But I sure wanted to.
The third reaction I had was to go into automatic to give my poor mind time to sort through what had just happened. That was as good as anything I could do, so I turned and started washing off the dishes, dumping the garbage in a big pail, and dipping the plates enough in the dirty barrel water that they pretended to be clean.
I could imagine that on the outside I looked calm and collected, but on the inside I was a mess.
“Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic,” I kept saying to myself, timing the phrase with deep breaths and the dipping of the dishes in the water.
Finally I got myself under enough control to ask a few questions.
Why had she left me?
No easy answer. At least none that I wanted to really admit, yet there was nothing else that made sense. She had left. That simple. She had seen the location of the golden cow treasure and that was the last thing she needed from me or Aahz or Tanda. On the first opportunity she had headed off on her own.
Leaving me alone in a kitchen in a strange dimension. “Don’t panic,” I said to myself, dipping more dishes. I dumped more half-eaten food into the bucket, dipped another plate, and asked the next question. Had I been a fool?
The answer to that one came clearly in Aahz’s voice. Yes.
He would also say it was nothing new or unusual. She had played me, and Aahz and Tanda, like a finely tuned musical instrument, using my heart and my emotions as the strings.
“What a fool,” I said aloud.
There was no one in there to agree with me, but I didn’t need anyone to agree. I knew I had been a fool.