MY FUNERAL IS EVERY TUESDAY

Tuesday 5

Chapter 3: Tuesday 5

The gravestone wasn't supposed to be there.

Plot 9B was supposed to be empty. I know because I buried Mr. Finch there last month and I helped Elias measure the plot next to it for drainage. It was empty dirt.

Now it was a polished black stone. Wet from rain.

ELARA VANCE

1997 - 2026

TUESDAY 5

Tuesday 5.

Elias dropped the pink suitcase. The sound it made in the grass was heavy, like it was full of stones.

"This wasn't here this morning," he whispered. "I dug here this morning. At 6 AM. There was nothing."

"You said you buried me four times. Is this the fifth?" My voice was shaking.

He didn't answer. He was staring at the stone like it was going to speak.

The police sirens behind us at the morgue were getting louder. I could hear Hana shouting my name.

"Come on," Elias grabbed my hand again and pulled me deeper into Greenfield. Past the old oaks, past the angel statues, to the small shed where gravediggers keep shovels. It smelled like wet wood and gasoline.

He dragged the pink suitcase inside and locked the door.

Inside, it was dark except for one cracked window. We were both breathing hard. His jacket was soaked, his hair was plastered to his forehead. For the first time I really looked at him.

He was handsome in a ruined way. Like someone who used to be handsome but stopped sleeping.

"Tell me the truth," I said. "All of it. No more riddles."

He sat on an upturned bucket and put his head in his hands. "I tried to tell you four times. Every time you look at me like I'm crazy. Every time you die anyway."

"Then try the fifth time differently. Tell me simple."

He looked up. "Simple: You die every Tuesday at 9:02 AM. I find you. I bury you. On Wednesday morning, you wake up alive in your bed, with no memory of Tuesday. And the world has moved back to Monday. Only I remember. And... her."

"Her? Elara?"

"Elara Vance is 60 years old. She lives in the house at the edge of the cemetery. The blue one. She has been looping this same week for 31 years. Since you were 19 and ran away."

My mother lives in a blue house at the edge of the cemetery.

No. My mother is Linda Quinn. 58. She sells flowers.

"My mother is not Elara," I said.

"Your mother changed her name too. Go check her ID. Her real name is Elara Vance. She is you from the future. When you loop enough times, you get old. You forget why you started looping. You think you are your own mother."

I felt like I was going to vomit.

"Open the suitcase," I said.

"She wrote DO NOT OPEN UNTIL TUESDAY 3."

"This IS Tuesday! My gravestone says Tuesday 5! So Tuesday 3 already passed!"

Elias flinched. He hadn't thought of that.

He knelt and unzipped the pink suitcase. The zipper was stuck, rusted. He forced it.

Inside, it was not clothes. It was not stones.

It was journals. Dozens of them. Cheap black notebooks, the kind I use. Every single one had my handwriting on the cover.

TUESDAY 1 - MARA 29 - FAILED

TUESDAY 2 - MARA 30 - FAILED

TUESDAY 3 - MARA 31 - ALMOST

TUESDAY 4 - MARA 32 - FORGIVE ME

TUESDAY 5 - MARA 29 - YOU ARE THE LAST CHANCE

And at the very bottom, under all the journals, a single Polaroid photo.

It was me, at 29, right now, in this shed, with Elias. Same clothes. Same shed. But in the photo, Elias was kissing my forehead, and I was crying and smiling at the same time.

On the back of the photo, in my handwriting: _We opened it on Tuesday 5. We didn't have a choice._

Elias's hands were shaking. "We have done this before."

"This photo... this is now?"

"We took it... or we will take it... I don't know."

I picked up the journal marked TUESDAY 3 - MARA 31 - ALMOST.

I opened it. First page:

_If you are reading this, you are me at 29 and you are in the shed with Elias. If you opened the suitcase before Tuesday 3, it means I died before I could tell you. I'm 60 now. My name is Elara. I am you. I'm sorry._

_I started looping the day you were supposed to die the first time. October 22, 2026. A man came into the morgue at 9:02 AM. He works there. He always worked there. He asked for you. He left a pink suitcase. He said it was your mother's. You opened it and there was a bomb? No, not a bomb. A letter. A letter that said you would die if you stayed._

_I don't remember exactly. Every loop I remember less._

_But I remember Elias. Elias remembers everything because he was never supposed to be there. He was new that week. The loop didn't catch him. So he is stuck with me, remembering you die over and over._

_On Tuesday 3, I almost saved you. I told you to run. You ran to the highway. A truck hit you at 9:02 AM anyway. Same time. Different place. Time doesn't care where, it cares WHEN._

_The only way to break it is to not run. To stay in the morgue at 9:02 AM and face him. The man who works where we work._

_He works where we work._

The note from my pocket said the same thing. _He works where we work. He kept my pink suitcase._

He works where we work.

Who works in the morgue?

Hana? Dave from reception? Dr. Hana?

Dave. Dave from reception always stares at me. Dave lost his wife last year. Dave keeps asking me for coffee.

Dave's last name... what is Dave's last name?

Vance. Dave Vance.

E. Vance.

No. Elara Vance.

The obituary was submitted by E. Vance.

"Elias," I whispered, "what is Dave's first name?"

"Elias who?" He looked confused. "We don't have a Dave."

"We have Dave at reception! Bald, 40s, always—"

"We don't have a Dave at reception. We have Sarah at reception. We have had Sarah for three years."

The air left my lungs.

We have Sarah at reception. Sarah is 25. She has pink hair.

There is no Dave.

There was never a Dave.

But I remembered a Dave. Clearly. He brought me coffee yesterday. He said, "You look tired, Mara."

Who did I talk to yesterday?

I pulled out my phone. I had texted Hana yesterday: "Thanks for coffee, Dave!"

Hana replied: "Who is Dave?"

I thought it was a joke.

It wasn't a joke.

He works where we work. But nobody else sees him.

"Elias, have you ever seen a man in the morgue, bald, 40s, reception desk?"

Elias went white. "Yes. On Tuesdays. Only on Tuesdays at 8:55 AM. He comes in with a pink suitcase. He asks for you. I thought... I thought he was your father."

"He's not my father. My father left when I was 5."

"He says he's your father. Every Tuesday he says, 'I'm here for my daughter's things.'"

My father. My father left. My mother said he died.

My mother said many things.

Outside the shed, a twig snapped.

We both froze.

Someone was walking through the cemetery. Heavy steps. Boots on wet leaves.

A man's voice, humming. A familiar humming. The lullaby my mother used to hum when I was sick.

Elias put his finger to his lips. He mouthed: "9:02."

I looked at my phone. 9:01 AM.

One minute to 9:02.

One minute to when I die every Tuesday.

The footsteps stopped right outside the shed.

A hand knocked. Three soft knocks.

"Elara? Sweetheart? I brought your suitcase back. You left it at my place."

The voice. Bald. 40s. Gentle. Like a father.

Dave.

Elias grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to him, hard, so my face was buried in his chest. His heart was beating so fast I could feel it through his jacket.

He whispered in my hair, "Whatever happens, don't open the door. And Mara... if this is Tuesday 5... I love you. I have loved you for five Tuesdays, which is 31 years for me."

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream.

The door handle turned.

It was locked, but it turned slowly, like it knew we were inside.

And the pink suitcase on the floor... started buzzing.

Like a phone was inside it.

*End of Chapter 3*

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