The Loop

June 3, 1988, pt 1

Melonie woke up at 6:15. Even though she didn't set her alarm the previous night, it went off. Now she was up, and unwilling to go back down again. Or she had once upon a time. Back then, it was simply a chore. Now, it was torture.

She felt her lack of sleep as she stumbled through the motions of brushing her untangled hair after the worthless ritual of showering. Wasn't that all anyone was doing at this point?

She picked up some toys that were re-scattered on the floor. Trucks and turtle action figures lay around the bathtub. On the edge sat cheap plastic boat that hadn't been touched in thirty years.

But the boat didn't know that. The boat thought it had been played with just last night.

Of course, the boat didn't really think that. But if it could have thoughts, chances were that it would think that.

Tyler pushed past Melonie at the sink to brush his teeth. He did an exceptional job for only being four. Besides, she was helping him brush his teeth on June second, so she tried to count her blessings.

"Mama, can I be sick today?" he asked, looking up at her with sad, puppy eyes.

She shook her head, as she put her hair in a ponytail. "You know the rules, Ty," she sighed. "Follow the loop."

He pouted and left the bathroom in a huff. Something was murmured as he kicked his toy truck over, probably one of the four letter words he'd learned twenty-seven years ago. Not that it mattered all that much, just as long as procedure was followed, anything could be said or acted out.

Melonie mixed up some scrambled eggs and put them on a plate for Tyler, who ate them without really caring about what he was shoveling into his mouth. Meanwhile, she did her best but couldn't finish the plate identical to yesterday's.

As usual, the clock stopped right at 7:50. Melonie grabbed both plates and chucked them into the sink, causing them to crash loudly. It would fix itself tomorrow morning, so why bother? It had never affected the timeline before.

The pair walked hand-in-hand together. Like she knew it would be, main street was filled with people asking Jerome how many days it'd been. Before the cycle, nobody wanted to acknowledge his existence. His quirks were too much for most people to put up with. After all, only a few people were willing to hear the math behind the number of seconds since Lincoln's assassination.

"Ten thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-three days!" Jerome shouted suddenly before bolting down the street into his house. Melonie kept walking, she never talked to him on June 3, and she couldn't start now.

Tyler attempted to pull away from Melonie as they approached the preschool, but she held on to him. The other kids snickered at and pointed as she left him with the teacher. "Tyler needs his mommy to drop him off at school!" they would whisper behind his back.

Judgmental looks glared through her as she passed the teachers lounge, where nobody even bothered to hide the various safety violations they were performing.

"Is she still dropping him off directly? Even now?"

"Well, she is the one that..."

"She can still hear us!"

"I don't care if she can hear us, it's for the better. She's a terrible and neglectful mother who can't even care for one child properly!"

Of course they still talked about it, after all, it was only nine thousand, three hundred, sixty-three days ago. It was the freshest gossip available until someone else did the same.

Melonie kept walking out into the street that was empty now that Jerome was gone. Street traffic was almost always based on his presence or absence, and now he was absent.

The retro diner was already full of men in suits, launching about the place as it if was a cafe. Once her apron was on, Melonie began to do rounds, pencil and pad in hand.

Peterson seemed eager for her to come to him, so she rushed through the rest of the orders to reach him. Once she was in front of him, he straightened his tie and straightened his back.

"I would like eggs and bacon with jam toast," he said self importantly.

Not a sound could be heard in the diner for almost a full minute. Melonie did her best to hold on to her pad, only to drop the pencil.

"Do you have a death wish?" She snapped while she retrieved the pencil.

Peterson looked sheepish as he let his head sag. "No."

"Then let's stay with the schedule," Melonie mumbled as she walked away.

"But it's been so long!" Peterson pleaded, leaning across the table. "And it's been longer than the cycle because my wife decided I needed to diet!"

Melonie turned around, staring him down quietly. "Get used to it!" She snapped as she went to the next customer.

She wrote down the orders from memory; it'd been almost thirty years now. Everything was going according to the schedule, and it was going to stay that way. Sit in the back, avoid trouble, keep your head down and live with what you've got.

...

At the end of her shift, Melonie slowly made her way home. But a whim compelled her beyond, into the area of town that everyone tried to get out of as quickly as possible.

Her path ended at the end of the start of the culdesac. Everyone had disappeared in the part of town when the cycle began; before anyone realized that they were living the same day over again. Nothing that went in there came back, balls that were expected to return were gone. Lost dogs passed through and never wandered back home. Elderly who were done with the nonsense. Children.

Mr. Davis joined her at the edge, staring off at the greatest mystery the town had never known.

"The wife's mother lived down there," he said, pointing at last house.

"My condolences," Melonie murmured, continuing to stare ahead.

He chuckled to himself, shaking his head. "My daughter was there that night." He bent his head down and leaned his glasses on the edge of his shirt.

He shook his head, putting his glasses back. "Thirty years is plenty of time to move on," he said with a smile.

It wasn't sad, it was just a smile. There was something wrong with it, other than a lack of emotion. He didn't feel anything when he should at least be a little bit sentimental.

"Surely you don't have this much of a gap in your schedule?" he scoffed as he turned to face her.

Melonie shook her head without peeling her eyes away. "Does anyone?" she murmured.

"Exactly," Mr. Davis commented. "So you'd better get back onto your path."

She nodded, turning her head down and walking away from the desolate asphalt. It wouldn't change her day if she stayed, but it would change the way everyone else in town looked at her. That, made her leave the site.

A/N
Something's wrong with this small town, what do you think it is?
If you have any comments/questions/critiques, let me know. Anything you need to say about the book is welcome.