12:01 PM

"12:01 P.M." is a short story by American writer Richard A. Lupoff, which was published in the December 1973 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story was twice adapted by Hollywood, first in 1990 as a short film, and again in 1993 as a television movie. Lupoff appeared in both films as an extra.

The major plot device is a time loop or time bounce, and bears great similarity to that of 1993's Groundhog Day. Lupoff and Jonathan Heap, director of the 1990 film, were "outraged" by the apparent theft of the idea, but after six months of lawyers' conferences, they decided to drop the case against Columbia Pictures.

Decades later, Lupoff returned to the story with two sequels, "12:02 P.M.", published in the January/February 2011 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and "12:03 P.M.", published in the September/October 2012 edition of the same magazine.

It is 12:01 PM and Myron Castleman, an executive in New York City, finds that he is reliving the same hour of the same day, over and over. His time loop starts at 12:01 PM and lasts until 1:00 PM, when he is somehow returned to the same place where he began the hour. All the people around him are unaware of the loop, and everyone repeats their actions exactly over the course of the hour, except insofar as they interact with Castleman. In one of his loops, Castleman learns of a local physicist's theory that appears to describe his situation. The physicist, Nathan Rosenbluth, theorized a "disfiguration of time" that could cause the universe to snap backward and repeat the period of one hour. Over his next three time-loops, Castleman tries desperately to contact Rosenbluth and ask him for advice. In the last of these attempts, Castleman collapses, suffering a heart attack. He realizes he is dying, but is grateful that this will finally break the loop and free him. He dies, and the hour of 1:00 PM arrives. Castleman awakens and sees he has been returned to the place where he begins every hour. The time is 12:01 PM.

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