Time Slips — Nobody Believes Me

Ok so I'm 30, internal medicine, working nights at a hospital just outside Portland. Can't sleep and I've been sitting on this for over three years now so here goes. November 2022. Slow shift, I was eating peanut butter crackers from the vending machine at the nurses station because I forgot to pack anything again. Someone left house hunters on in the break room and you could hear it all the way down the hall, which normally drives me insane but that night it was almost comforting. I don't know why I remember that. We get a patient around midnight, female, mid-40s, brought in by EMS from a parking lot near the Fred Meyer on 82nd. No ID, no phone, no belongings. Vitals stable, labs unremarkable. She wasn't altered, no signs of intoxication, no acute psych presentation. Just very calm and very quiet, which honestly was more unsettling than if she'd been agitated.People who get picked up alone in a parking lot with nothing on them are usually not that composed. I went in to do the admit around 12:40. She was sitting upright watching the IV drip. I introduce myself and she immediately says "you switched already?" I told her no, I'd been on since 7. She tilted her head and said I had different shoes before. Patients confabulate, it happens, I moved on. Started going through the intake questions. Name didn't match anything in the system. Address was vague, like she was coming up with it on the spot. None of this is that unusual honestly,we get patients with no records more than people realize. Then she asked me what time it was. 12:43. She smiled a little and said "so it didn't reset yet." I asked her what that meant. She shrugged, looked toward the door, and said "it will. You'll come back in a minute and ask me all this again.You always do." I finished the intake and left. Charted for maybe five minutes and then realized I forgot to ask about allergies, which is embarassing but it was a long night. Went back in. And I got this immediate, intense deja vu. She was in the exact same position. Same posture, same everything. She looked at me without any surprise and just said "see?" I looked at the wall clock. 12:43. I know how this sounds. I stood there for a few seconds and then asked her what I was about to say. She said "you're going to ask about allergies, and I'll say penicillin, but that's not actually true. I just say that because you need something to write down." That's exactly what I was there for. I asked. She said penicillin. I wrote it down and left. The hallway clock read 12:48 so time was apparently moving normally out there.I went to the break room and sat with another pack of crackers watching house hunters for about ten minutes because I genuinely did not know what to do with what just happened. Thought about telling the charge nurse but what would I even say, the patient in 4 is psychic and the clock is broken? Went back later, she was asleep. She bounced before my next shift. Chart noted no known allergies. No psych consult, no flags,nothing. Like it was a completely unremarkable visit. I don't know. I was tired, it was the middle of a stretch of nights, maybe the clock was just malfunctioning and she was good at reading people. That's probably it. But I started taking photos of the hallway clock during my shifts after that, just a habit now. My camera roll is just hundreds of pictures of a clock. Anyway. Sorry this got long. I just needed to finally write it down somewhere that isn't my notes app.

My grandfather was a time traveler. That's why I know that time slips are real. I don't believe in planned time travel, but accidentally wandering into some kind of time slip — that can absolutely happen. That's exactly what happened to my grandfather and his friend. They were both 19, heading to a neighboring town somewhere out in rural Missouri. They didn't notice anything unusual on the way — the only thing they could remember afterward was that it was foggy. No lightning, no thunder, no pressure in their ears. Just regular fog. When they reached the town, they were surprised they couldn't find the general store they were looking for, and a lot of other things looked different too. Then they thought someone was messing with them when they were told it was 1957. They swore they'd been in 1929 just minutes before. When they went back home, there was no record of the friend whatsoever. My grandfather had been listed as missing. It was a good thing there were two of them. At least they knew two people don't go crazy in the exact same way at the exact same time. They said they weren't upset. Both were orphans, so there was nobody who'd miss them — they just took it as some kind of miracle. After that, they went on to live good lives. Both got married, had kids. They stayed friends their whole lives. The only thing was — they never went out in the fog again. My grandfather used to say, "What if it happens again and I end up somewhere else? I already have a family now. I don't want to go anywhere anymore."

This happened last Tuesday and I still can't sleep properly. I was walking home from work around 7:15 PM, same route I take every day — down Maple Street, past the church on the corner, left on 4th Avenue. I had my earbuds in, listening to a podcast. Everything completely normal. Then I felt this weird pressure in my ears, like when a plane descends too fast. My phone screen flickered and went black for maybe two seconds. When it came back on, the time said 7:04 PM. I thought the clock just glitched. But then I looked around and I was back at the START of Maple Street. Not where I was — I was a full 11-minute walk backwards. I still had the podcast playing, but it had jumped back to a part I already listened to. I walked the rest of the way home in a daze. When I got inside, I checked my phone's step counter. It logged the steps TWICE. 1,847 steps for Tuesday when I usually get around 900 on that walk. My screen time was weird too, it showed the podcast app closing at 7:14 and then somehow opening again at 7:04?? I told my roommate. He said I "zoned out and walked in circles." But I didn't. I went back to the exact spot the next day at the same time. Nothibg happened. I've gone every day since. Nothing. I don't know what happened. But for 11 minutes last Tuesday, something moved me backwards through time, and I walked the same stretch of road twice. No one believes me. My roommate jokes about it. My mom said I should "get more sleep." But the step counter logged 1,847 steps. Explain that.

i know how this sounds. i know. i dont drink, i dont smoke, i work as an engineer, and i have a good memory. just for context. about three years ago i was driving at night — US-287, middle of nowhere Texas, no streetlights. around two in the morning. completely straight road, almost no other cars. i put on a podcast and drove. then i see it — three lights ahead of me, low above the horizon. not blinking, not moving. just hanging there in a triangle shape. at first i thought — a tower maybe, or a plane. but they werent moving at all. i drove toward them for about five minutes — they didn't get any closer or farther. then i blinked — i dont know how else to describe it, like a frame just got cut — and they were gone. thats it. darkness. highway. podcast still playing. i pulled over. got out.silence, stars, nothing. okay, i thought. fatigue hallucnation, happens. got back in, kept driving. then i looked at the clock — 4:18. i left at one in the morning. to that point on the highway — i know it well, drive it all the time — its exactly one hour. an hour and a half at most. three hours had passed. the podcast — id been listening from the very beginning — was halfway through the second episode. each episode is 40 minutes. so roughly 60-70 minutes of audio had played. but three-plus hours of actual time. im sitting on the shoulder at four in the morning just staring at the clock. phone battery was normal. car was fine. i felt fine, nothing hurt, head was clear. just the time. i didnt tell anyone for two years. then i told a friend — he laughed and said "you obviously fell asleep at the wheel and dont remember it." maybe. but i have never once fallen asleep driving. and if i had — i wouldnt have stayed on a straight highway for another 60-70 minutes of podcast. one detail i cant explain at all and try not to think about — the seat. i always have it pushed all the way back, im tall. when i pulled over and got out — when i got back in — it was moved forward. not by much. but noticeably. i had to adjust it. i was alone in the car.