2061.21 Lesson Learned? Or The Haunted Bathroom? Or This Plan Was #$%#$ Part 1

[Trebro]

GM Rob McMonigal sat in the office of the Johannesburg Gold, thinking about how he would re-tool the team for the 2062 season. Despite being sure he was not L. Eague Control III, it was time to accept that his old life was over.

It was late at night, and he was alone. He yawned, looking over the proposed arbitration estimates for the players, young and old, who were still under their full service time. He'd already decided he wasn' re-signing any of the free agents. Staring at the numbers, he yawned again, and before he knew it, he was fast asleep...

...only to wake up in his own office, looking almost the same as he'd left it. McMonigal stood bolt upright behind his familiar desk and rushed for the door. He ran to the nearest bathroom and checked the mirror.

It was his face!

"I'm back!" he cried out to no one. Well, maybe the night security guard, but he was pretty sure old Curtis was fast asleep downstairs. Yellow Springs wasn't known for its crime problems.

"I don't know what happened, but I'd better get to work," said the GM, already thinking about who he needed to sign for the 2060-61 off-season.

"Not so fast," said an unearthly voice that sounded distinctly like Basil Rathborne.

McMonigal whirled around. Hovering over an open toilet seat inside a stall that probably needed cleaning was a ghostly figure of a man wearing an old time suit out of an ancient western. While his upper body looked complete, his legs kind of merged into a grey-green blob that flowed into the toilet bowl and down into places unknown and better off unspoken.

"Who the hell are you?" McMonigal asked.

"I'm John Clapp, late manager of Middletown, and I'm here to warn you."

McMonigal stared at him, blinking.

"I'm going mad, aren't I? I've had a complete break with reality."

"No, I'm very real and so was your experience in Johannesburg. Though it looked quite strange to me, it was the truth"

"I don't believe it," said McMonigal. "You're a figment of my imagination. A ballpark hot dog that wasn't cooked properly."

"Believe what you wish, but look at that periodical over there."

McMonigal's imagined ghost gestured a hand through to the neighboring stall, where a copy of the Yellow Springs Journal was on the floor. Probably being used as spare toilet paper, which was about all that rag was good for. The paper was slightly damp and had a few stains McMonigal hoped were just dirt splattered across it.

"Pick it up," the spirit commanded.

"No! I won't do it! I don't believe in you or any of this!" McMonigal shirked back. He put his hand against the sink wall, trying to steady himself. He edged his way towards the door.

"If you leave now, you'll never be GM in Yellow Springs again," said Clapp.

"Whatever," said McMonigal. He opened the door.

The Yellow Springs offices were gone. Instead, they were replaced by a darkened hallway, with fog oozing across the floor and wafting its way to McMonigal. Through the fog, he could see glimpses of another office, the one in Johannesburg.

"No! Shouted McMonigal, slamming the bathroom door.

Clapp, who seemed larger than before but still tied to the toilet bowl, pointed again.

"Pick. It. Up." The voice was louder, more commanding.

Cowering on the floor, which smelled horribly, McMonigal crept his way to the newspaper, touching it gently.

"PICK. IT. UP."

With trembling hands, McMonigal grasped the edges of the paper, looking at the date...

[shoeless.db]

Who hasn’t crawled on a public bathroom floor late at night? Am I right?

[jiminyhopkins]

Was this a hallucination in a truck-stop Denny's bathroom??