Stop and Stare

20

If Mahony was built and conditioned to give up when the going got tough then perhaps he wouldn't have ended up dead. But it irks Mahony that he couldn't fix this, if only there's some way for him to remember what happened previously so that he wouldn't repeat the same thing all over again. These 'groundhogs day event' movies totally lied, much to Mahony's dismay. He fixated on the problem, going over in his mind all the different solutions but none were feasible; if only he could bring a cheat sheet with him, or couldn't he?

Mahony looked up from his intense contemplations to find Mona. He spotted her right away, at the far end of the bar, as soon as he did, he remembered Dorothy. He turned to address her only to find that the seat was empty. Mahony couldn't remember when she had left her seat, he looked around the bar and failed to find her. He returned his attention back to Mona and waited politely for Mona to finish serving a patron first before signaling to get Mona's attention.

"What can I get you?" Mona asked.

"I have a question, two actually," Mahony said.

Mona looked at Mahony expectantly.

"Where's Dorothy? The lady I was sitting with just now," Mahony said.

"Hon, she left a long time ago," Mona said, "while you were in a loop."

"A loop?" Mahony asked.

"You returnees fixate, you fixated," Mona said simply and met with Mahony's quizzical looks. "You got stuck on a thought, didn't you? And when you do you tend to fade, all of you do, faded almost like a ghost."

"What? A ghost?"

"Never mind, it's not important. What's your second question?" Mona moved the conversation along.

"Is it possible to prepare a cheat sheet for myself if I should decide to return again to fix things?" Mahony asked.

"A cheat sheet?" Mona nearly laughed out loud. If that's possible she didn't do her job right. Although, there're times when people did manage to remember snippets which was quite annoying. "Hon, where would you even stuff such a thing to bring with you?" Mona said with a hint of laugher in her voice.

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"The answer is obvious, hon," Mona pointed to her own temple, "change the way you think, the way you look at things, and you'll have all the cheat sheets you want," Mona said.

"For a woman that claimed she didn't know a whole lot about these coins, you sure know a lot about them," Mahony said begrudgingly.

"It's just common sense, nothing to do with them coins," Mona said.

"You're no help at all, Mona," Mahony said with a frustrated sigh.

"You won't be called up to pick your next ride for some time yet, why don't you explore the Main Street some more. Maybe you'll bump into more old acquaintances," Mona suggested. "Besides, Dorothy has quite a keen understanding of the world despite her shortcomings," Mona said to Mahony as an afterthought. "It's too bad she couldn't overcome her own demons to utilize it.

"What? You mean the Wizard of Oz stuff?" Mahony asked.

Mona looked at Mahony with meaning, "Just saying," she said before walking away.

Disappointed with the lack of solutions, Mahony fixated some more on his current problems. He wasn't sure how much time had passed when the next thing he was aware of was someone calling his name.

"Mahony, is that you?" A familiar male voice boomed out.

Mahony snapped out of his looping. He turned towards the voice and scanned the faces only to be met with a face so unexpected he felt someone had suckered punched him. "Brad?!" Mahony called out his mouth hanging open.