Alison, Don, and Hugh have philosophical discussions on what it means when the entire world skips two or three days at a time and then picks up at some random moment in the future. In the blackout period, amazing progress is made in arms control and hostage negotiations. Time travel? Maybe not, but certainly a fun read with some echoes of Sturgeon’s “Yesterday Was Monday.”
God has decided to cut reality and re-edit it.

Variants

(1)
  1. “The Thousand Cuts” by Ian Watson, in The Best of Omni Science Fiction No. 3, edited by Ben Bova and Don Myrus (Omni Publications International Ltd., February 1982).
  2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Ian Watson