Homeless Life in a Loop

Yesterday, while waiting for the bus, I was acosted by a homeless man who was missing his front teeth. I asked him how he was doing and he said he was high. I told him I was a theoretical physicist and he said “Amazing! Because I don’t live in reality, so it’s strange that we should meet.” (Indeed!) Then he asked me if the manhole cover in front of us turned into a portal which would take me to an alternate reality whether I would jump into the hole. Of course I said I would. Then somehow our conversation turned to time travel (doesn’t it always) and he said he thought that he was in a situation where things kept repeating themselves. I told him that physicists call this a “closed timelike curve.” He asked me how he could get off the closed timelike curve. Which made me sad.