The Muse
So Rick stays behind his eyes, stays in the office, and walks back over to the desk beneath the clock with the whisky in the top drawer and the scuff marks on surface from where he used to rest his feet. Rick knows it'll be his lucky day today. And though luck can turn into misfortune at the drop of a hat - though an unspooling series of counterfactuals can transform a single moment in a life into a multitude of consequences, each of which gives its own retrospective meaning to...
Rick wipes his forehead and stops thinking. A fly is walking in uneven starts north-west-west across the map of the opposite wall. Rick watches it for another moment. Then - just as his mind is about to turn again with real ferocity and intent to the bottle in his desk's top drawer... just then, Rick hears something in the corridor outside. Lift doors opening, a foot being dragged across concrete floor. And something else beneath that, which Rick can't make out. Something like breathing, but worse.
Rick sits up very straight in his chair. This does not sound like a regular client. But neither does it sound like a bill collector.
An infinite series of counterfactuals snaps open in Rick's mind, like a deck of cards in a con-man's hand. In a moment it's closed again. The Ace of Clubs is in there somewhere. But Rick has to rely on his wits.
Rick wipes his forehead and stops thinking. A fly is walking in uneven starts north-west-west across the map of the opposite wall. Rick watches it for another moment. Then - just as his mind is about to turn again with real ferocity and intent to the bottle in his desk's top drawer... just then, Rick hears something in the corridor outside. Lift doors opening, a foot being dragged across concrete floor. And something else beneath that, which Rick can't make out. Something like breathing, but worse.
Rick sits up very straight in his chair. This does not sound like a regular client. But neither does it sound like a bill collector.
An infinite series of counterfactuals snaps open in Rick's mind, like a deck of cards in a con-man's hand. In a moment it's closed again. The Ace of Clubs is in there somewhere. But Rick has to rely on his wits.