There were only two men in the train station that night. They were both Time Agents; partners in every sense of the word. One was lean and wiry, the other tall and muscular. They had been here for a long while and both had become bored with waiting for their ride to come along. To pass the time, they began flipping coins. One man chose heads, the other chose tails. They turned coins in silence for some time.
Finally the taller man asked, "How long have we been doing this?" He flicked another coin at his partner, who snatched it out of the air and looked at it.
"Heads. I don't know. It feels like forever."
"And how many times have I won?"
He looked down at the small stack of coins beside him. "All of them. All heads."
The first man reached into his pocket and drew forth another coin. He studied it, turning it back and forth to examine the signs on both sides. He held it out to his partner, who also inspected it. There was both a head and a tail. A double-sided coin. "I am not cheating," he stated solemnly. "You see this." He spun the coin.
"Heads."
The spinner cursed and rose. He began to pace agitatedly. "This is very bad. It defies all laws of probability."
His friend watched him, unconcerned. "You're just jealous you're losing, Jack."
"I'm not!" Jack, the pacing man, protested. Then his features softened and he smiled. "Okay, maybe a little. But don't you see, John? Turning up heads every time is impossible. It's not a double-headed coin, so we must be trapped in some kind of time phenomenon. 'And the single experience of one coin being spun once has been repeated ninety times.'" He stopped and cocked an eyebrow at the seated man. "Sound familiar?"
John squinted up at his friend. "No. Should it?"
Jack fell back down to sit beside him. "It's right out of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It was on the required reading list. Don't tell me you never read it?" He shot his partner a look and flipped him another coin. "Of course you didn't."
"You're not surprised, surely?" John asked, catching the coin with his right hand and turning it onto the back of his left. "Heads again. I never was much for reading, Jack. Why don't you give me the highlights?"
"I can't believe you've never read it," Jack tutted, shaking his head. "It's the definitive work on paradox, probability, the meaning of life..."
"Life, the universe, and everything. 42. I read that one."
Jack rolled his eyes at him. "Not everything, but R and G is kind of special." He turned another coin absent-mindedly. "It opens with two guys doing exactly what we're doing."
John caught it with equal inattention, not even bothering to look at it. "Spinning coins, all of them turn up heads, caught in some kind of time loop?"
"Exactly."
"So... do they get out of it?"
Jack's brow furrowed as he tried to remember. "I think they eventually meet up with some traveling players and talk about the meaning of life or something."
"Sounds boring."
They looked around pointedly: first to the right, and then to the left. Not a single thing stirred the silence on the platform.
"See anything?" Jack asked unnecessarily.
"Nope," he answered. Then: "You know, Jack, if we are in some kind of repetitive time phenomenon, I can think of much better things to do than flip coins or talk about the meaning of life."
"We should report this, you know."
"Later," the other man said, laughing. "A lot later. We have time. It is, after all, a time loop."