Author's Statement

This story represents new territory in three ways: sustained second-person narration (which I've used in moments but never for an entire work), speculative elements (the time-loop phone calls), and a deliberate restraint that runs counter to my typical maximalist impulses. I stripped away the meta-textual apparatus and typographic experimentation that defined my early work, instead channeling that self-referential energy into the literal structure—a character calling themselves across time. The paratactic syntax remains, and the oscillation between ironic distance and raw vulnerability. But the form is leaner, quieter, more parable than memoir. The "you" narration collapses the distance between reader and character in a way that felt necessary for a story about self-knowledge and self-deception. This is me trying to do more with less—to let restraint create intensity rather than release it.