A Perfect Day for Sailing by Karter Mycroft

Someone called the Coast Guard at 0900 because they thought they saw a sailboat drifting past Malibu with no one aboard. Seaman Jacob Charles and Petty Officer John Beeker responded aboard the powerboat OLE-3, and located the vessel in question at 1045. The ship was identified as the S/V Bellingham, a 33-foot remodeled schooner registered to a Mr. Painter of Ventura. It was abandoned.

The initial investigation lasted an hour. Charles and Beeker tied off the OLE-3 to the Bellingham’s hull, boarded the vessel, and dropped its anchor. They split up to search the deck and cabin. Topside, Charles paced from stem to stern, looking for signs of an accident or a struggle. He checked the radio next to the helm and found it in good working order. A couple of fishing poles lay half-assembled near the prow, but otherwise the deck was in fine shape. It was a beautiful day, too, calm and sunny with a light breeze coming in from the northwest. It had been that way all week.

“You find anything?” Beeker reemerged up the ladder.

“Clean as a whistle up here,” said Charles. “You think she just came loose from her mooring?”

Beeker shook his head grimly. “I saw fresh clothes down there, jewelry, and perishables in the kitchen. And this.” He lifted his hand with a jingle. He was holding a dog collar. 

“I think there was a whole family aboard.”

Charles couldn’t help feeling impressed by Beeker’s deductive reasoning. 

Beeker stepped over to the gunwale. “Something’s up here. I’m gonna radio Forensics. This is above our pay grade.”

Charles wiped his brow. “I’ll follow you in a bit. I want to look around some more.” 

“You should leave that to Forensics.” Beeker climbed back aboard the OLE-3. 

Charles knew he was right, but he stayed aboard the Bellingham anyway. Normally the calls they got were so routine it made him feel like he never accomplished a thing. But this was a real, honest-to-god abandoned ship. What could make an entire family vanish, in calm waters, with a full stock of supplies and a working radio? They were missing something, maybe something he could uncover before Forensics arrived. How many times had they rejected his applications, saying he lacked practical experience? This could be his big chance.

He climbed down to the cabin. It was tidy, no sign of struggle or fire or anything else out of the ordinary, except some thin scratches on the wood floor, probably from the dog. The sea rose and fell beneath him, giving the cabin a woozy bob as he approached the beds. There were three of them, one double-wide and two smaller ones. All looked like they’d been freshly made that morning. 

The kitchen sat in a nook next to the beds. Everything was secured, not a single pan out of place. Charles checked the drawers under the stove. Canned fruit, bags of rice, a couple empty packages of meat. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he was sure he didn’t find it.

On his way back, he checked under the beds. There, underneath the double, he did find something: a little wrinkled notebook, bound with twine. His heart raced as he undid the knot. 

It was Mr. Painter’s log. Like any good sailor, he kept a record of each departure and arrival, and notes on each day at sea. Charles sat down on the double bed and skimmed the first few pages. 

It was all painfully ordinary. 

20150808 – Saw dolphins today. 

20160214 – Bad clog in the head. Returning early.

20170328 – Took a long nap. Woke up to high winds. Had to strike the mains.

He flipped to the most recent entry. 

20190716 – Departed Oxnard at 0830. Brought Shelly and the boys. Visiting Grampa in San Diego w/ pit stop in O.C. Beautiful weather, everyone excited. Never been happier.

“Well, shit.” 

Charles felt like he knew even less than before. Mr. Painter had known exactly where they were going, he hadn’t noted any problems, and the log showed nothing but pure intentions. Now the whole family was gone, and Charles didn’t have a clue why. 

He sighed and flopped back on the bed. If he’d been a real investigator, he might have devised some theory, discovered some hidden detail, and cracked the case. But he had no theory. He had an empty ship and an empty skull. When they returned to base he would go back to writing tickets to party boats, and eventually Forensics would solve the mystery and all the glory would be theirs.

The cabin rose and dipped, almost in time with his breathing. The hull gave a slight groan, almost like a yawn, which made Charles yawn in turn. He tucked the log in his pocket and rubbed his eyes. At least he’d found some evidence, even if it was lousy evidence. Maybe Beeker might be impressed with him, for once.

He realized he’d become very tired. He should have gone to meet Beeker on the OLE-3. But the bed was so comfortable, and the sea so gentle, and his brain started inventing sleepy excuses. Maybe he should stick around a while longer. At least until Forensics showed up, so he could show them where he’d found the journal. Get some face time with the real detectives. Good career move. He should get off the bed at least, he knew, to keep from tampering with evidence. But it was just so cozy, rocking him like a baby in its mother’s arms. 

In moments, he was asleep. The Bellingham swayed over the gentle sea, and Charles started to snore. A layer of cloud passed over the sun, and the light coming in the portholes on either side of the bed changed from yellow to gray. The ship bobbed and swayed and Charles snored and snored. 

The portholes blinked. 

A rumble came into the cabin. The hull of the Bellingham exhaled and its polished wood panels began to change shape. One by one they came loose from the floor, bending like fingers around the bed, bearing it down to the seething compartments below. A faint ray of sun returned to the portholes as the ship slid Charles off the bed. He gave a loud snore, only partly rousing. The hull twisted, raising rows of groaning, jagged wooden teeth. Charles stirred, opening his eyes just in time to see the light was all gone, as the ship bent its sneering planks down onto his body, sank into his flesh, and ate him.

Porcelain Princess

Black crepe swathes every surface and orifice of Edwin’s mansion.

What use wealth when you’ve lost your heart’s gold? He thinks, clenched in sorrow, in his study staring at the snowy gardenscape.

Dora’s funeral had been a bleak and bitter affair; his beloved only daughter. Wandering the rooms Edwin comes to rest in the nursery, where an array of teddy bears and dolls huddle together as though in grief.

“Dolls,” he murmurs. 

He thinks of the machines at his factory, their cogs and gears, their steel guts and engine hearts and breaths of steam.

He knows what he must do.

Clock Work

The basement stinks of sweat, burning oil and grief. Noises emanate all times of the day and night. Groanings, whirrings, clickings; the maid leaves food trays outside and trots away, skirts flurrying.

Edwin stands before a life-sized metal figure; it has no face, its alloy arms stretch out as if begging.

Inside its framework copper wires create a crazy maze of arteries carrying charge not blood. A small vial of that vital fluid is waiting, ready to anoint its heart, at the moment of resurrection.

Sweating Edwin labours long into the damned nights.

“Soon, my dear heart. Soon.” He mutters.

Dorabella

“Dorabella, be my queen. Dorabella, walk with me. Take my hand, dance and be free.”

The candles cast shadows on Edwin and his partner, as he twirls her around the ballroom. Her velvet skirts, hand-sewn, swish and whirl. He places his sweaty cheek next to her chilly china one, tracing her rosebud lips with his finger.

All he can hear is the tick tick of the clockwork parts, mimicking her heartbeat. She is his most magnificent creation.

In the mirror he glimpses them waltzing, imagines Dorabella’s lips move, her eyes blink.

Hears her whisper, “Daddy, I am here. Hold me.”

A Country Cottage

A sweet, chocolate-box picture of an old cottage: thatched, low-gabled, timbered in mediaeval style, with leaded windows. A traditional-style garden: rambling roses on trellises against the house, geraniums in flowerpots, lavender at the borders, sweet peas in hanging baskets beside the door. Scents and colours crowded so vividly you would never notice the slender green-black spikes of something like cacti standing here and there between the livelier plants, pushing upwards from every patch of soil—even from the red clay flowerpots and painted window-boxes. 

“Eh, I know who lives up along there,” Mr Parry said. “Course I do, lived here going on eighty-nine years myself. Old Mrs Kennaway, that’s her. Old as the hills she is. You want to steer clear of her.” He shook his head and would say no more. 

Mrs Kennaway pottered in her garden on fine mornings, a small, tidy-looking figure always in floral pinks. Her eyes, pale-grey and slightly dazed in expression, seemed to look past you, but she would pass the time of day in a mildly plaintive, faraway voice. She would offer a newly-potted flower or a home-baked scone, or invite you in to share a pot of tea in delicate china cups and saucers. 

A smell of fresh baking seemed always to fill her cottage; and under that, the clean-swishing scent of laundry—and below that again, a hint of lavender, thin-bluish as a distant plume of wood-smoke. You would have to have a keen nose indeed to discover, beneath it all, the iron tang of blood, old blood, impure like the fluids of an uncleaned wound. 

Strangers, tourists, would pause by Mrs Kennaway’s front gate to admire her classic little dwelling. They marvelled at the old-fashioned cottage with its beautifully-preserved windows and perfect thatch, or they gazed in delight at her picturesque old garden, brimming with all the right blooms in all the right places. They would photograph the scene, and some would return to photograph it again, disappointed with their first attempts, which never seemed to capture the beauty of the place. 

A long-established garden will withstand a few months of neglect without any startling change. When the doors and windows of the picture-postcard cottage stayed shut for three months and more, the garden hardly seemed to alter. Only a few of the red-potted geraniums, standing out of rain, withered, leaving pointed, thorny dark spikes visible in their place. All the other foliage and flowers still thickly disguised the long, fanglike growths intruding into their midst. 

“Eh, well, it’s been a while now,” Mr Parry said. “She’s in the hospital, just a chest infection, but she’d nearly died this last Easter, and they do say…” He lowered his voice. “They say a sudden illness changes you like. Changes your character.”

He coughed and took a swig of his tea—strong milky tea in a thick mug stained with nothing else but tea. 

“You know what though, I don’t believe it,” he resumed. “You can change your clothes and suchlike: can’t change who you are. When the walls break down, what you see’s what was hiding back there all along.”

Mrs Kennaway must have recovered soon after, enough to return home, for doors and windows opened again in the little white cottage, and her pink-floral form moved to and fro near the house—perhaps a little less frequently, a little more hesitantly. She would no longer call “Good morning” or “Good afternoon”, but would mutter to herself as though angry or afraid. Once or twice that autumn she straightened up as though recollecting herself, smiled a disconcertingly toothy smile, and repeated her customary offers of cakes and teatimes, but the occasional smells of cooking or cleaning could no longer disguise the thick-seeping odour of blood. 

“Ah, well, it’s a sad life for her now, poor old gal,” Mr Parry commented. “You’d think she’d get a home help in, or even just a gardener now and then, but she’ll none of it.” He nodded sagely. “No, she don’t want anyone coming in. Secrets, that’s what. She’ll not have eyes and ears round her place that she can’t pull the wool over.”

Mrs Kennaway’s health improved over the winter and following spring; at all events, her movements became gradually more agile and she made herself as busy as ever. But the flowers of her garden began to wither or go to seed. Sometimes the old woman could pull a couple of geraniums into leaf, or coax a rose-bush into pink-yellow flower, but the mysterious dark protrusions spiked upwards out of shrunken, colourless foliage and dull shedding blooms all around her, and the darkness of earth would gleam on her gloves like oil, dripping slowly downwards back into her soil. 

“Do come in,” she said. “So lovely to see you. I’ll make a nice cup of tea.” She took her gardening gloves off, spent a long time washing her hands. 

“No, it’s all right,” she said, suddenly snappish. “It’s my kitchen. No, I don’t need help. You go and wait in the dining room.”

The tea tray, when she finally brought it, held the usual china teapot, three cups and saucers, a light sponge cake and a heavy-duty bread knife. No plates or spoons. 

“Yes, that’s right, three cups,” she said impatiently. “Three of us for tea. You, me, and Luci. He’s always been kind to me, Luci has. Sit down!”

She poured the tea, placing one cup in front of an empty chair. The teacup stood there on its saucer, unmoving, of course—but the level of tea within it seemed gradually to fall as though the cup had cracked… and yet no leak made itself visible either in the saucer or on the tablecloth.

Mrs Kennaway began to cut the cake. 

Suddenly she turns towards me, her pale eyes focusing for the first time just behind my own, like a snake remembering how to strike. And I turn, too, and run, unharmed I think, out of the house and through the short garden, dodging the knifelike spikes of blackish vegetation that seem to bend, to lean towards me. I run and run, searching for the gate, trying to remember where it stood open just a short while before. The snake eyes never leave mine, twist and turn as I might, my breath giving out and my legs slowing as though in treacle. I duck and dodge again to avoid the quickening touch of the spiking forms around me. They do not look like cacti now. 

A Rain-Faded Photograph by DJ Tyrer

He felt awful. He felt as if there were something crawling about in his guts, gnawing at him from within. Guilt.

John glanced at his speed, keeping it low. He’d been driving this route to and from work for years, knew it by heart. Maybe that was the problem. He’d grown careless, like disrespecting a lover whose presence has grown too familiar. This was his first day back along this road in a month. He’d been taking taxis, but the toll on his wallet was growing too high and the counsellor had said he needed to confront his fear.

“Get back on the horse.” As if you could compare what had happened with taking a tumble!

“I never should have listened,” he told the empty car, but he knew he hadn’t had much choice.

Then, he was turning the corner and he felt a surge of panic. His foot pushed down on the brake pedal and the car slowed to a crawl. The twin beams of the headlights caressed their way across the tarmac and along the grassy verge until he saw it: A pile of bouquets and wreaths.

This was where it had happened.

He steered onto the roadside a little way past the mound of flowers and engaged the handbrake.

He sat breathing deeply for a while, trying to regain a little composure.

John considered phoning work to tell them he’d be late.

“Screw ’em.”

He released his seatbelt, then opened the door and slowly levered himself out.

The morning air was chill and damp. The road in front of him sparkled under the lights of his car. Behind, the hazard lights sent odd shadows flickering across the scene. There was just enough light to make out where the memorial lay.

Slowly, he walked towards it. He should’ve brought something. Or, would that have been construed as offensive? He had no idea how you were supposed to act when you took a life. Careless driving, they’d called it. His lawyer had argued it down to some points on his license and a fine. But, fancy words couldn’t heal the ache he felt.

The woman had been little more than a blur when he’d skidded round the corner and a lifeless sack of flesh when he’d stared back at her while a passerby screamed into their phone for an ambulance. Then, he’d read the newspaper report, a tiny article that barely seemed sufficient for the enormity of what had happened, and had realised she was a wife and a mother. He felt sick at the thought.

He approached the makeshift memorial. A bunch of withered flowers was tied to a lamppost with a rain-faded photograph. The lamp was as dead as the woman. Around it, more flowers were gathered. Some had been blown away down the road. He started gathering them and returned them to their proper place. It was a gesture he felt compelled to make, yet was a hollow one.

Nothing he could do could undo what he’d done. He growled at his impotence, the injustice of it all.

If only…

There was no point. Ifs were useless.

He turned away and started to walk back towards his car, but the soft sound of a rustle behind him made him halt.

There was no breeze.

John turned. He couldn’t see anyone in the darkness. He’d half-expected to see someone there on the verge, brushing against the bushes that framed it; had dreaded it, in case it were a friend or relative come to lay another wreath, someone who might recognise him. But, there was no-one there. Nor was there the spooky glow of a cat’s or fox’s eyes. There was nothing that might have made the sound in sight.

And, there was no breeze.

He almost turned away, only he heard the sound again. It had come from the piled-up flowers. He looked at them; he could see they were moving, shifting. He shivered.

There was no breeze.

As he watched, the wreaths and bouquets seemed to fall upwards from the bottom of the pile to the top. The pile was growing taller and slimmer and, he realised, seemed to be taking on a shape reminiscent of a person.

John couldn’t believe what he was seeing and wanted to turn away, run back to his car. But, a horrified fascination compelled him to keep watching until the figure of a woman composed of flowers stood before him. There was a head, but no features he could discern, save those of a rain-faded photograph that perched somehow at the centre of where a face should have been.

The figure took a step towards him, faltering and horribly loose.

John gave a scream and turned to run.

Headlights flashed around the corner and seemed to transfix him with their beams.

Hands that were gentle and soft, yet had a grip like steel, seized him by the elbows and thrust him forward, out into the road.

A car veered towards him. Light blinded him.

In that second, John realised that, while there was nothing he could do to change things, there was, perhaps a sacrifice that might balance the books.

He felt himself flying.

Bad Habit # 1

Wendy had long since realized that love was not forever, despite what the songs said. Forty years of marriage told her differently. Her husband’s bad habits emphasized it. She could live with the flings, the binges; she told herself it was to be expected.

But not this.

The way he ate. Smacking his lips like a flapping fish on dry land.

Slap. Slap. Slap.

Like walking through fields of wet cow shit.

It resonated in her head, like a metronome.

It tormented her. Tortured her. 

No more.

She thrust the kitchen knife deep inside his mouth. 

Slap now, you pig.

Bad Habit # 2

To Peter, it sounded like a thousand drains being unblocked, the water sucked down into the sewers. In this case, though, it went down their throats. If it was so hot, why not blow the damn stuff? But no, tiny drops sucked up into stinging lips. Like a vacuum cleaner.

He finished his own coffee and stood to leave. He couldn’t take it anymore. A dozen clients slurping at his coffee in his own bar. It had to stop.

He returned later and poured laxative into the various coffee pots. 

Let’s see you slurp now. 

But your butts slurping instead.

Bad Habit #3

Clink, clink, clink.

Faster, louder, slower, quieter; it didn’t matter. It wasn’t hypnotic, it was maddening. The sound resonated in Mike’s head, his ears.

Clink, clink. Clink, clink.

Round and round went the spoons, making Mike dizzy. Angry. Furious. 

Clink, clink.

He wanted to scream at them. How long to stir your damn coffee? Stop that godawful noise! They weren’t even looking, completely oblivious reading the morning newspaper.

Like an early morning alarm clock ringing in his head. Reverberating constantly.

Enough was enough.

He returned with a baseball bat and smashed at fingers and wrists stirring coffee. 

Stir now, assholes. 

Sprox by Ryan Benson

“We don’t have enough damn paste,” said a man in a white button-down shirt and modest gray slacks. He removed his thick black-rimmed glasses and wiped the sweat from his brow, leaving a bit of brown goop in its place. “Did you hear me, Daed?”

“Stop whining, Jonah,” said Daed, dressed in similar attire except with navy blue pants. “I’m sure Caasi gave us the correct amount.” Daed dropped to his knees as he spread the paste as thin as possible over the cracks in the grey wall.

Jonah returned to his desk, a meter away, and picked up a six-inch red rod. He placed it on his typewriter, and under the dim fluorescent lighting, the rod to Sprox process began. The small cylinder went into the left of the machine, and as Jonah typed, the Sprox formed at the right side of the device. Beautiful cube Sproxes.

“If THEY get through the cracks, THEY will make the Sproxes,” said Daed. “And demand fewer Sproxes in return.”

“I don’t see why Caasi couldn’t refuse to use THEM, instead of making us fill cracks,” Jonah muttered to himself. 

“I heard you, and if you’re not careful, Caasi will too. You’ll be out on your ass. A lot of people want to work in this room. Look at Gregor.” Daed nodded to an empty desk. “He had a bug and never returned. His family owes Caasi too.”

“Somewhere else. Something else,” said Jonah. “Let’s get married.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I have the forms,” said Jonah. “We are around each other so much people would think we were in love.”

“Love? I guess that makes sense, but I can’t take time off.”

“We could do it here.”  

“Jonah, I want to do it right. Big ceremony.” Daed paused. “Maybe I’ll ask Caasi.”

“Caasi? But I came up with the marriage idea. Remember? I’m the one that wanted more. You marrying Caasi does nothing for me.”

“I need more Sproxes. We live for our Sproxes. You know the deal.”

“You have enough Sproxes to afford rods to eat. What will you do with the rest?”

“Grow up, Jonah.” Daed grabbed his typewriter. He patched the wall with one hand and Sproxed with the other.

Jonah turned his attention to his rotary phone. Damn thing took forever to dial. He never had reason to call anyone, but a pushbutton phone would surely call out faster. Dreams of marriage returned to Jonah’s head. A quick look around the room revealed others who he’d intimately labored alongside. Love is love.

Settling on the raven-haired beauty, Iza, he made his move. Iza sat slightly above him in the room’s hierarchy, but she always seemed impressed with his rod to Sprox efficiency. 

“Iza?” Ants filled Jonah’s stomach as he approached. Her well-ironed button-down white shirt and brown slacks caught his eye. Iza turned to him, but before either could speak, a brilliant glow filled the room. “Hello!” A grinning man in a blue pinstripe suit held his arms high like a conquering hero or game show host. Caasi returned.

“Excuse me, Jonah. Gotta talk to Caasi,” said Iza.

Before Iza could stand Jonah darted in front of her. “I’m first in line.” He stared at her and remembered Daed’s rejection. He couldn’t do that again. “First in line… for Caasi.”

Iza rolled her eyes. “Don’t upset him. I’m thinking of drafting a wedding contract with him. I know we’d—” 

Jonah left Iza talking and marched to Caasi. “Sir?”

“Yes?” Caasi straightened the picture on the wall near his desk.

“I need to talk about my position in the room.”

“Do you like my art? Just bought it.” Pinned within the frame sat hundreds of destroyed Sproxes arranged in a haphazard pattern. More Sproxes than Jonah earned in a year. Hell, more Sproxes than he could produce in a year.

“I would like to explore advancement.”

“Advancement?” Caasi ran his hands over his jacket sleeves to smooth the wrinkles. “I’m not so sure you could handle it. Besides, you and Daed make a great team.”

“Sir, I’m feeling constrained by my place in the room. If I don’t receive an advancement, I request you scale back my quota.”

Caasi sat at his desk, pulling out a rod and biting off the end. The rod cracked like a crisp carrot. He held a rod out to Jonah, who waved it off. Caasi leaned back in his chair. Two of his assistants approached. One placed a bib around his neck, and the other began applying shaving cream to his face. After a few swallows, Caasi pointed the stump of the rod at Jonah. “What will you do when I reduce your quota? Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.”

“I figured I’d travel.”

“Sure. Take the rest of the day off and visit the file cabinets. See the copier. Clear your head.”

“I thought I might leave the room,” said Jonah as he looked at the floor.

One assistant dropped the shaving lotion, and the other gasped. Caasi stopped chomping on the rod. 

“If I see other rooms,” said Jonah, “I’ll have a different perspective.”

Caasi shook his head. “No, no, no. Our perspective is all that matters. If their rooms were any good, THEY’d stay there.”

“I want to watch them harvest rods.”

“Rods? We turn them into Sprox.”

“But you can’t eat Sprox.”

“Jonah, a man can’t live on rods alone. Think of what the Sproxes bring.” Caasi waved his hand to show the room as if Jonah won it. All four gray walls.

“I suggest you apply yourself and prove how valuable you are to the room. If you’re dissatisfied with the job, you could reduce hours. But ‘could’ doesn’t mean ‘should.’ Someone would love to pick up your Sprox time.”

“I understand,” said Jonah. He looked at Caasi’s pushbutton phone. The boss had it all.

“Remember Josef’s breakdown?” asked Caasi. 

Josef had received a reprimand without explanation. Jonah recalled the man rubbing his head bald as he completed stacks of HR forms. Rods sat unSproxed until two men took Josef away.

 “We used some of THEM to finish Josef’s job,” said Caasi. “I don’t want to resort to that with you. Our room wouldn’t be our room with THEM. Besides, it took forever to eject THEM after we met the Sprox quota last month.”

“Why don’t we set a policy that makes it against the room to hire them at all? Or share some of our Sproxes, so they stay in their room?”

“First, they are called ‘THEM,’ not ‘them.’ Second, send Sproxes to other rooms? Give my hard-earned Sprox to some laze-about from another room? Next thing, you’ll want me to give you more Sproxes. Why don’t you share your Sproxes? No one is stopping you.”

“I don’t have anywhere near the number of Sproxes you do. You could give them more Sproxes than I own and wouldn’t notice any were missing.”

Caasi chuckled and placed his hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “You’re living in a fairy tale land. Frankly, I blame society today, not you. Look at my suit. It’s a little flare of me. We share the Sprox, and next, we’ll share everything. Don’t you like being an individual, Jonah?”

Jonah surveyed the room. A dozen or so people in white shirts buzzed about the room making Sproxes. He looked down at his white shirt—so many damn buttons. 

“If you want to travel, why don’t you train to glow like me. I see beautiful rooms, and people love me. Not to mention the Sproxes.”  

Glow? Sproxes, renown, and travel. Jonah could aim higher than Daed or Iza. Caasi even.

“Glow training is intensive and lasts at least four years,” said Caasi.

“Four years?”

“During which you will make all payments on time.”

“But then I’ll have to keep my Sprox job here. I have zero time now.”

“I’ll give you the opportunity, but I can’t do it for you.” Caasi held up a rod. “Now, you’re a rod.” He winked. “After the glow, you’ll be a Sprox. Who doesn’t love a good Sprox? The sides, vertices, and angles—all equal.”

“You completed the glow while working?” 

“Not exactly. My parents paid. Too bad you didn’t plan ahead like me, but fortunately, this is the room of opportunity. If a man has enough grit.”

“Thanks.” Jonah walked back to his desk as Iza crossed his path.

“Warm him up for me?” she said.

“What year is this?” said Jonah. Iza ignored him.

At his desk, Jonah found Daed patching the wall. 

“What year is this?”

“Stupid question. Best not to watch the clock. Rod to Sprox. Rod to Sprox.” Daed smiled. “With a little pasting thrown in between your rod-to-Sproxing.”

“We need more paste.” Jonah sat at his desk and turned rods to Sprox, soothed by the clickety-clack of his typewriter and his daydreams. 

I’ll be Caasi someday. I’ll show them. I’ll have the glow. The love. The art. The pushbutton phone. Sproxes to spare.