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Day Three
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"My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and damn right, it's better than yours, damn right, it's better than yours, I could teach you..."

What... the fuck? Jim groaned as he rolled over in his bed. He opened his eyes slowly, watching the popcorn ceiling above him come into focus.

"...you want it, the thing that makes me -- what the boys go crazy for -- they lose their minds..."

Jim reached over, slamming his hand on top of the clock radio. Letting out a breath, he stood up, looking out his window. The world hadn't ended. He was still on earth... so far, so good. He thought for a moment, and reached down to the floor for his pants from yesterday -- wait. Hadn't he worn those pants the day before? Two days ago?

Uh-oh.

He pulled his cell phone out. Thursday, January 12 2006. 7:32 am.

Fuck.

Jim rubbed his face. What the fuck was going on? Was he stuck in a continuous time loop? Did no one know what was going on?

Pulling on a pair of flannel pants, Jim headed down the hallway towards Mark's bedroom. He knocked for almost a full minute before Mark finally opened the door, his hair sticking up in every direction. "Dude. What is wrong with you? It's fucking..."

"7:30, I know." Jim glanced into the room. "Is Jennifer still here?"

"No, she works the early shift on Thursdays. She left two hours ago."

"So today... is Thursday?"

"Last I checked, yes."

"And yesterday... was Wednesday?"

Mark gave him a weird look. "Yes. What is going on with you?"

"I... don't know." Jim leaned up against the doorframe. "I know you'd never believe me, but I swear, I just lived through Thursday twice already. This is the third morning I've woken up to it being Thursday."

"Well, Thursday does happen every week."

"No, I mean - in a row."

"Dude. You doin' a little wake-and-bake this morning? Seriously. That doesn't make any sense."

"Tell me about it."

"So, what? Today's the exact same day as yesterday for you?"

"Yes. I mean, I don't know for sure, but if it's like yesterday, I'm going to go into work, and everything will be the same. And then we'll go on this stupid Booze Cruise, and I'll break up with Katy and Pam... God... her fiancé will set the date for their wedding, and it'll just ... fuck." Jim put his hands on his face, rubbing his face, then the back of his neck.

"What are you talking about?"

"Only, the worst day of my life, ever. And it keeps happening again, and again, and again."

"Are you sure it's not just a weird dream, or something?"

"Are you telling me I'm dreaming now?"

"No, I just mean... what if you dreamt everything before. I mean, it could happen."

"It's not a dream, Mark. It's too real, too much happened. I remembered everything. I never remember my dreams, and besides..." Jim sighed and bumped his head back against the doorframe. "Damn it. I do not want to do this again."

Mark shrugged, stifling a yawn. "Then don't, man. Don't go into work today. Call in sick."

"Yeah... maybe. At least then I wouldn't have to watch P -- um, yeah. That's a great idea. Maybe not going on the cruise breaks the cycle."

"Yeah, cycle. Whatever, man. Look, I'm going back to bed."

---

At 8:03 am, Jim called into the office. He knew Pam would be there by then.

"Dunder-Mifflin, this is Pam."

"Pam, it's Jim. I'm ... not coming into the office today."

"Okay... but you did remember that our quarterly event-thing is tonight? Whatever it is. Are you going to miss it?"

"It's a Booze Cruise, " Jim said flatly. "And, yeah, I ... don't care. Tell Michael... whatever." Suddenly, he wanted nothing more to be off the phone with Pam. Knowing that in just a matter of hours, she'd probably be jumping up into Roy's arms again. Roy, who made her happy and Jim... Jim who was nothing to her. Nothing more than a coworker. A friend.

Pam's voice broke into his thoughts. "A Booze Cruise, what? I mean -- Jim, what's going on?" she sounded concerned.

He wished that he had just pretended like he was really sick to begin with. "Um, nothing, I just don't feel well. I'm sorry, Pam."

There was a long pause on the line. "Okay, well... we'll miss you tonight."

"Yeah," Jim said. "Um. Yeah." Jim almost wanted to say something else, but didn't know what to say, especially not over the phone.

Roy might still set the wedding date tonight, but maybe Jim wasn't supposed to be there. Maybe him being on the boat was what kept the day from moving forward? It was crazy, but maybe... Maybe he wasn't supposed to be involved. Maybe it wasn't any of his business.

"Bye, Jim." Pam's voice seemed far away and tinny, and he hung up the phone after that, his hand feeling weightless.

---

By 7:35 pm, he'd gone through every show he wanted to watch on the TiVo, and then some. He'd also played two hours of Madden '05 Football on their Xbox. Jim sighed, lying back in the couch. Mark would be home soon. Maybe they could play some cards, or maybe a game of Halo. Something. God.

---

Mark showed up at the house shortly after 8 pm, and around 8:20, his girlfriend came over. Damn, Jim thought. He had forgotten about Jennifer. Damn... he'd forgotten about Katy, too. Not that he really cared about what she thought. Katy probably showed up at the office to find out he wasn't there today.

That thought made Jim smile bitterly. He wondered what Pam had said to her. Jim imagined the surprised look on Katy's face when she found out he'd called in sick. Katy had probably left him a few nasty messages by now.

Jim was surprised how much he didn't care. Katy was -- had always been -- a distraction, nothing more. And now, in this horrible world of the Day That Wouldn't End, she was a nuisance. He'd really only asked her to go to the Booze Cruise because he hadn't wanted to go alone. They hadn't talked for weeks before that. It figured that the only day he had to relive over and over again was the day was this one. Why couldn't he have relived last year's Dundies?

Pam had kissed him that night. Sure, she'd been drunk, but still. It was ... great. Jim sighed.

Jennifer broke him out of his reverie when she asked him if he wanted some dinner. "Sure," he said, stretching out to take up the rest of the couch while she headed into the kitchen.

Some new show called Four Kings was on TV, about four guys that lived together in New York City. Jim recognized one of the main characters -- a redheaded guy that kind of reminded him of Ryan, for some reason. He tried to remember why he recognized that guy.

Jim sat up to look at Mark, who was sitting in the recliner across the way. "Dude -- do you know who--?"

Mark didn't even let him finish. "Greg the Bunny," he said.

"Wow," Jim said. "I can't believe you knew what I was talking about."

"That's why we're roommates, man."

"Yeah," Jim said. Suddenly, things didn't seem so bad. He wanted to say something nice, like, I'm really glad you're here, or give Mark a hug or something, but he figured Mark would probably think he was being weird again.

---

When Mark brought Jennifer upstairs at 10:30, he came back down with Jim's phone in hand. "Dude. Your phone says you have eight new voicemails."

"Yeah. I've been avoiding it since this morning."

"Don't you want to know who called?"

"Not really."

---

At 10:45 pm, Beauty and the Geek had become too inane to watch, so he threw the remote across to Mark, telling him to change the channel.

Jim glanced over at his cell phone, sitting on the coffee table. He picked it up, pressing the voicemail button. The first three messages were from Michael, of course. Wondering why he wasn't at work. Calling him a party-pooper. Wondering whether he was really sick. Worried that maybe he was looking for another job. Funny how Michael could go through a complete range of emotions in a single message, let alone three of them.

The fourth was from Dwight, who threatened to come and investigate. Dwight didn't think he was really sick. (No surprise there.)

The fifth was Katy, at 5:45 pm. "Jim, it's Katy. I just wanted to let you know that it would have been nice of you to call me and let you know you were sick today, before I came all the day down to your office to meet you. I hope you're really sick, because, honestly..."

Jim clicked "7" to delete the message.

The next one was Katy as well, but was more apologetic. Jim listened to it all the way through before deleting that one as well. He wasn't going to call her back.

The following message was Kelly, at 9:12 pm: "Ohmigod, Jim! It's Kelly! I can't believe you're not here, you wouldn't believe what just happened - I can't believe what just happened, it's so crazy, Roy just --"

Jim instantly deleted that one.

The last message was Pam. "Hey, Jim. It's Pam. Having a great time on the Booze Cruise. How did you know it was a Booze Cruise, anyway? Michael must have slipped, huh? Anyway, yeah, it's been a good night. I have some good news, actually. Too bad you weren't here; we could have made fun of Michael's horrible dance skills. Michael made one of the passengers jump overboard, oh my God, it was ... well, it was so Michael. Then Captain Jack -- the captain -- he tied Michael up... Anyway, I just... wanted to say hi, and, I hope you're feeling better. I'll tell you all about it at work tomorrow, assuming you'll be there. We missed you tonight! Um. Talk to you later. Okay?"

Jim waited until it beeped and the automatic options came up: "If you'd like to replay this message, press 1. If you'd like to save this message, press 9. If you'd like to delete this message..."

Jim pressed "9" and hung the phone up quickly.

Well, it had happened. Pam was still getting married. Again. Eventually. (If he ever got out of this ridiculous time-loop – whatever -- that he was stuck in.) Jim wondered whether he should call Pam, to find out what really happened. He wondered if it even mattered. After all, he might just wake up 'tomorrow' and have to start this day all over again.

The one upside to reliving the same day over and over again was that he might not ever have to see Pam get married. (Some upside.)

Feeling sleepy, he nodded at Mark. "I'm going to sleep. I'll ... see you."

"Tomorrow," Mark finished.

"Or today."

"Right, right - whatever you say, Jim."

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