The Man Who Rented Thursday

At exactly 3:14 a.m., Gregory Tance found a website offering Days of the Week for Rent.

It was impeccably designed. Clean lines. Calming blues. Dropdown menus that unfolded with the weight of inevitability.

"Own your schedule," it whispered.

Gregory, being Gregory, rented Thursday.

Just that. One Thursday.

The confirmation email arrived before he'd finished blinking:

Thank you for your purchase. Thursday is now yours. Do not share it. Do not tell anyone. You will notice the change shortly.

And sure enough, come morning, Thursday was his.

Completely his.

No one else had it.

They went from Wednesday to Friday like nothing happened.

"Hey, did you do that thing on Thursday?" Gregory asked his boss.

"What's Thursday?" his boss replied, looking sincerely concerned.

Gregory checked his calendar. Thursday was there. Just sitting there. Occupied. A little lock icon next to it.

That evening, Thursday felt . . . empty. Like an abandoned mall that had forgotten it was supposed to have stores.

So Gregory went out.

The streets were there, but the people weren’t. Cars existed, but they politely declined to move. Restaurants had food, but only in theory.

And somewhere around what must have been 9 p.m., Gregory met the Thursday Man.

Tall. Pale. Dressed like a document someone had almost shredded.

"You shouldn't have rented Thursday," the man said.

Gregory nodded, because, in fairness, he shouldn't have.

"But I did."

"Then you'll need to keep it. Forever."

Gregory blinked.

"But I only paid for one."

The Thursday Man checked an invisible ledger.

"I'm afraid it's non-refundable. Thursdays accumulate interest. You'll owe six more by the end of the month."

Gregory tried to log into the website.

404: Day Not Found.

By the following week, Thursday started spilling over into Wednesday nights. Little leaks of it. People would pause mid-sentence and look toward invisible clocks.

By the next month, Thursdays were stacking. Double Thursdays. Triple Thursdays.

People noticed.

"What's happening to time?" they asked.

Gregory shrugged.

"I'm on a payment plan."

Then came the collections department. They arrived wearing blazers stitched from calendar pages.

"You've defaulted on your weekends," they explained. "We'll be taking your Saturdays as collateral."

Gregory agreed.

By now, he lived mostly in Thursday.

Everyone else moved on without him, living smooth, consecutive weeks. But for Gregory, it was only ever Thursday, and more Thursday, and still more, until even the concept of a week became an embarrassing memory.

And in the spaces between, the Thursday Man would visit.

"You really should have read the terms and conditions."

"I did," Gregory whispered.

"No," the man said, stepping backward into a hallway made of clock hands. "You rented them."

And that was the last time Gregory saw any day that wasn't some variation of Thursday.