The Bank Teller Rewound

This happened at 11:20 on a weekday at my local bank branch, and I can be that exact because the receipt became part of the problem.

I was at the counter depositing rent money. The teller — young guy, red lanyard — counted my cash, said 'Four eighty, four ninety, five hundred, perfect,' stamped a slip, and reached for the receipt printer. Behind me a woman was telling someone on the phone about her daughter's flight being moved. Over the speakers, a saxophone cover of some eighties song hit its chorus.

Then everything skipped. The best way I can describe it: like a scratched DVD jumping back a chapter. No blur, no dizziness. The teller was suddenly holding my stack of bills unstamped, and he said 'Four eighty, four ninety, five hundred, perfect' with the identical little nod. The woman behind me said 'they moved it to Thursday, can you believe' — the same sentence I had heard forty seconds earlier. The saxophone chorus started again from its first note.

I gripped the counter and watched the whole forty seconds replay to the smallest detail: stamp, tear of paper, his 'anything else for you today?' I must have looked grey because he asked if I was all right, and I heard myself answer 'fine' from somewhere far away.

Here is the detail I cannot fold into any explanation of my brain glitching: the timestamp. The receipt in my hand says 11:21. My phone, which I checked the second I stepped away, said 11:20. For the rest of that day my phone ran almost a minute behind and then quietly caught up by evening.

Deja vu does not reset printers, and it does not desynchronise clocks. I keep the receipt in my wallet. It is the only souvenir I have from the wrong minute, and some evenings I take it out just to check it still says what it says.