The crack in the ceiling had been there for ten years. Robert knew this because he had counted the days, which was one of the things he did when he was awake at four in the morning and couldn't sleep. Not that he couldn't sleep anymore. He could sleep fine. It was waking up that had become the problem.

Six o'clock. The alarm clock buzzed. He turned it off with his left hand without opening his eyes. The crack was directly above the pillow, shaped like the state of Kansas, which was ironic, because he was in Kansas and the crack had been there before he was born and would probably be there after he died.

He got up. He made coffee. The machine gurgled the same gurgling sound it had made on the four thousand two hundred and seventy-nine mornings before this one. He watched the television for ten minutes. The weatherman was wearing a blue tie. It would be seventy-eight degrees with a chance of thunderstorms.

Robert had tried everything. Suicide, three times, in the first year. He didn't recommend it. The morning came anyway, the alarm buzzed, the crack was there.

He had tried adventure. Robbed the gas station on Flatrock Road on a Tuesday. Got six months in county jail. Woke up back in his apartment at six o'clock. The crack was there. The weatherman had a blue tie.

He had tried learning. Spent eleven years teaching himself things. French (fluent after 147 attempts). Piano (adequate after 89). Astronomy (could identify every constellation visible from Topeka after 203). None of it mattered. The day reset. The knowledge stayed, which was its own kind of curse, because now he knew things he had no one to tell.

The fourth year, he stopped trying to change the big things and started paying attention to the small ones.

The coffee machine at the gas station on Flatrock Road made a clicking sound at 7:12 AM. Third click was always a fraction of a second longer than the first two. Frank, the owner, had a son named Danny who called once a month from Denver and never stayed on longer than five minutes because, as Frank told Robert, "He's got his own life now, and that's the way it ought to be."

The bakery on Madison had three croissants and one chocolate donut in the window every morning. Nobody ever bought the donut. Robert wondered why the baker kept putting it there.

A woman in a red coat walked past the gas station at 7:28 AM every morning. Her shoelace was always untied. On the 189th repetition, Robert said, "Ma'am, your shoelace." She looked down, tied it, and smiled. It was the first genuine smile Robert had received in what felt like centuries.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm Sarah."

"Robert."

"Nice to meet you, Robert."

They walked together to the bus stop. She told him she was a librarian. He told her he drove trucks. They talked for twelve minutes about nothing important, and when the bus came, she got on and he went to work, and for the rest of the day, he thought about her smile.

On the 438th repetition, he talked to her again. On the 891st, he knew her favourite colour was green and she hated olives and she cried when she heard a particular song on the radio. On the 1,461st, she asked him why he always seemed to know what she was going to say before she said it.

"I just listen," he said.

That was the truth of it, he had realised. Listening. That was the only thing that mattered. Not changing the world. Not breaking the cycle. Just listening—to the coffee machine, to Frank's stories, to the woman in the red coat, to the wind that blew across the plains every evening like a long slow breath.

Today was day 4,380. He knew this because he had stopped counting at 5,000 and started counting backwards from 6,000, which was a game he played with himself to keep from going completely mad.

Six o'clock. The alarm buzzed. He turned it off. Made coffee. Watched the weather. Seventy-eight degrees. Chance of thunderstorms. Blue tie.

Then he did something he had never done before.

He got dressed, walked out the door, and went to the bakery on Madison. He stood in front of the window and watched the three croissants and the chocolate donut. Then he went inside, ordered the donut, and ate it standing up on the sidewalk, watching the people walk by and wondering if any of them knew that today was exactly the same as yesterday and would be exactly the same as tomorrow.

Probably none of them.

He finished the donut. It was good. Chocolatey. A little too sweet. Perfect.

He walked to the gas station. Frank was there, pumping gas into a pickup truck. "Morning, Robert. Usual?"

"Usual," Robert said.

And for the first time in 4,380 days, he meant it.