Five Minutes Late

Five Minutes Late

It was five minutes.

Just five.

Mira stood on the sidewalk, heart pounding, breath fogging in the morning chill as she watched Bus 7 pull away without her. She had spilled coffee on her shirt, doubled back to change, and missed it by a blink.

Annoyance tugged at her as she pulled her coat tighter and checked the time again. 8:07 a.m. She sighed, already rehearsing apologies for her boss.

Then the sirens started.

She heard them before she saw the smoke. The sound cut through the stillness like a blade. A few blocks down—right where the bus turned at the intersection—black plumes curled into the sky. People were shouting. Running. She couldn’t make out details, but her stomach sank into her shoes.

Within minutes, social media filled with shaky footage and gasping voices.

“Bus 7—major crash—multiple injuries. At least two confirmed dead.”

Mira felt her knees buckle. That was her bus. The one she had cursed under her breath not ten minutes ago. The one she rode every morning, always in the same seat, by the window.

She should’ve been on it.

But she wasn’t.

Five minutes had kept her alive.

At first, she called it luck. Dumb, blind luck. The kind that saves drunks from fatal falls and toddlers from speeding cars.

But then things got strange.

The next day, Mira poured her coffee, only to watch it spill exactly the same way it had yesterday—same direction, same splash, same soft “dammit” from her lips. Déjà vu? Maybe.

On the walk to the station, she passed a man handing out flyers. He looked at her and said, “You made it through.”

She blinked. “What?”

But he just smiled and handed her a flyer—blank. Completely white.

Later that evening, she could’ve sworn she saw her reflection blink a moment too late in the mirror. Not once, but twice.

It continued.

She’d hear a clock tick—but only once—then stop. Or find the microwave timer stuck at 4 seconds for several minutes. A stranger on the train murmured, “Not yet,” as they brushed past her. On her phone, time would jump forward or back a few minutes, then correct itself. No one else noticed.

One night, unable to sleep, she stared at the ceiling and whispered, “Am I supposed to be dead?”

The lamp beside her flickered off.

Mira started walking to work. No more buses. No more risks. She found comfort in the rhythm of her feet on pavement, the pulse of something real beneath her.

But even walking, the world cracked at the edges.

She overheard two teenagers on a bench talking about simulations.

“If you ever survive something weird,” one said, “it’s like the program glitches. You weren’t supposed to live. So it stutters. Repeats. Or rewinds.”

Her breath caught. She turned to look at them, but they were gone.

On the fifteenth day, Mira returned to the scene of the crash.

The wreckage was cleared. Only some blackened scorch marks on the street remained. Flowers rested along the sidewalk, notes tucked under glass candles. She knelt, heart heavy, and read the names.

Two dead. One of them, a woman her age. Name: Clara Ruiz.

She looked up her photo online that night. Brown eyes. Coffee-colored hair. A tired, warm smile.

They looked so similar.

Too similar.

It was as if Clara had stepped in for her. As if time—or something watching over time—had rearranged the moment.

That night, Mira dreamed she was on the bus. Only this time, she didn’t miss it. The seat was warm. The driver smiled. Then came the crash. And right before the impact, Clara whispered in her ear, “Five minutes was the deal.”

She woke up screaming.

Weeks passed. The world still glitched.

Sometimes, clocks would tick backward. Sometimes, she’d hear her name whispered from behind, but no one was there. A chalkboard sign outside a café once read:

“You were meant to notice. —Time”

She stopped denying it.

She began writing everything down. Patterns. Numbers. People who said odd things. She mapped out her days like a mathematician hunting for divine proof.

And slowly, a thought grew inside her: What if I was given back my time, but not by accident?

What if it’s a second life? A second chance?

Mira quit her job.

She packed a bag and traveled south, where the sun rose like fire and time felt slower. She volunteered at shelters, took photos of ruins, and wrote in journals under moonlight. With every small act—smiling at a stranger, helping someone cross a street—she felt a sense of balance returning. Like she was paying off a debt she couldn’t see.

People she met would sometimes say strange things:

“You glow like someone who got saved.”

“Didn’t think I’d meet another survivor.”

Or simply, “Right on time.”

She stopped questioning.

She simply lived.

And on a quiet beach one night, Mira stood staring at the stars, the clock on her watch frozen at 8:07.

A soft voice echoed in her memory: “Five minutes was the deal.”

She smiled.

“I know,” she whispered back.

And the sea answered, not with words, but with the kind of silence that felt eternal.