it just changes tables.