kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"bemused.4"

words

--- 1 --- Tuesday night

Nikias started when he noticed his eyes were half focused on the wall, past his desk. The music had been building for a while, but he wasn't certain of much else beyond that. Sitting at his desk, he couldn't concentrate on a thing; his headphones were letting in just enough sound to keep jarring him out of any potential work groove. His eyes might as well have been closed for how conscious he was. How long _had_ he zoned out?

His clock. He looked for his clock.

It was right in front of him, but his eyes fought the attempt to solidify focus on the weak LCD; the numbers ambiguous, he could just make out that the dot for P.M. was no longer lit. Morning already! Too few hours lay between him and waking to qualify as good sleep. He whimpered.

And the music was really bugging him, not because of how late it was, though it was late, and not because he was tired, though he was that as well, but--

No. It probably _was_ because he was tired. And had a headache. And really didn't want to be working any more, but... but he had just a little more to do, he thought. If his headache would be kind enough to bugger off. He should get up and find something for his head. Should. He didn't remember having any headache-type stuff himself, but maybe Richard would. And if not, well, maybe coffee would help.

His vision swam with the geometric patterns of oxygen deprivation; bending forward, he breathed deeply and pressed his palms to his closed eyes. He couldn't believe how tired he was.

Vertigo kicked in, his ears ringing, and his head fell slowly forward. Scant inches from the desk, he caught himself, and sat back up. The curves of his arms called seductively to lay his head down in them...

Coffee. Headache. Music.

And, and, and. The music: he really should ask Richard to give the piano a break. He was amazed his housemate was still going. It had been hours; Richard didn't tend to have the focus for any one thing for that period of time.

Nikias stood and stretched, blood slowly pricking itself back into his legs. He stumbled wearily to the door, and opened it--

And winced as his eyes adjusted to sudden brightness. Daylight? The sun hadn't _hinted_ its existence a moment ago. The music folded into spritely laughter, and back into the piano's playful dance. Blotchy retinal oversaturation slowly coalesced into objects. Daylight.

The sun streaked through water-heavy dust motes, highlighting a young girl, somewhere between the age of six and eight, robed in gold-embroidered red velvet, her fingers raising more dust as they rolled through Mozart's 21st piano concerto. The walls were white and curved, trimmed blue. Bright. Everything was bright, even the playing. The girl's thick black curls bounced gently, glinting in the sun.

Something about her was familiar.

An urge to question raced through his mind, but he stood mute to the scene before him. Thoughts clicked over: this was not his living room; that was not Richard. He was pretty sure that wasn't their piano. He wasn't even certain it _was_ a piano--it seemed off, somehow.

An old man stepped in from the periphery of his vision, and sat down next to the girl. They traded hands smoothly; the piece continued unbroken. She slid off the bench and watched him play. At first, the old man continued just as she had: cleanly, solidly. Soon, though, he began to play with the piece, creating a beautiful inner dialogue.

The girl turned towards Nikias, and smiled.

Disjoint: "What are you staring at?" A male voice.

Richard's voice. Richard was sitting at the piano, arms poised, looking at him quizzically. Nikias found himself staring at Richard, whose sharply angled face had a strange glow about it. The playing had stopped.

"Are you all right?" asked Richard. The glow coalesced into Richard's stawlike blond hair.

Nikias shook his head to clear it. "Yeah. No. I don't know... I think so."

"You look like shit."

"Thanks." Nikias sighed wearily.

Richard grinned. "No problem!"

"Not to be an ass, but would you mind giving the piano a break?"

"Oh, umm... sure." Richard smiled sheepishly.

"Since when do you play the piano, anyway? I thought you were pretty much a nonmusical child?"

"I'm horribly musicless; math and engineering all the way. I was just procrastinating, really, with my homework postponed a few days. The lesson book just... caught my eye."

"Well, you sounded pretty competent for no training. I miss playing."

"Huh. Now that you mention it, I haven't heard you; have you not played at all?"

"No time." Nikias grimaced. "I can feel my skill dribbling away."

"I'm sure you've got a long time before any leak becomes appreciable. You started young, right?"

"Give or take, since I was six. So, yeah."

Richard chuckled, and stood up. "There you are, then. Like riding a bicycle, right?" He stretched with a long grunt and a couple of audible cracks.

"Sure." Nikias shook his head dismissively. "Sure."

"G'night." Richard smiled.

"Yeah, good night. Sweet dreams, and all that. Makes two things for me to be jealous of--time to play the piano, and time to sleep."

"What's keeping you from sleep?"

"I'm adjusting some plans for work. Meeting noonish they have to be ready for."

"Sounds like you just need time all around."

Nikias frowned and nodded. "Yeah, more time would be nice."

Richard wandered off into his room, leaving Nikias staring listlessly at the piano. What the hell had that been, the daylight, the little girl? The playing? Had he tripped out on Richard actually playing a concerto, or was the whole of it hallucination? At least all was, for now, right again in the house. Well, mostly. He wanted to go to sleep, but that wasn't going to happen. He chalked up the hallucations to his need for sleep--just a waking dream, which wouldn't _exactly_ be fixed with caffeine, but chased away, at least. If it was anything else, he'd worry about it later; he hadn't been with his job long enough to qualify for health insurance.

Nikias went into the kitchen to fix himself some coffee.

The lack of presence, with the house suddenly dark and quiet, echoed hollowly. He shook his head, wiped back a sudden blurring of his eyes, and resolved not to think about his parents or his job until he'd finished... well, finished what he was working on for his job. He didn't have time for anything else. The loss of time was something else he could mourn, but not now. He really didn't have time for anything, these days.

He took single-serving grounds from the freezer, filled the coffee-maker with water, and flipped the switch to a glowing orange-red presence. Gurgling noises indicated that coffee was being summoned.

His thoughts drifted: he hadn't practiced the piano in ages, hadn't drawn anything, hadn't even _doodled_, ... He hadn't really done anything. He'd looked for work, squandered his spare time then, worrying, and now he had a job and time for nothing but. The drive to and from work was part of the problem, up to two hours each way when traffic was bad, but he couldn't afford a place closer. And Richard wouldn't be up to moving far from campus, and... And. Work itself left him drained and lifeless, for no immediately discernable reason. It _was_ the sort of work he wanted to do, supposedly. Or at least what he was doing was one of the first tentative steps down the long road to becoming a professional architect.

Moaning about all this wasn't going to help anything, though he could partially excuse the time as waiting for his coffee to brew. Then he had to get back to drawing straight lines and triple-checking their accuracy, precision, and adherence to building codes.

It was important to make a good impression with these drafts. This temp-to-hire position was probably just given to him as a favor to his late parents. Bill really didn't need him, and the economy... In general, jobs were being cut, not created. The downturn at least had some people wanting to invest in more solid things like real estate. His only shot at a future was to prove his worth, and that was killing him--he'd talked himself in way over his head.

Nikias questioned himself on his choice of career--he lost himself in music... he really missed the music. The designs were unadulterated labor. Of course, he needed the job to begin with. But also... what he was doing was what junior draftsmen _did_. It didn't last forever.

The coffee pot's burbling subsided, and he poured himself a cup and then put it in the fridge to induce a safe temperature as quickly as possible. Hunger, or an ulcer, nibbled delicately at his consciousness.

He resisted the urge to scream.

Failing farther distraction, he gave up on waiting for the coffee to cool. He was going to pass out or snap if he waited any longer. Nikias popped an ice cube out of the freezer, freed the cup of coffee from the fridge's grasp, and applied ice to what he hoped would rekindle his mind for one last battle.

Drinking the coffee quickly, he told himself the slight pain would help keep him awake, then refilled his cup, rinsed out the pot, and headed wearily back to his room.

Sitting down, he stretched and focused. He breathed deeply in, and then out. Piece by piece he reorganized his arsenal: gum eraser squared to his left, straight-edge to his right, two mechanical pencils horizontally before him. Nikias breathed deeply in, and then out. He picked up the foremost pencil, advanced its lead two clicks, and bent over the design.

An indeterminate time later, he set his alarm and fell into bed.

--- 2 --- Between Tuesday and Wednesday, on into Wednesday morning

Darkness; music. Darkness, music, pain--

Silence trickles down his chin, thick and black, burning cold as ice. A tear falls from his eye and hits his foot.

A white lotus flower blooms from a pond that the tear becomes, stands on itself; petals stretch into furry, chitinous legs. A white lotus spider hops into the air.

Birds float above him. A cry falls from their throats and spreads into the pond, blending with his tear. There is light, but there is no sun, there is no moon. There is no time.

Thick, hairy legs land daintily atop his foot; they tickle.

Birds sit in the air, poised in flight, elements of a mobile with no breeze to move them.

The white lotus spider crawls up his leg, its own legs gliding and pricking, tickling and scratching. He is tense--fear of being bitten, fear of the unknown. Fear?

The spider crawls slowly, pausing now and then as if tasting his reaction. Its compound eyes dizzy him and he focuses on the click-click-clicking of its mandibles.

He is not reacting, muscles tense beyond tense, frozen as stone. The spider advances inexorably: calf to thigh, thigh to abdomen, to chest, to shoulder.

His heart moves, pound-pound-pounding, staccato icepicks of pain against his ribcage. The spider crawls from shoulder to neck to ear--

Battles rage: birth, death, love, loss, hope, despair. Life swirls in the pond below him.

He imagines the spider's feathered legs probing in his ear, imagines its mandibles slowly opening the way to his brain cavity, imagines a... tickling scream pouring from his soul...

Lack of the white lotus spider's touch is the most solid presence.

Then it is in his ear, burrowing, and he releases the scream, fully cognizant of the pain--that isn't there.

Silken honey spins dizziness the length of one ear to the other, dissolving aural night to stars spinning across the globe of his hearing. The soundscape fades to vision. Silence.

His eyes blur in spiral dance and he falls backwards. Is he flying? Brilliant silence, illuminated in a simple act of being. Questions fade. He smiles and tumbles into comfort. His fingers twitch a melody he doesn't recognize. It is good.

Spiraling weightless, an astronaut with no planet beneath him, he lands softly on nothing; from nothing blooms a lotus flower roughly a foot cubed of existence, petals reminiscent of aged cement. Technicolor patterns blossom in ripples around the flower; he hears a film projector start.

Standing before him is the spider. Standing--on two legs, upright. It appears grainy, corrupted with film streaks.

The spider's chitin and fur melt into bluish human flesh--eight bluish human arms stretch from a now-human torso supported by two now-human legs. He wonders where the legs came from.

One arm is raised to the mouth in a shushing gesture. Nikias stares, making no attempt to speak, no attempt to move.

Music is playing. Richard? No--the girl. Where is she?

Notes spark stars brighter and dimmer, but the girl is nowhere. Notes are the silence in his mind played out, fleshed out. He wants to play, to let those silent notes in his mind flow through him, flow through his fingers and into the air, into sound, into others!

The shushing hand falls to rest on a throne, two tease a lyre, one holds a parchment unrolled to the floor; one holds a tragic mask and one a mask comedic. One arm holds a globe and one a beeswax tablet. What is all this?

Fear. He is forgetting something. He is dreaming. He realizes he is dreaming, and wonders if he can remember that. The dream seems to be happening around him. He tries to remember where the being in front of him came from. It was a spider?

It was...

The lyre sings sweet melody. An octave of voices speak together from the bluish mouth--harmony of the gods is the chorus but a shiver runs down his spine.

"Remember."

Remember the spider? No, that's not what it wants. How can he tell?

"Remember." The voice goes silent, but continues to speak. He understands the words, but he can't put them together.

This is his dream. This is his psyche. What is he forgetting? What does he need to tell himself?

"Attend to our sister."

Her? "I don't have a sister!" he cries impotently. Maybe... maybe this _isn't_ his dream. But whose could it be, and why would he be in it? Richard doesn't have a sister...

The empty hand pulls back off of the throne and stretches forwards, palm up: existence vibrates, buzzes: a nagging pain; another thing to remember?

The pain stops.

Vibrates.

The arms reach out into the sky and form a circle, becoming the idea of a circle too bright to gaze upon. He squints and the form is gone--just a white/yellow fire burning his eyes, leaving green/blue/purple trails as he looks about his room.

The pain stops.

His phone was ringing.

He was sweating from the daylight pouring into his room, and his phone was ringing. There was no music playing but the echo of his dream. His phone was--he answered the phone, trying to figure out what had happened to his alarm. He hoped this wasn't another dream, then thought better of that and hoped it was.

He was looking up through the blinds of his room at the sun; the spider? "Umm. Hello?"

"Mr. Diodorus?"

Shit. Shirley. He was _really_ late. He pinched himself to no avail.

"Nikias?"

"Umm... Yes?"

"This is Shirley from the office."

"Uhh... Hi. I..."

"Are you all right?"

"I... I don't know. I'm fine. I'm sorry. I'll be right in." He smacked his lips loudly, grimaced at their gumminess, and coughed for good measure.

"Next time give us a call when you're going to be late, okay?"

"Yeah. I mean, yes. Yes, of course. I'm really sorry."

This was _not_ how to make a good impression. It was only his second fucking week on the job. Argh! His boss was _not_ going to be happy with him.

"Well, we'll see you in a short bit then."

"Probably forty minutes or so, depending on traffic," he warned. "But yeah. Thanks."

He hung up and rushed out of the house past his startled housemate. Please don't let traffic be bad! Please don't let traffic be bad!

--- 3 --- Wednesday

Nikias rested on the water cooler, heart thumping like he'd just survived an eight-car pileup, and tried his best to appear composed. His mind could not relinquish images from the dream he'd had. That girl... schizophrenia? He wondered if schizophrenia affected dream-things, or if it was only a waking thing. It made sense as a wake-and-sleep sort of thing. Kind of made sense. He'd never had a dream so bizarre yet emphatically meaningful before... if he could just sort out what it meant, and how he'd overslept so badly. He shook his head, and frowned. Things were not going well.

"Everything all right, Mr. Diodorus?" He looked up to see his boss's unreadable face.

"Sir? Yes sir, Mr. Hinckley. Just thinking about--" A sinking pain hit him: the plans! "--about the plans I've been working on."

"How are the coming?"

"Just fine, sir. I think. They'll be ready for the meeting." Cold sweat kicked in to the point of goosebumps. "I--" he bit the stammer and proceeded calmly, distancing himself from the fear rapidly eroding his gut, "--need to go check one thing. I might have miscalculated one thing. I'll be right back." He strode quickly to his cubicle, feeling his boss' eyes trailing his flight quizzically. In his mind, he traced through the morning's lack of routine. Nothing there led him to believe that he'd remembered to bring them back to the office.

Peering into his cubicle, mark one against him was an empty desk, but that wasn't too much of a surprise: he actually _remembered_ not carrying them upstairs. That didn't mean that they weren't in the car. Still, his gut sank a notch and gurgled ominously. A lack of breakfast did nothing to ease his queasiness.

Avoiding the central area, Nikias rushed as naturally as he could past reception to the elevator. He prayed, hope against hope, that the plans were in his car. They weren't supposed to leave the office, period; that left the explanation that he'd forgotten them rather difficult. He pushed the elevator button, and continued his private tirade.

It wasn't just that he'd forgotten important documents; he'd forgotten, possibly lost, important documents necessary for a client meeting. His boss was going to look bad in front of the clients. Nikias was simply the junior trainee-draftsman presenting. He was responsible to Bill. Bill was the owner, responsible to the clients. Bill was going to have to explain to the clients why the plans weren't there at the meeting; _that_ was not the way to earn Nikias a long-term position with the company. It was bad enough--

His train of thought broke off for a personal in-flight announcement: he wasn't moving! The elevator was taking forever to arrive! Cursing under his breath, Nikias ran to the stairs and jogged down them three by three. He counted each leap as a mantra and was at seventeen when a closed door and flat, ungiving ground redirected and then halted his momentum. Pushing open the door, his self-damning paranoia picked up where it had left off--

It was bad enough that he'd come in late; the least he could have done was spend a few moments to pack away what he'd been up all night working on. If it weren't for that... disturbing...

Exhausted from inner criticism, he watched his mind fall limp. A part of him noted that it was best to be perfectly relaxed for impact. A sudden realization was itching to be forced home under his breast and through his heart. An ache in his skull resonated with fear--he looked around for spiders.

No spiders. He wasn't afraid of spiders, really; he even liked them... somewhat. They were fascinating. But... the dream and whatnot had screwed with him, and the adrenaline pumping through his system was resonating in all sorts of unpleasant manners. He half expected to see webs trailing down from the industrial car-park ceiling.

At his car, he peered inside: nothing. He popped the trunk: nothing.

"Fuck!" barked from deep within his gut, echoing uncomfortably with the black morass of emptiness slowly replacing his flesh. His arms were dead fish slamming the trunk closed. Running back to the elevator on legs only half there, he prayed for deliverance, a chance, ... a prayer. He prayed for a prayer, and pressed the elevator call button.

Vision fading through blurred eyes and mind, he jumped as the elevator dinged almost immediately. Sliding in, he determinedly punched the third floor, and wracked his brain for what to say.

Wrack-wrack-wracked his brain. Wrecked. Wrecked, his brain...

The floor opened at the third floor and he walked out, trying to exude enough confidence to cloak the clammy sweat pooling in his pits. His boss came around the corner and smiled companionably. "Good to go?"

Nikias' vocal apparatus began buying him the time he needed. "I'm afraid I misread the material for area C6 and based all my calculations on that. I'm... It shouldn't take," he calculated quickly the time for a round-trip with current expected traffic conditions plus a slight fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck factor, "more than two hours to square everything and redraft it." He paused, just getting the chance to consider what he'd said and weigh his boss' possible reactions.

"Couldn't you just work out some rough errorbars and cement them after the meeting?"

"I don't feel comfortable with that, Sir."

Bill was quiet, staring at him, or through him into the void beyond. Somehow the void beyond was entwined thoroughly with his gastric system--Nikias could feel the eyes rolling about his stomach, probe-probe-probing. He could say nothing beyond the "facts". A long pause...

"Very well, Mr. Diodorus. I will entertain the clients for lunch. Be sure you have the plans together within three hours."

The fish had nosed the bait: now to wriggle himself away and fetch the worm. "Yes sir. Not a problem, sir." And God help him if there were the most minute error on the plans, now.

--- 4 --- Wednesday, noonish

Bill frowned. He was disappointed. Maybe he had put too much faith in that boy's ability... or his maturity. Maybe he'd just been pushing the boy too hard. This was Nikias' first salaried job, probably the first that gave him real responsibilities. Bill knew that that took some getting used to. But he did not like to be let down. He did not like to be let down. Worst of all, he sensed Nikias was hiding something.

That would not do.

Bill composed himself before entering the meeting room. Warm thoughts, happy thoughts. What they thought of his character was secondary to keeping them as satisfied customers. Clearing his throat, he pushed open the door and took two steps in, then stopped.

They looked up at him, reservedly expectant. He could see they were wondering why he didn't simply sit down and roll out the plans. He cleared his throat, and wondered why he hadn't thought out what he was going to say before stepping in.

"I'm afraid," he composed in his head, "that our...". No. "I'm afraid" were the boy's words, and they weren't right for his position. No fear. Confidence was key...

Mr. and Mrs. Glendale looked at each other in the silence.

"Our boys found an issue with some of the last minute changes and sent the plans back to the draftsman. I'm afraid--" Damn it! I'm afraid simply fell out of his mouth and he notched an item on his mental calendar for an evening tongue-lashing, whenever he had some privacy. "That is, it will take a few hours to," here the slightest of pauses as he fought to phrase things as positively as he could, "adjust and verify the adjustments." Marketing-speak was not his forte.

Before they had a moment to object, he launched into the switch. "I hope you can accept an invitation to lunch to discuss matters that don't require having the plans physically before us." He didn't know what he'd do if they didn't accept; reschedule the meeting: he'd dock Nikias whatever this delay cost.

Mr. Glendale gave his wife an unhappy look that she returned blooded. He sighed. "Lunch sounds excellent, Mr. Hinckley. I had a round of golf scheduled, but closing this deal is more important. I'm sure wherever you recommend will be delightful."

"Excellent," Bill echoed, with added enthusiasm. "I'll give you a few moments and meet you at the elevator." At Mrs. Glendale's nod, he exited, shutting the door behind him.

A heated murmur drifted through, and he tuned out the voices to concentrate on happy thoughts. Whatever they had to say would do his self-esteem little good to overhear, and would likely make it harder for him to interact with them socially. At the least.

He took a slightly circuitous route to the elevators and noticed himself passing Nikias' cubicle. Figuring it was his subconscious at work, he peered in.

No Nikias; more importantly, no plans. The first could be explained by a bathroom break--the boy had better not be taking lunch. The second... he didn't have time to dwell there, nonplussed. Walking towards the elevators, he caught up with the Glendales, who at least weren't taking their anger out on him. They hardly noticed him, attacking each other with eyes and body language.

It made for a somewhat uncomfortable walk, but the sun was out: the sun warmed and calmed him. He tried to focus on just that.

He found himself on autopilot at the restaraunt, recommending various dishes to the couple, who turned out to be painfully particular in their eating habits. Bill hoped that didn't bleed over excessively much into the architecture negotiations--he'd thought he'd had their wants pegged pretty well, but watching them squabble over the minutiae of which bitters were in their Caesar salad left his mouth unrefreshingly dry.

He excused himself after ordering, his appetite en route to destinations perilous, and stepped outside to dial Nikias' office line.

The phone rang.

The phone continued to ring, failing even to roll over to automation. Cursing the phone system, he canceled the call, and dialed his secretary.

"Archimedes Inc. Bill Hinckley's office. How may I help you?"

"Shirley, it's Bill. Can you check in on Nikias? He's not answering his phone and I want to verify his progress for our meeting."

"Didn't your meeting start thirty minutes ago?"

"It was supposed to, yes. Could you check in on him and get back to me? I've taken the Glendales to lunch."

"Yes, sir. Certainly, sir."

"Thank you."

He hung up, and switched the phone to 'manner mode'.

Back inside, he set to extended interlocution with the Glendales regarding all things of no import save the touchy subject of golf, or sports, which might lead to golf, or current events, which could...

Thankfully, the Glendales were still working on their appetizers, so he could set the field and pace; before they had too much time to contribute to the flow of conversation, the entrees arrived.

Bill ate his with a wooden smile, stern concentration keeping his bile from overcoming gravity; vague recollection of high school physics told him his esophagus was attempting to function as a siphon for his gastric juices, the higher pressure being deep within his gut.

His phone buzzed lightly and he checked the number: Shirley. Excusing himself again, he stepped quickly outside, and answered the phone, "Yes?"

"No sign of him. I even had one of the gents check the loo. What's up?"

He sighed and hung up. What the hell was wrong with that Diodorus boy?

--- 5 --- Wednesday, apres midi

Nikias parked a block out of the way from work, paranoia warring with itself. He had to get back as quickly as possible, but he had to do so without being seen by Bill... or anyone who might mention his out-of-place presence in passing casual conversation. He thanked the fates traffic had not fought him, and that his late-night impression of completion had not borne false upon hurried re-inspection. He had the plans securely tubed.

Nikias jogged back to the building; just an hour and a half had passed, so chances were good Bill was still at lunch, or at least busy entertaining the clients.

He took the stairs up three at a time with renewed vigor and, before exiting at the third floor, paused just long enough to catch his breath. Smiling, he walked in and past the receptionist.

So far, so good.

Turning into his cubicle, though, he froze.

Mr. Hinckley was sitting in his chair, staring calmly at him.

So close!

"Mr. Hinckley."

"Mr. Diodorus."

"I--" they each started. Nikias shut up. Bill continued smoothly, "believe some explanation is in order." There was not the slightest hint of question in his tone. It was spoken with the collection of an executioner.

"I have the plans," stated Nikias simply. "They're complete."

"Yes?"

"I," he stalled, and nosedived, "finishedthemlastnight. Iforgotthemathome." Mayday! Mayday!

"I see," wholly implying that he didn't. Yet.

Nikias stumbled through the truth, filtering only his fear of impending insanity. "I wanted to make a good impression and was having trouble concentrating in the office. Since you discourage staying late, I was worried I might not finish in time. I figured there would be no real harm taking them home for one night--"

"Against company policy."

"Yes, sir," he admitted, but continued on. "I was up until very late last night collating the final touches. I... I really did want to make a good impression."

"You don't do that by lying, son."

Nikias slowly deflated. "I didn't mean to."

Bill sighed. "Show me what you've drafted."

Nikias, shaking only slightly, popped the tube and rolled the papers across his workspace.

Bill inspected them with painstaking care, taking obvious note of every smudge, and every twitch of line. Finally, he let out another sigh. Bill seemed to be wrestling demons of his own.

"Yes, sir?"

"These drafts are very well done. Quite meticulous."

"Thank you, sir,--"

Bill raised his arm to cut him off. "I don't believe I have a draftsman who would have done them better."

The lump in his throat dissolved partially, but he waited for the "however".

"However."

The lump reformed and his vision blurred. He half-imagined a girl's voice laughing, the twinkling of playful notes dancing about his cerebellum. "However, sir?"

Bill sighed. "Have a seat."

Nikias sat down.

"How have you been? How're your... extracurricular activities holding up?"

"Huh?"

"I'm worried I'm burning you out. You've been through a lot of life changes recently, with your, well, graduating, and... your parents... I can imagine you feel you're under a lot of pressure. I just wanted to make sure you're letting off steam somewhere."

"Well, I hang out with my housemate sometimes. I... I don't do much else. I really don't seem to have much time, though I couldn't say where it's been going. But I can manage, really. I'll get better."

"How are you holding up emotionally?"

"I'm... a bit ragged. But I'm healing. I don't think about things so much anymore."

"You're sure you're healing?"

"Yes, sir. I'm all right. I'll be all right."

"Well... Okay. I think you need to relax, still. I'm going to give you the rest of the week off. You didn't have anything left on your plate that can't be redistributed or put off. Don't take anything home. Don't think about work, okay?"

"No, sir, I'm sure I'll be all right. I mean, I'll be fine. I can work. I... I can't afford not to work, sir! "

"Look, son, you're going to take some vacation time. We'll have a long talk on Monday, work on our communication skills, readdress our needs and your abilities."

"Yes sir."

"Now go home."

"Yes, sir." Nikias was floating, nauseated, unsteady and uncertain. He had his job, still. Probably. He turned and marched solemnly out.

--- 6 --- Wednesday, afternoon (still)

Richard was at the piano when he got home, apparently lost in thought.

Nikias coughed. "You... You have left that thing and seen the light of day, right? You weren't here an hour ago, right?"

"Yes, I've seen the light of day. Recently, even." Richard did a doubletake. "Wait--what were you doing home an hour ago?"

"I--"

"Have I lost that much track of time again?" Richard looked at his watch. "No... what are you doing home?"

"I left the plans on the desk, after staying up so late. Just plain forgot them. So I had to come back for them, which... put off the meeting, and... Bossman says I need a break. He was, at least, impressed with them. So I have the rest of the week off." Nikias shrugged, and forced a smile. "Tell me about this new love of yours."

Richard shrugged, letting the change in topic go. "I don't know. I woke up and couldn't stop thinking about yesterday. I was... inspired, or something. But I headed off to class, anyway. Then... well, it was a nice day and I had plenty of time, so I wandered around a bit on the way; the music building is sort of on the way to class. It being _such_ a nice day, one of the undergrad theory courses was being held outside; and I, having the time to spare, idled by it for a while and listened. You know, maybe I'm doing the wrong major. That was some of the most invigorating rhetoric I've experienced. I came straight home to see what I could piece together."

"You skipped class!? Richard, I don't know whether to... or... Man! Congratulations! That's a first, right? Skiping class?"

"I feel like I'm on the verge of understanding something. I don't have a clue what, but... something. Something big. I've been picking my way through this book that I got on the way home." He held up a thick manual.

Nikias stared at it. "Tell me you're not really two-thirds into that already? That's several years of playing!"

"Well, like I said, I'm just picking through it. I'm not really trying to play so well. I'm still figuring out a lot of the symbols, and I'm trying to apply the scraps of theory I picked up and inferred from the class I... stood in on. Some of it is _seriously_ interesting math; bits mesh with my Signals and Systems class. And-- I mean... yeah. It's really amazing stuff!"

"Play me something."

"Uhh... Okay." Richard flipped the book to its middle, and after a few false starts commenced with a reasonable presentation of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

Nikias suppressed jealousy; that was better than he'd been able to play after _five_ years of practice! Admittedly, he had just been a child then, his hands not fully suited to the instrument and his basic dexterity still in development, but... damn!

Richard started to jam with it, closing his eyes, and Nikias simmered off to his room, switching on some music to drown out his roommate. That wasn't right. That playing was just too good; he took a deep breath and sat down, trying to order and collect his thoughts: job, money, worry--

Scratch that; he didn't have any thoughts he wanted to collect.

He opened his mouth to scream, and nothing came out; his muscles tensed, trying to push away life, trying to cry, wanting to just pass out. Sleep. He was still tired, but that didn't seem right; it was too early to go to sleep. Still, what could he do with no thoughts left to him? Sketching? Sketching had always been a mindless sort of talent, for him. He could try that, see if he could lose himself to it for a while. Relaxation?

Nikias pulled out his draft pad and a fresh pencil and cleared his mind, waiting for his muse to fill him.

He waited. His mind was clear, far too clear... entirely empty other than the thoughts he didn't want to have.

Something tickled the edge of his consciousness, teasing; he tried to follow it, but it ran, then disappeared as if it hadn't been there in the slightest.

Annoyed, he flicked through the pad, looking at old sketches and doodles. Some were finished, some less so. He looked at the last doodle he'd done--was that his? It was dated four months ago. That couldn't be right. Could it? Four months... four months ago his parents had died.

Slowly, the memory of it trickled over the dam he had constructed: the phone call telling him that his parents had had an accident, the car burning, the jaws of life. Dead on the scene.

He remembered with disgust his first reaction: almost a sexual high. It had been immediate. He'd gone straight to his drawing pad and poured the poignancy of the moment, creation, existence, death.

Looking at it now, it was still a damned good piece. Somewhat abstract, surreal--not the sort of thing he usually drew, though he could see his signature embellishments and stylizations. There was no doubt that he had drawn it.

And he remembered now why he'd put it away.

Disgust.

He couldn't believe he'd managed to forget... and then was disgusted anew for avoiding it all. His parents' life snuffed in an instant, leaving behind nothing but fading memories, and what had he done? Draw. He'd run and drawn an insignificant piece of shit in an attempt to replace them.

No, to be fair, it hadn't been to replace them; that was absurd. And it wasn't a piece of shit. But what... why had he done it? He didn't know. He'd just had to. His muse? Was his muse _that_ sick?

Seeing that, he'd gone straight to drink and eradicated the moment, eradicated himself. Funerary arrangements, given they lived in Greece and had relatives spread all over, had dissolved their savings. They owned property, but he couldn't do anything with that just yet. He wasn't going back to Greece; not if he could help it. But he couldn't part with where he'd grown up, either, so that was in limbo. And his liquid cash was practically gone, paying off school loans, living jobless until two weeks ago. The general economy seemed to be echoing his life.

But... Bill was right. He really _was_ killing himself like this. He had to find some way to... let go, or at least begin to work through it. If he could draw something... He knew his mother would be tearing at her breast if she saw him like this.

That! That was an image! He focused his mind on it and tried to put it to paper. A couple of quick lines defined the pose, a few more gave some body, and from there all he had to do was work in details--

The details refused to work in. He found himself erasing and redrawing, the paper getting noticeably thinner. It wasn't coming together. He couldn't see it! Or... he could see any small piece, but not how it fit into the whole. There was no context.

He looked at the picture, frustrated. There was no _life_ to it. He ripped it out, crumpled it, and tossed it into the bin, then stared at his desk, at the notepad, at the image now uncovered.

Piano notes feathered into his consciousness; he'd forgotten about that. His music had stopped, wasn't blocking anything out. He felt a welling of emotion but couldn't place it. He couldn't concentrate. He thoughts not were coming...

His mind was twisting about to the whims of the piano music.

Fuck!

He glared towards the door, a solid knot of anger.

A shadow fell on him from behind. A hand placed itself on his shoulder.

He whirled around; before him now was a vision of beauty; black curls bounced past her shoulders, offset against the brilliant blue... silk, thick, raw silk, he thought; the brilliant blue tunic-like thing. It was a traditional Greek get-up; historic.

"Nikias?"

"Do I know you?"

"I'm a friend of the family."

"My family?"

"Tell me. Tell me how you feel, Nikias."

He paused. "Honestly? You're freaking me out."

"Did you notice anything?"

"When?"

"The night your parents died. Did you notice anything?"

"Wait--how the hell did you get in here? Who the hell are you? I mean, no offense, but this is private property you know. And I swear I didn't see you come through the door, and I was watching it."

She peered deeply into his eyes. He had an urge to close them, but couldn't. He felt... he felt his eyes purple with pain, some knowledge trying to come to him. He turned to his drawing pad and saw the drawing he'd done the night his parents had died. He could feel some of the remorse, some of the despair that was in the drawing. But that wasn't his--he hadn't felt any of that. He was an uncaring sack of shit; disgust rose like bile.

He turned back to her, screaming, "You want to know what I felt that night? You want to know?"

But she wasn't there. He scanned the room quickly and saw her walk through his door to the livingroom; saw her walk through the closed door.

He sank back to his chair. What the hell was going on? He stared at the door.

--- 7 --- Wednesday... STILL afternoon

Richard looked up from his improvisation to see a very elegantly dressed young woman gracefully exit Nikias' room; so graceful in fact that he didn't even notice her open and shut the door. He hadn't noticed her come in in the first place, though she could have been there since before he'd gotten back from school. His fingers tingled and moved themselves back to their happy jig on the piano.

Richard shook his head with amazement and bemusement at the transformation that had come over him. He swelled with amazement and pushed every ounce back into the playing, finding a high pitched fervor of feedback. One detached particle of his mind contemplated the frequency spectrum and power distribution of such a feedback, but it was a small moth contemplating a very bright and fiery orb.

He noted that the female had not moved from Nikias' door. The periphery of his vision hinted that she was watching him intently.

He cleared his throat. "Hello," he said. "I don't believe we've met."

Something about her manner made him take a full look at her. Something... something about her was naggingly familiar. Like he'd felt her presence before, somehow. Which was a completely absurd feeling. He wasn't sure how he'd even come to think it.

She smiled and his mind blossomed sweet cacophany sung forth from strange and beautiful songbirds. Her hand fell on his shoulder, forcing his heart to a dangerous tango with arrest. "Play something for me," she breathed.

Richard stared at her hand so intimately on his shoulder and then up to her eyes, a frown of things not-quite-right furrowing into his brow. "I'm Richard," he forced, repeated, "I don't beleive we've met," and then added, "Have we?" Under the force of her continuing smile, he stumbled on, "I'm usually quite good with fames. names. people. I'm usually a good rememberer of people." He returned her smile uncomfortably.

She continued to smile but now with a slight furrowing of concentration. "I am a friend of Nik's," she offered, finally.

Richard tried to run with that. "Have I seen you around, then? I don't believe we've been properly introduced."

"Play something. For me." It was the sweetest command he'd ever been ordered and as he set to the piano, his fingers' tingling grew to a burning need that only flared stronger as he skillfully pounded away at the keys trying to scratch it. The celestial chorus again echoing in his skull and soul, Richard fought through the confusion to birth those songs to earthly existence. Melodies simple and subtly profound swam through the room and he wondered softly to himself if this was love.

Swallowing, he stopped playing and turned once more to the strange and beauteous female. "Who are you?" he asked.

A wink played over her smile, and she turned and walked out of the apartment. Richard couldn't move until the door had closed. Then he jumped from his chair chasing after her and thrust the door open but she whe was not to be seen.

He shook his head, which echoed with laughter and music ethereal.

--- 8 --- Wednesday... more afternoon

Nikias was still staring at the door when it thumped three more times. The thumps were solid and distinct. It dawned on him that between the knocks there was silence. The music had stopped.

Three more knocks sounded and were followed shortly by his name. Richard was knocking at the door. Nikias tried to say something, but got up instead. His bones ached. He felt his hand turning the knob of the door and leaned into the frame. He stared blankly through Richard.

Richard made some movement.

Nikias continued to stare into space.

Richard made some noises.

Nikias shook his head to clear it, and focused on the sounds that had just traveled through his skull. "Oh. Yeah. I'm fine."

"Hey, umm, who was that chick that was just here?"

Nikias' skull swam with hope, fear, and the now ever-present confusion. He wanted to blurt, "You saw her too?" but refrained. That road led to Oz. Richard really could be talking about anything... no point in jumping to conclusions. He hedged his sanity with the simple syllable, "Girl?"

"Ye," stretched out Richard, "ah," looking Nikias up and down. "Girl. Say, late teens, early twenties, eminently fuckable. Came out of your room a short bit ago?"

To Nikias' continued silence, he added, "Black curly hair, deep brown eyes..." He cleared his throat. "What the hell is it with people not answering me?"

Nikias didn't know what to say and attempted to stall with a prolonged, "Eh..."

Richard shut the door.

Nikias stumbled back to his chair, mind ringing finally with images; images, sounds, and smells. Syllables bubbled in his inner ear. "Thaleia?" he queried, attempting to echo with his mouth the sounds in his ear.

He heard shouting and crying, laughing and... silence. "Thaleia?" he queried again, with more authority.

There was a distinct and painful lack of response.

He couldn't relax, couldn't drag his mind away from thoughts of work. Or worse, his thoughts jumped about like fleas on a drug-laced schizophrenic. Was he?

He needed activity.

Nikias stretched over his desk but couldn't quite reach the phone where he'd dropped it in his mad rush out of the house that morning. Was it really only that morning? He carefully and deliberately stood and walked to the phone, lying on the floor. He bent over, picked it up, straightened up, and methodically punched a pattern of buttons. Nikias paused, then listened to the distant yet blessedly banal ringing. That was reality.

"Archimedes, Inc. Bill Hickley's office. How may I help you?" Shirley's voice was yet another anchor to what Nikias strongly believed was reality.

"Hi, this is Nikias. Is Mr. Hinckley available?"

"I'm afraid he's not. Can I take a message?"

"I was wondering... I was wondering if there was anything I could do. He wants me to take some time off, but I can't seem to concentrate on anything else." He paused, but sensing no play, dug deeper. "Anything! I don't care how trivial, really. Maybe I could realphabetize your filing cabinets, or--"

"I'm sure Bill knew what he was doing when he told you to take some time off. You really sound like you need it. Have you been drinking?"

"No! Could you pass on a message to Mr. Hinckley for me?"

"That's my job."

"I really need something to work on. Like I said, anything would be fine; busy work or whatever!"

"Here's a gentle suggestion: go get drunk. Unwind. Are you seeing anyone? No, I'm sure you're not, or she'd have you settled already. Find a pretty girl, dear, and get yourself settled."

Nikias coughed.

"But I'll pass on your message."

"Thank you," he exhaled.

The line clicked dead; he stared at it, disbelieving. Find a girl? He shook his head and crossed slowly to his door, opened it, and sprawled loosely through the doorway.

"Richard?"

"Yeah?"

"Any interest in getting blitzed?"

"Blitzed?"

"Snockered. Smashed. Drunk."

"Are you _sure_ you're all right?"

"I will be. Seriously, drinks?"

"Only if you tell me something about that girl."

"I have no idea."

Richard paused, then raised an eyebrow and frowned worriedly. "She came out of your room," he stressed. "She called you Nik."

"Nobody calls me Nik. Come on. Drinks. I'm sure you'll find something there to take your mind off of this hypothetical girl." Nikias hoped. Nikias hoped that he himself would find something there to take his mind off of this hypothetical girl; and work.

"What the hell." Richard sighed and stood up. "Drinks it is." He opened the door and looked at his watch. "I can't believe we're going for drinks at three in the afternoon," he muttered.

--- 9 --- Wednesday... evening

The sounds of the poolhall felt menacing to him when they arrived. He felt every eye in the place on them, on him, as they walked past the billiard tables to the bar, their footsteps somehow standing above the click clack of the games. He felt the echoes of their feet as antiharmonics timidly slapping hard rubber to smooth wood, pounding in his ears, threatening to erupt a headache through his eyes and against gravity up his brow. Stress was a pointed physical malady entirely separated from his psyche.

Two old men were seated at the bar, staggered unevenly, dividing the seats--a good distance from each other without leaving a middle ground someone else could seat themselves in without the feeling of intruding upon the aroma of the old men's personalities. The men watched them sit, observed carefully that no untoward attempt at social interaction was offered, and turned wordlessly to the television, which was most likely past their visual acuity. Not even the television made an utterance--text slowly appeared and disappeared, communicating closed captions over the deafening silence. The bartender was a ghost, white sheet restricted to her belt, occasionally being raised to rattle its cotton chains at an unsuspecting glass whose only flaw was that it had been sitting wherever the bartender's idle hands happened to fall.

Drinks were ordered with scarcely more than muffled grunts, murmurings which thankfully blended in with what his slowly adjusting ears had just begun to distinguish as a background level of unhurried conversation. The place had somehow been all the more silent for it, for the level of restraint in the conversation as opposed to the original perception of a simple lack of conversation. Nikias could understand having nothing to say to anyone.

Richard was apparently lost in his own world. They exchanged not a word, ordering almost surreptitiously, matching each other drink for drink. Nikias started sinking into a pit of despair that gave him some aura against intrusion, even as the bar had slowly filled: out with the old and in with the new. The noise level had slowly risen, an uncertain drizzle slowly finding its wings and beating them to a squall. By his fourth or seventh drink, Nikias idly noticed that someone had started the jukebox. It barely managed to compete with the now raucous bar.

By then, the bar really had become a scene and no dour demeanor could beat back the throbbing flesh of the drunken crowd for long. A girl flirted with him--he was fairly certain she was flirting, but he couldn't pay attention to her. He couldn't pay attention to anything but his growing anxiety. He stared into space and barely noticed as she lost interest, as Richard caught her attention and invited her over next to him. Nikias felt Richard's dam of silent excitement burst forth and flow and mesmerize the girl--he felt it as a wave of resentment. Wordlessly, he rose and left the bar.

The walk home was a cold one, a cold and bitter draught that slowly scoured his body free from alcohol, and left a flammable goo in its wake. In this morass, he managed to walk past the house twice before making the right turn.

The lights were off. He left them off, feeling it added a certain something to the mood he was for some inexplicable reason savoring. Stopping by the kitchen for a glass of water, and the restroom to woozily relieve himself of easily a liter, he proceeded to trudge to his bed and fall in, holding his anger tightly. Had it only been one day, this hell?

Sleep...

--- 10 --- Wednesday night

A piercing sliver of light was followed by a perfunctory attempt at a polite knock. "Thaleia?" came a vaguely familiar male voice. Nikias curled tighter in his sheets, which were oddly coarse and thick. He felt vague, felt if he hadn't yet slept. He was _really_ tired; more of a "my god, what happened?" sort of tired than a "five more minutes, ma!".

Work! He rolled over to check his clock. His blurred eyes slowly gained semi-focus on a piece of spacetime disjoint with his expectations. This was not his room.

"Thaleia? May I come in?"

Nikias looked to the door but could only make out that someone or something was standing at it with the door slightly ajar.

The door opened wider and the sudden onrush of light adjusted his eyes painfully. It was the man... the man that had been with the girl, playing the piano...

"Thaleia?"

Nikias was afraid he'd break the spell by speaking.

He looked around and quickly changed his mind: if this were dream he'd much rather be awake, regardless of his exhaustion. He'd had enough of this weird shit. He opened his mouth to speak.

What came out was a little girl's voice, husky with sleep. "Yes, Papa."

"Are you ill?" came the response with some concern.

"No, Papa." It slowly dawned on Nikias that he was not in control of this experience. This... situation, whatever the hell it was.

"Do you know what day it is?"

Nikias wracked his brain for an answer. He wondered what day it would be, given it was some day he ought to know. Apparently he did know, or she did, for he had no conscious access to the information, but still responded, "Yes, Papa."

"Come down for some food."

"Yes, Papa."

"Don't take too long or it'll be cold, mind you."

"Yes, Papa."

The figure turned and retreated slowly from the door, shutting it some. How different a scene this was from the other, thought Nikias. What was this?

She was ten years old today.

He blinked and thoughts swam through his head: knowledge most decidedly foreign, most decidedly not his.

She was ten years old today and had been flesh for four of them. Papa's wife, her mother, had been dead for ten years. She knew little about the woman--she'd hardly noticed her when the woman was alive; she'd come to know her most strongly through the stories Papa had told her, the portraits he painted again and again on the anniversary of her death, Thaleia's supposed birth.

Nikias' ego gasped for air.

Thaleia stood, and dressed in a simple cotton shift. She pulled her hair back and he/she/they... she... walked into the warmth and blue-and-whiteness of the sunlit main room. The paino, no... pianoforte... clavichord? ... was where it had been. In the next room, food was laid without decoration on a simple table. Today is my birthday, she thought again.

Papa denied the truth to himself; he refused to understand. But in a truer sense her birthday lay long in the past, wrapped in myth. And here she stood, staring blankly at the simple fare laid out on the simple table, and remembered bygone times of excess. Myth and history.

The sights and sounds and smells were strange to Nikias, as was the tongue in which he/she spoke and thought. It reminded him of his father's family.

"Thaleia?" From behind him. Her father was afraid.

"Yes, Papa?" She knew what was coming: everything in its time and the time now had been long enough and had the proper poignancy. She could taste the confrontation coming, could feel it as a melody in her skin. She saw nothing that she could do but weather it. Truly the years past, as short as they were, had grown stale; they had grown stale so quickly. Papa refused to accept her gift, at least consciously. She had come for his emotion: raw, pure, and beautiful; four years had turned him terse at best. If he didn't outright fear her, he at least mistrusted something about the situation.

Nikias was raw and pure confusion, but that didn't seem to interrupt or in any way interfere with her train of thought.

"You do not eat, Thaleia?"

"I am still waking, Papa. There is much food." There really was a lot of food, Nikias noted. That would probably last them the day. He wondered if there were were other people coming to eat as well. He thought not.

"May we talk, Thaleia?"

He felt the first wisps of gathering clouds. "Of course, Papa," came his/her voice.

"You are ten years old today."

"Yes, Papa."

Her father walked to the table and took a seat, sitting older than his years. She felt her aeons in his sagging bones.

"You are a beautiful child, Thaleia."

"Thank you, Papa."

"Your mother loved you very much."

"Yes, Papa."

His eyes searched hers for a long time, pleading for some sensible, honest answer. Nikias felt the old man's eyes dig deep, and gave a startled mental yelp when he spoke again, certain the old man's eyes had somehow found him hiding within Thaleia. There was a sparkle--a tear?--that hadn't been there before, a catch in his voice. "You have her eyes, you know."

"Yes, Papa."

"Her face, as well." Nikias could feel the crux coming. "Your face reminds me of her every day." A pause. "Your face..." He paused again, silently asking for help. "Your face hasn't changed at all. Your face is the same as I painted it four years ago."

Nikias' hand raised smoothly and softly and brushed the old man's grizzled chink. "You're just tired, Papa. Maybe you're not seeing things clearly."

"Thaleia... something is wrong." The old man had that and only that, Nikias sensed. No, the old man knew a bit more, came the knowledge unbidden, but the old man refused to accept what he knew, had buried it deeply and struggled not to see it. It had been festering in the back of his mind for some time, repressed.

Their eyes met and Nikias was crying: muted, bodiless wisps trickled down his/her cheeks. "Paint me," said Thaleia.

The old man did not react.

"Paint me," she said again. The old man started to question her but she cut him off, repeating once more, "Paint me," and then followed it with, "Paint me as you know I am."

The old man shook his head as if he sensed it clouding.

"Paint me older. Paint me now, paint me as I should be. Don't paint what you see, because what you see is a lie. Paint what you know to be true." Nikias' own head swam with the truths, half-truths, and implied lies of those statements.

The old man put brush to palette, then brush to canvas. The room was bright, filled with some soft mystic brightness that only aided sight and the clarity of the scene. Paint swam on the canvas, the old man's motions a dance literally defining grace. Not once while painting did he look back to the girl.

Nikias' mouth swelled into a satisfied smile, and his bones...

His limbs were putty.

Under the old man's loving caresses, the girl in the picture grew faint hints of womanly flesh. Her body blossomed; she was coming of age. Nikias felt a gooey warmth drip down the inside of her bare thigh. Her dress grew with her, perking just slightly over her hint of bust, draping gently on her hips. A slight breeze itched her barely proturberant mons.

Leaving Papa in his trance, Thaleia walked unsteadily to the polished brass plate hanging in the guest room. She slowly examined herself as best she could from that vantage. Nikias shrunk back within her, afraid of being seen. He wondered why he was afraid to be seen. How could she see him? But--

Thaleia saw something in her eyes. Something that was not quite her. Nikias sensed his/her body flush and tense. "Sisters! What do you here? Be gone!" Sisters? What had she seen? Him? Nikias' mind blinked blank blackness. She was gone. He was gone?

He hears squabbling in the background, a buzzing... twisted checkerboards swim through him, creating depth in nothingness. He hears a spider's footsteps echoing...

Nikias is in a dark alley. He's being chased. What is chasing him? He's running. He's afraid to look back, afraid that if he sees it, it will catch him. Is Thaleia chasing him? Who is Thaleia?

He is running.

The hallway is curving to the left, curving more and more strongly. Nikias worries that the hallway will spiral to a dead end. The hallway begins to _tilt_ to the left. He's running on the wall. His stomach spins. He looks down and falls. He hears himself fall from ahead and behind.

He sees himself lying on the floor. He sees the spiral maze he was running, sees himself lying on the floor... sees himself lying on the floor at several different points in the maze. His body gets up; all of his bodies get up and begin to run. The maze spins under them, none of them making any progress towards the center.

The scene freezes, and fades to a faint impression on canvas. A paintbrush swishes in from his periphery and begins to create definition. The paintbrush has a certain style to its movement that seems familiar. Is... that isn't the old man's hand, the paintbrush is modern... is that his?

Nikias struggles to retain his sense of identity.

Nikias sees himself--his body--suspended on canvas. His body? Was it him or paint? It didn't mimic his actions, but was he acting or was he bound? Nikias couldn't tell if he was moving. Maybe he was the body on the canvas. Maybe he was the canvas. She? Where was _she_? He saw his eyes close and a third open. He felt nothing but he was the canvas and his third eye was opening. Was she his third eye?

What in hell was happening?

The canvas spins and eight arms grasp through his eye--he feels this with a gut-wrenching silent scream--grasp through his eye, and pull themselves through.

Nikias screams--

--- 11 --- Thursday morning

He was awake.

His heart was pounding. His heart was pounding, he was awake, and he was sweating. He wondered if he'd actually screamed out loud.

He heard Richard moving about in the other room. Thankfully, he didn't hear the piano playing. That was one thing maybe back to normal.

Nikias tried to remember his dream. It was vague... he remembered a spider. A spider? Or was that the night before? He was getting his dreams confused, but that was fair--they were confusing dreams. And they were getting weirder.

No, not weirder; more normal, more sensical, more... more like they were trying to make sense, only a very _weird_ sense. A very weird sense that he couldn't begin to make sense of.

Nikias rubbed his eyes; he felt something rip below his right eyebrow and felt a searing pain. His hand had a small glob of pus on it. He twisted out of bed and walked out of his room to the bathroom. The mirror showed a swelling the size of a dime and a small red area where it looked like the cap of pus had broken off from. A spider bite.

That was strange. He didn't remember seeing webs anywhere. It wasn't really a spider-friendly house.

Hadn't he dreamed about a spider crawling out of his eye?

He put some antiseptic on the wound and went to check on Richard.

Richard seemed totally engrossed with his computer, headphones on blaring loudly enough that Nikias could tell he was listening to some sort of techno. The computer screen had strange waveform traces on it and some sort of... components wired together, virtually.

Richard didn't even look up when he came in.

Nikias looked around the room, and froze--

That girl was there. She was there, in the room. She was leaning against the window, focused only on Richard, or past him. Shards of light from outside slid off of her and sparkled around Richard, creating an eerie, electrically-charged aura. She looked tired.

Nikias cleared his throat.

...

"Richard?"

No response.

Nikias walked up to Richard and nudged him from a safe distance with his foot. Richard shook his head, implying total concentration. Nikias sighed, and started to turn away. Richard typed a bit more, hit some combination of keys with a flourish, turned slowly and then jumped when he focused on Nikias.

"Jesus, you startled me!"

"You were pretty zoned. What are you working on?"

"At the bar, my thoughts kept drifting back to the piano, and to music and composition in general. I started thinking that I could probably put my electronics background to use, get it all down once, something original, instead of just tinkering with other people's stuff." He shook his head. "Man, could I ever. This stuff is beautiful. It's doing exactly what I want it to, exactly what I'm hearing. It just needs... a couple more samples, some more layering... you wanna hear it?"

Nikias felt depressed all of a sudden. Richard's exultation, his happiness, his _spirit_, was somehow really getting to him. "No." That was too harsh. "I'll listen to it when it's ready, when you're done. Umm. You haven't seen any spiders around here, have you?"

"No, why?"

Nikias had an overwhelming urge to turn around and flee. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Who was that girl? Why hadn't she said anything?

He didn't want to know. He didn't want her to say a word. He was afraid that if he heard her voice, something would snap; something would be even more wrong. As calmly as he could, he replied, "Nothing; nothing, I guess. I'm going to go for a walk."

"All right. I'll be here." Richard smiled.

Nikias turned around and left as quickly as he could.

--- 12 --- Thursday morning

Richard watched Nikias walk out, wondering what was going on. He turned to follow Nikias' progress and saw Nikias' friend leaning against his windowsill, watching him. How long had she been in his room? Was she stalking him?

"So... hi," he attempted.

She smiled at him, and winked. His project was scratching the back of his skull, itching, almost burning for release. He could easily visualize the focus of his mind twitching like a hyperactive lodestone back toward the computer. Focus in any other direction tended towards fuzz.

Fuzz.

He turned back to the computer. He needed a little more fuzz-wah, actually. Maybe he could add another oscillator and run it through--

But what was she doing here? That just wasn't right. Had she come in with Nikias? He swiveled back to look at her, but she wasn't there. He shook his head, and turned again to his computer.

Curly hair brushed his cheek. Her breath was close in his ear. He felt his blood stir near-uncomfortably. She was looking at the computer with a strange intensity, almost as if it were entirely alien to her. Her blouse was--

He forced his attention to the screen. It wasn't right to stare. He twiddled a multiplier around and fought to keep it from turning into a breast in his mind. His breath was coming harder. His heart was pounding.

He coughed and his ears rang.

"Can I help you?" Her presence was... overwhelming. He had to keep his cool. He had to play cool.

But she still wasn't playing the game. He didn't understand.

"So... how long have you known Nikias?"

She reached to touch the screen; he caught her hand. Her skin was silken smooth. He felt his armpits dampen; he felt cold. His voice husky, he stammered, "You don't want to touch the screen. Oil can disrupt the phosphors."

She looked at him then, and stepped back, still smiling.

Her absence was a stronger presence than her body had been, leaning over him. He felt emptied. No... that was just shock, or contrast. There was definitely something about her, something about her he still felt: a warmth in his breast, a lightness in his belly... a dizziness of intensity.

He had to finish his project.

He had to ask her out.

He looked into her eyes. "Would you go to dinner with me, tonight?"

She moved her eyes from his back over his shoulder and onto the computer screen. Sweat started dripping from his forehead; his brain was on fire. He had to finish his project.

One oscillator wasn't going to do it. He hummed the basic melody with a fuzz-wah imitation, trying to see the waveforms in his head. He couldn't quite piece it together, so he saved his project where it was and popped open a web browser to see if someone had published an article on it. Or even better, a plugin. A plugin would be awesome. Fuzz-wah was going to do the tune a world of good.

--- 13 --- Thursday morning

There wasn't anywhere he could go to make sense of this. There wasn't anything he could do. Nikias really wanted to be able to just... wait it out. Everything worked itself out in the end, right? Always did.

No, it always didn't.

Things weren't working out; no how, no way.

He slowed down when he'd gotten a few blocks from the house. The air was crisp but that lent little clarity to the disarray of his mind. He tried to focus on the facts as he knew them, but they were few and far between, so disparate that the faintest glimmer of one he wasn't concentrating on would knock all others from his mind: Thaleia, spider, sister, brother? He remembered an ocean below him and birds swimming in the sky.

He blinked. At his feet was a sidewalk mural of a bird mobile frozen above a pond or ocean. The mobile strands were actually spider legs, the spider apparently the puppeteer for the whole scene. Nikias stood stunned. It wasn't exactly his dream, or at least it didn't mesh with all of the fragments he could recall, but it was still... too much to be coincidence. The picture almost seemed to have more to say than his actual dream... like it was a level above it.

A not unkindly voice broke him from his thoughts. "Hey Mister. Spare some change?"

He looked around: a twenty-something, he guessed, dressed... he could only describe it as 'ragamuffin', a term of his mother's.

"Umm. Sure," he replied. he dug through his pockets, but came up empty. "Err... sorry. I don't seem to have any."

"Don't be sorry. It's just change. If change were constant, it wouldn't be."

"Err. Sure. Are you hungry? I was thinking of getting some lunch and would be happy to split something with you."

"Nah, I'm good. They feed us well around here. I'm just saving up for booze and railroad chalk."

"You did this mural?"

"Ayup. A mural a day keeps the doldrums away."

"Did you go to school?"

"Yeah, but not for art. Art was just a hobby. I took some courses, but they were mostly disappointing. Hey, if you're going to chat, why don't you pull up some floor?" He patted the cardboard beside him. "It's cleaner than the sidewalk, and a shade more affable."

"Uh... sure." Nikias sat down. "My name's Nikias, by the way."

"Nikias, huh? What kind of name is that?"

"Greek. My parents were Greek."

"Hey, that's cool. Beautiful coutry. I did the Eurorail thing. So... where are they now? Move here with you?"

Nikias bit down on the sudden rush of confused feelings, and replied as nonchalantly as he could, "They're dead."

"Oh man, that's harsh. Recently, I take it?"

Nikias nodded.

"Life's tough, sometimes."

"Tell me about your art. How did all this follow school? What has you on the street?"

"This and that: I didn't like the direction my life was going, the ruts I was ploughing; I wanted to, you know, really _live_. I wanted to test my fitness as a member of _homo sapiens_, see if I could live in the modern-day wild."

"How long have you been on the street?"

"'bout eight years, now."

"Wow, that's a long time. All of it in this city?"

"Nah. I move with the seasons, or a bit more. This is a particularly nice place, but I try not to stay anywhere too long, and I try not to repeat places too often."

"Cool." Nikias looked back at the mural, trying to find his way to the questions it was spawning. "Have you been doing your mural-a-day for the whole eight years?"

"It's kinda on-and-off, and I just started it as a 'thing' a few years ago. I do it when I can. If I'm in a city, chances are I'll do one. There's no appreciation out in the boonies; I need the thought that I'm imprinting a cross-section of society with something they wouldn't have otherwise experienced. It's a transient enough art form as it is."

"How long does one of your murals last?"

"Well... it depends on the weather and the ped traffic. And on the quality of the chalk, some. Sun fades it, rain... rain is a catalyst. Ped traffic takes it out quicker, cracks'll form when it dries. And the beauty is that when it's raining, people pay less attention. They don't see it, so they walk on it more. Or they don't care, because they just want to be not where they are. The paintings typically last between a few hours and a few days."

"That is transient. I hold on to my art. I have sketchbooks I doodled in from before I even really existed as an individual. Sketches, if they can be called that, I have entirely no recollection of, though they're dated and signed, every one of them. I'll probably have my sketchbooks long past the point of my ability to form new memories."

"Sounds like your art owns you. All things are transient. If you can't accept that, then you're either in denial or you believe in some sort of God."

"God. Hmm. I probably am in denial. That's... a lot to think about. I'm afraid I've already got far more than I can corral stampeding about my skull."

"What's on your mind?"

Nikias sighed. "Insanity."

"Do tell." The street artist smiled kindly.

"I don't know. I don't know what to say, where to begin... if anywhere."

"Well, my advice--if you care to hear it--differs from Alice thusly: begin with the crux and fill in supporting details as necessary. You posited insanity. Begin there."

"I don't know enough to know what to know. It's all presumption or supposition."

"Well, then, we need a working definition to start. Perhaps this will help, at least as a rule of thumb: I see insanity as the inability to interact as befitting the typically accepted consensual reality."

"Okay..." Nikias stumbled over the mass of words. It sounded like hot air, but perhaps that air could be used to float a balloon of understanding for him. Perhaps.

"So, are you having trouble interacting as befitting the typically accepted consensual reality, and if so... what, experientially, is the interference? Or to break it down more simply: what's your biggest problem right now?"

"I really... I just really don't know." He took a deep breath, and tried again. "Okay," he said. "I don't think I'm actually having trouble... integrating with society. Yet. And that would be a secondary thing, anyway."

"Rhymes with?"

"Huh?"

"Speak."

"I've been having really strange dreams. Really strange, like my subconscious is trying to tell me something; but even stranger is that it almost seems... it almost seems like it's really something outside of my self that is trying to tell me this... something."

"Do you have any idea what this something is, or what it might relate to?"

"Not a clue."

"Okay. Then there's more."

"Yeah." Nikias looked at him in surprised. "I've been having... waking dreams, maybe. Maybe hallucinations. I don't know. And I think the dreams... the real dreams I mean, the dreams that I have when I'm actually asleep--"

"Right, right; I grok ya."

"I think those sleeping dreams might be trying to explain the waking. But nothing makes any sense!"

"That sounds like a good start. I think I've got just the medication you need, so to speak. Over the hill, and far away..." He chuckled. "I know someone that's very good at dream interpretation. Still hungry?"

"A bit, yeah."

"Let's go to the park. Free lunch."

"Free? How does that work?" Nikias looked at him uncomfortably. "You don't have to have a... a homeless card, or something, do you?"

"No, it's just free, as in speech and beer. Well, they don't actually serve beer, but you know what I mean, right? Free to anyone. Presuming you don't have religious objections to vegetarian food?"

"Rel--no, no objections."

"Good. We'll catch some lunch, and possibly Or as well."

Nikias coughed. "Is ore slang for some kind of drug?"

"No, no; Or as in 'and, or, nor'. That's her name: the dream reader. It's a joke. She has trouble sticking to any one interpretation. She says she's too empathic; as she explains the dream, your understanding changes. As you change, the meaning of your dream changes, and she picks up on that."

"Interesting," granted Nikias.

"Ah, but she is a good reader of souls and minds. Don't let it trouble you now."

They stood up; Nikias stared wistfully at the mural that had stopped him there. "And now you just... leave it there, to the whims of fate?"

"Hmm?"

"Your art."

"Oh, yes. It exists, for a time. I was blessed to see the image made that had hidden hints of its existence in various recesses of my mind."

"Huh. Is that what inspiration is for you?"

"Sure: the blending of disparate elements slowly cohering into a statement, or an idea, or a feeling... that can be conveyed pictorially."

"Interesting."

"What is it for you?"

"I'm having trouble with just that."

"Indeed? That sounds juicy. Let's walk."

"Okay." Nikias followed, lost in thought.

"So what can you tell me about how inspiration works for you?"

"I remember it being a flash; a snapshot, all elements in place, just enough leeway to make the details my own."

"You remember it?"

"I haven't been inspired in some time. Hell, if inspiration has tried to strike, I've been too busy to notice it. I've been focused on other things, worrying..."

"I see."

"So no great flash of inspiration for you?"

"Oh, I've had the odd flash now and then, but that's not my usual. I tend to think of the flashes as Goddess born."

"I thought you didn't believe in... gods."

"Well, not the all-knowing sort. But I like to entertain the concept of the beneficial muse, there to lift the artist up when they're falling into a rut."

"A beneficial muse."

"Don't read too much into it. Sometimes my lips just keep moving. Although the mural today didn't really come in the usual way. I mean, I picked the elements, put them together... but it was as if I were being handed them, or they were pushing to be born."

"Like a bunch of mini-flashes?"

"Maybe. Yeah, maybe."

"Let me tell you about my dreams."

--- 14 --- Thursday evening

Thaleia drifted down the busy street, not seeing even the neon signs that drowned out the evening sky. Her mind was in the past, both near and distant, and she was tired. She was oh-so-very tired.

Fairness was inherently a mortal concept, but she felt she had a good understanding of what they meant by it, now. She had spent many lifetimes among them, and _it wasn't fair_. It wasn't fair that she could be brought so low.

The smile that had inspired a thousand souls remained locked within her face.

_If only_ he hadn't rejected her out of hand.

Nikias was blood of Diodorus. Nikias had the depth and intensity of emotions that had originally drawn her to the mortal realm, had enticed her into staying. She sensed that Nikias could have been a masterpiece.

If only.

If only she wasn't so tired. She was having trouble thinking, even functioning. She had spent too much of herself forming a bond with Richard; it had not paid well. His use of her gifts left her drained.

_He_ was faring little better with the situation. He had become rundown, focusing too much on the act of creation to even sustain himself.

Something was bound to fail. But what could she do? She could only offer inspiration, and little of that, now.

Was that it? Was it time to give up? She'd weathered worse, but she had no desire to do so again. Maybe she was getting old. Maybe the world had finally passed her by.

She wished _she_ could have a muse herself, to lift her above all of this... What _were_ her sisters up to? It was unlike them to interfere with her life. It was unlike them to take any interest at all in the affairs of man, as man had stopped being interested in them. Had stopped... believing in them.

She hadn't spoken with her sisters since she'd decided to incarnate. Bitter words had been spoken then, all true, all meant. They, none of them, had much subtlety of emotion. And so she lived with mortals, though one step removed, and they... they still dabbled with dreams.

That was nothing to go back to. The decision she had made then was still as true. The weariness she felt, even the taint of fear, they were real; reality was more important than any dream.

Her only hope was that Richard would somehow bounce back; that perhaps after his first complete creation he would rest and... exist more, himself, and doing so sustain her. But he would not let it go! He had _had_ a creation that even the _gods_ could have appreciated, but he second-guessed every aspect; he was guessing them both to oblivion, and it was beyond her to give any mortal _contentment_.

When mortal men had lived in dreams--

But those days were gone, gone with the dead who had lived them. That was where her sisters dwelled, slipping and sliding throughout the ether.

Slipping and sliding through Nikias' dreams, of late. Why?

Perhaps her sisters sensed her weakening. Could they be worried for her? That thought caused her some concern. If the situation looked so dire to them from their phantasmal pedestals, perhaps it was worse than she was admitting to herself.

--- 15 --- Friday morning

Nikias came to, slowly, then sat up with a start, pushing off slightly damp cardboard. The sun hurt his eyes despite the mist. They weren't quite adjusting to the light level.

His bones ached from cold, though the wind was slight and the sun warm. The sun mustn't have been out for long; the air still smelled of rain, grass, wet earth.

Where the hell was he?

He hadn't a clue where he was, and little as to how he had gotten there.

A handful of people were sleeping in other areas of the grove. He wasn't sure, but he thought he recognized one or two of them from last night.

... last night?

What had happened last night?

He remembered lunch. Lunch had happened in the park, and then he'd gone to a party looking for someone. He'd gone to the park looking for someone. He'd been following someone around, looking for someone else. But he'd had lunch. Had he had dinner? He didn't remember.

Who had he been looking for?

He'd been looking for answers.

Answers to what?

Questions. Dreams. He remembered a name: Or. The dream woman.

Had he found her?

He couldn't remember!

He remembered drinking, and dancing. He remembered being happy. He smiled. He remembered being happy for the first time in longer than he could remember. The weight of the world had lifted from his shoulders and had taken him floating along with it.

He remembered a shack... an apartment, or a house? He thought a house, partially boarded up. The boards hung loose from a window, which was used as a door. The house had been lived in indefinitely, and had smelled of people, of urine and feces and beer. There'd been all sorts of trash strewn about the floor, postered, spraypainted, and glued onto the walls. There had been music. Drumming.

Poor drumming, but that and some beer... and some vodka, or gin... he couldn't remember.

He didn't think he'd found her.

So where was he now? He stood up and looked around, stretched and yawned and resisted the urge to crack his knuckles. He could probably restart his quest and figure out what was going on if he went back to the park. This wasn't the park.

There were a few worn trails running past where he was. Chances were that any direction would get him to where he wanted to be, eventually. All he had to do was recognize something.

He stood there, anguishing over his inability to remember.

From somewhere came a sudden determination. He needed to be more decisive. He needed to take direction in his life. This was as good a time as any to start.

Nikias picked a path and went with it.

--- 16 --- Friday noon

The street artist was thankfully not so hard to pick out of the crowd milling about in anticipation of the mid-day meal. His dress was neater, the colors brighter than a large portion of the crowd, and his top-knot stood well above those taller than him, falling in thick, multitinted dreads.

He was deep in conversation with a short, plump woman of indeterminate age. Her hair was a bowl, cut jaggedly at chin level, and her clothes contrived to add to her volume and, likely unintentional, impression of a gothic hedgehog.

Nikias walked towards them and was glad when the street artist noticed him. He could not for the life of him remember the guy's name.

"Hello!"

"Hey, there. We were wondering how long you were going to sleep." The street artist gestured to his companion, and said, "Or, this is Nikias; Nikias, Or."

"Hello," he repeated.

Or nodded.

"Any dreams last night?" asked the street artist.

"I don't think so. Honestly, I don't remember large chunks of last night. I was lucky to find my way here while it was still light out."

"You... oh. Right." He chuckled. "And you couldn't ask anyone where you were because you don't remember who they are. You did a good drink last night. Blacked out with some of the best of them."

"What do you mean?"

"Most of the folks you were partying with last night are some of the most ebullient nihilists... in existence, so to speak. See, they believe that the only true moment of existence is the now. And to truly be in the now, they have to remove the ego that knows of past and future. Hence, drink, and lots of it. Sometimes even homebrew, as much as planning that out goes counter to their ideal existence. You know... I have to thank you for existing, right now. I don't often get to see this life from such a ... perspective." He was smiling, happily rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. His eyes twinkled.

Or smiled shyly, or mysteriously, or possibly a bit of both. Nikias couldn't decide.

The conversation stalled.

Or was peering at him, almost into him, it felt.

Finally, she said broke the silence. "You dreamed last night, as every night. Outside forces kept you from being able to access that dream. That is... unfortunate, as I feel they are building to something. We should discuss the dreams you do remember, though, before they and you change too much further."

The street artist smiled boyishly, and gestured them over to a tree; Or sat down against the tree, and they formed a small semicircle before her.

"Where do I begin?" asked Nikias.

"You do not," she replied. "Our mutual friend has filled me in on the most resonant of your dream images, albeit twice filtered. While you two were talking, I tapped into one level of your dream consciousness, and started fishing around for a feel of which of those were true resononances, and which echoes." Her voice slowly gained depth as she grew into the role.

"Now, you must cross my hand with silver."

Nikias looked at the street artist, skeptically, who in turn shrugged, still grinning. He was enjoying the show, at least.

"It's part of the ritual," said Or. "It's necessary."

"I don't have any change; didn't yesterday, and haven't done a thing to change that."

"There, that shiny bit of metal will do. I think it's part of a soda can. Hand it to me."

Nikias prised it out of the ground, a small bit of debris amid the larger assortment of trash spread around the park, and handed it to her.

Squeezing her fist around it, she continued, "Metal is a conductor of energies. Silver especially is associated with the moon, and thus dreams. By handling this silver you have created an attachment to it, and that attachment will help me tune to your more precisely; that will help me tune out the more subtle irrelevancies."

Nikias nodded, trying hard not to disbelieve too strongly. Where else could he turn, really?

"What I tell you about your dreams may not mesh exactly with what you remember. Mind that I'm dealing with the forces behind your dreams more than how your dream-self perceived them." She paused. "You are an artist. The dreams of an artist are more complicated to decipher. They're richer in imagery, but often the images are just whatever whim the artist in your dream-self had at that moment."

Her eyes focused on his and he felt a shiver run his length. All of a sudden he felt completely naked. For all this babble, was she really a seeress? Could she read his waking thoughts?

"I'll try to deconstruct each of the elements individually, and then tell you which I think are important and which your own embellishments--no, not conscious, but ones that your dream-self has taken liberty with. Are you with me?"

He nodded.

"Spiders, the number eight, a sister, Kali, art, creativity, fear: I sense these things."

Nikias nodded again, trying to follow. All those were things he had mentioned to the street artist. Was she getting this from his mind, or her own, remembered from a prior conversation? Of course, common sense would say the latter. Nikias tried to be accepting of what she said.

"These are what resonate most strongly with you, from the set of things you remembered and passed on to me via our mutual friend."

Nikias wondered if the guy's 'street name' was actually 'Our Mutual Friend'. That would be odd, but he supposed no odder than--

"I need you to concentrate on each, in turn. Let's start with the spider."

He concentrated, fingering the bite on his brow, now mostly healed, and vague fragments of a dream, or dreams...

"The spider is regarded in the first place as a lunar manifestation. Also, Spider is a totemic animal, powerful in many cultures." She paused, and her eyes scanned back and forth as if reading a book from memory. "The spider's act of weaving its web often serves as a symbol of the creative process. Spider is said to be able to help one understand the interworkings of personal dynamics, and how ancient wisdoms may apply to your day-to-day life." She paused again, and looked at him.

Nikias nodded. All of her statements seemed right on the mark, if not a bit contrived. If he looked the information up in the library, would it say the same thing? Or would that have nothing to do with his present situation. How could he trust her?

Well, he had to assume she was trying to help; or at least, that she was not having fun at his expense. Yes, he could assume that for now. Assume and follow...

"The one odd thing is that your spider became Kali; in Hindu mysticism, the spider is associated with Maya: illusion, the illusion of reality. How that blends with Kali... there are several things wrong there. Your dream-self was probably just doing the best it could with what was available. Kali only has four arms, for one thing. And she would not have been holding the things you've mentioned. It's interesting, actually. She's the eternal mother, a creator spirit, but she's most commonly depicted with a sword and the head of a slain demon. Her other two arms are typically free. She tends to have two dead bodies hanging as earrings and a necklace of skulls. Her only clothing is a girdle made of dead men's hands. See, for them, creation isn't just, well, creation. It's destruction as well, the cycle of... right. I don't think this is relevant, and it taints your spider image. However... however, the figure's eight arms could... yes."

"Yes?"

"Nikias is a Greek name, correct?"

"Yes."

"How many generations back do you go?"

"I... I don't know. My lineage is Greek as far back as I remember it being researched, which is at least ten or fifteen generations. Fairly solidly."

"Yes. Yes. Then the roots of your imagery are likely Greek, even if you don't recognize them. Your parents' parents know this, and they're all in your mind somewhere. Eight is the number of cosmic balance. Interestingly enough, there are eight petals on the lotus. But I don't think eight is actually important numeralogically here. I think it's something else. There's one strong Greek 'eight'. Do you know what I'm referring to?"

He shook his head. "Not offhand."

"The eight muses. One for each aspect of idyllic creation."

"The muses..." Nikias trailed off in thought.

"Yes. It's a strong image. I think that that's your spider, your eight, and that explains what your Kali is holding. Hmm. That could even be the connection to Kali, though watered down--Greeks weren't big on destruction. But the muses are certainly a font of creation. You're having issues with your creativity, aren't you?"

Nikias nodded. But, he told himself, that was also essentially common knowledge. Though it was interesting how the connections Or was seeing actually seemed to be surprising her. Of course, she could just be making up so much that it all tied together too easily, and--no. He would listen, and not judge.

"Let's move on to sisterhood. You don't have a sister, do you?"

"No."

"It probably wouldn't have had anything to do with her even if you did, but it's good to just check. The references to your sister could well be your feminine side. I'd expect you need to examine your feelings, especially regarding your parents' passing."

Nikias' heart lurched. He didn't want to do that. He very strongly didn't want to do that.

"Okay. So, yeah. Sister. Creativity. Muse. _Our sister_ could be referring to your particular muse, so to speak. For drawing, for instance. Although with all the aural stuff going on in your dreams... is that normal, for you?"

He coughed. "Normal? None of this is normal for me!"

"That can't be entirely true. You normally do have some sort of dreams, correct? I'm just trying to understand where the differences lie."

"Sure. Okay. Yes, I normally do have some sort of dreams... from time to time, at least, I remember them. But not like these. These are... these are crazy! And real. I mean, the depth of color in these, let alone the sounds and smells... the tactile sense..."

"Yes. You've been repressing too much of real life, and working too hard. That's almost certainly the beginning of some sort of dissociaive disorder. Your dreams' richness is reflecting how much you're not noticing, or ignoring, in your waking life. Try to... try to notice more, and appreciate what you notice. You especially need to appreciate the bad with the good. Denying a large portion of life is... detrimental to one's sanity."

Nikias nodded. His sanity had certainly been... 'detrimented', lately.

Or yawned, and stood. Nikias and Our Mutual Friend followed suit. "Do you know what you now must do?"

"I think I need to let all of that digest some."

Or giggled. "That as well. Meanwhile, though, it's time for lunch. They started serving ten minutes ago. Not that they'll run out for the next hour or two, but... a girl needs her sustenance after a reading like that."

--- 17 --- Friday afternoon

Nikias wandered away from the park, vaguely in the direction of his house, musing on things. It seemed that most of the pieces to the puzzle were there, at least, enough so he should be able to see the overall picture... but he couldn't. He couldn't see how the pieces fit together, couldn't see their edges. He wondered what the edges of a clue would look like.

An abused metaphor.

Ah well.

What do I know? I'm overworked, tired, and uninspired. I might be let go from my job, but the job isn't fulfilling, so what? I'll be on the street without it, but that isn't necessarily so bad, it seems. I'm having dreams that reference Greek mythology, and Richard has a sudden knack for music. But there's something more, something I'm just not getting. Where are these dreams coming from? Schizophrenia seems the most plausible explanation; none of this is real, and one can make connections with anything.

But what if?

What if.

Nikias meandered home in a haze of 'what if's, waiting for pieces to fit themselves together.

He walked up the steps, through the front door, into his room, straight to his drawing pad; the haze lifted. He flipped directly to the drawing he'd done the night of his parents' death.

He regarded it with his artist's eye and intuitions. Ignoring that he had done it, he critiqued.

There were flaws: small flaws in his representation, some lines were askew. Keeping it in his notepad had smudged sections of it.

But it was beautiful. The composition was perfect, the imagery poignant. Hell, the flaws simply made it more human; they didn't really detract, taken in the whole of it.

Would they have approved? Would they have approved of his turning against his talents? That was the true question. His sudden moral indignation, self-inflicted... was it out of place? His parents were dead. Yes. He was to mourn them. But... this piece was... no, it wasn't mournful. It was angry, and proud, and beautiful. They would have respected that, he thought; they would have honored it and hoped that he could move on. It was his honest, soulful reaction. Or so he was deluding himself to believe. All life is but what we perceive.

...

He wondered if he could draw that.

He wanted not to dishonor his parents, but it would do more dishonor to be a mental wreck, and he _needed_ to create. He needed the release. He hoped he could.

--- 18 --- Friday evening

Thaleia felt something happening in the other room. Richard, in front of her, was lethargically tinkering with a box, the same box he'd been tinkering with for days. Occasionally it made noises, some of them pleasant, some less so. It was becoming more haphazard. She was having a harder and harder time. Time?

She was.

She was tired. She wanted to sleep.

She was afraid. She was afraid to sleep.

She didn't know if she would wake. She didn't know if she cared.

Richard had snapped at her the last time she made a suggestion. She could tell he was getting frustrated. She could sympathise, almost. If she weren't in such a state, she could. Could she? That was a mortal thing to do. She thought.

Why was it so hard to think?

The answer came to her: because. Because Richard. Richard because. He was not. She needed.

She could feel Nikias in the other room. He was... she could feel. She could feel that he was. He was creating.

Maybe she would see. Maybe just a taste. A taste would just she. Maybe.

"Just a taste," she said, and drifted forward. She was insubstantial, a ghost. She peered into Nikias' room.

He had drawing utensils out.

But she could taste it. It wasn't his architecture drawing. It was real. Real drawing. She could taste it. She...

Would he accept her, now? She had nothing to give. She had to hope.

She sat in the air, next to him, and watched the drawing take shape.

It wasn't beauty incarnate, but it was interesting. The interplay of objects, the concept... it was complex. Maybe she could help. Just a notch, help she could. Just a notch.

Nikias turned towards her and she froze. Fear. She was cold, and fading. There was a sharp pain in the rear of her consciousness, and it was growing; growing to the fore.

He started, surprised. Unmoving, she pleaded with him.

He smiled; it was a shy, kind smile. It was an accepting smile.

--- 19 --- Saturday morning

Nikias woke. The sun was bright but not unpleasant. It was 8 a.m. He had plenty of time to get to work; he'd woken before his alarm.

He looked at the clock more closely. The alarm wasn't set. He remembered then that it was only Saturday.

He stood out of bed, and stretched; it felt good to stretch. He felt well-rested.

Picking out clothes, he noticed the sketch on his desk. He smiled. It had turned out well, even in the light of a new day. Hell, he was happy.

Things would work themselves out. He'd had an idea for how to turn his job around. Bill might not go for it, but Nikias thought he would. He had a hunch.

He'd have to get some canvases, probably some new paint. He didn't really have the money, but he would. He hoped his gas would hold out; there was always the credit card if it didn't, he supposed. It would work out.

Nikias was whistling as he walked into the kitchen and poured himself a bowl of cereal; then he felt one slight pang of guilt. He wondered how Richard was doing. He hadn't looked in on him last night. Hadn't seen him in a few days, really, with how things had worked out.

He put the cereal down and checked in on Richard. The door was open; Richard was slumped on the floor in front of his computer, probably asleep. The room looked like it had been attacked with fairy dust; light glinted off of every surface.

That was strange.

Doubly strange was that Richard's monitor was off. Richard never turned his monitor off.

No... it was broken. Richard's monitor seemed to have exploded; the fairy dust was shards of CRT screen.

Nikias prodded Richard gently with his foot.

Richard mumbled unintelligibly and shrugged away some imaginary phantom.

"Richard?"

"Mmmmmm? No. Sleep."

"Richard? Are you all right?"

"S'fine. No school. Saturday. Sleep."

"What happened to your monitor?"

"It broke. I kicked it. Sleep."

"You kicked your monitor? Why the hell did you do that?"

"Lemme sleep!"

Nikias sighed, and went back to the kitchen. If he was going to get any answers out of Richard, it was going to take extreme measures.

He began brewing a pot of coffee, and picked his cereal back up. It was a little soggy, but he finished it off. That was not going to put a damper on his morning.

Richard, on the other hand... he hoped Richard was all right.

Nikias hunted out a street map of the area, and started planning his route. He decided against the optimal route and added in some scenery; he was pretty sure he'd have gas for that, still.

The coffee began to percolate. He could smell it. Nikias picked up the coffee-maker and moved it as far as the cord would reach towards Richard's room; he tilted it slightly, and waved the vapors in Richard's general direction.

Richard's nose begin to twitch. That should do it, he thought, and set the coffee-maker back in its spot on the kitchen counter.

Five minutes later, just as the second cup was filling, Richard stumbled in. The whites of his eyes not entirely hidden by swollen bags were bloodshot. "Coffee," he said.

Nikias nodded.

"Whyn'tcha let me sleep?"

"You looked dead. I had to make sure."

"Wake me up and kill me? Tired. Coffee." Richard poured himself a mug and curled his hands around it, dipping his head into the aroma. "Coffee good."

"Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. Would something truly good have roused you out of your deathly slumber, if you so dearly needed it?"

"It's coffee: the nectar of life." Richard took a careful sip, and his eyes widened; the caffeine-induced awareness flooding his system was obvious. "Fuck it's early."

"So, uh... you're really okay?"

"I will be. I think after this cup of coffee I'm going to go back to sleep for the rest of the weekend. I don't know what came over me, but if that's the pain you artists habitually go through, you can keep it!"

"How do you mean?"

"I slaved and toiled; I thought I'd had a brilliant idea, but I couldn't quite pin it down. I couldn't sleep, could hardly eat. And for what? Nothing! I don't have a thing to show for it except a broken monitor. I mean, sure, now I have an excuse to upgrade, but that doesn't make for a great story. I mean, how'd I lose my last one? I broke it. I fucking kicked it! What was I thinking?"

"What _were_ you thinking?"

"I was thinking it wasn't doing me any good. I was upset. I still am, I suppose. I think I might have had a good song at one point, but I thrashed it."

"Like your monitor?"

"No, that was an accident. Maybe not completely, but... an accident. This was... it was like I was set out to sabotage myself. I don't know what happened. I mean, like I said, I had this idea... and I did it. But I kept thinking this or that would make it better, or this or that needed fixing, or... I kept focusing on just one part of it or another, I... I don't know. I suppose I overanalyzed it, and the second guessed it to oblivion. After spending what felt like an eternity pouring myself into it, I was left with nothing."

"I'm... sorry?"

"Eh, sorry won't do me anything. And hell, what do _you_ have to be sorry about? You didn't have anything to do with it, right? It was all my own... thing. Whatever it was. Never again."

Nikias nodded.

"So. Haven't seen you around. Find a girl?"

Nikias coughed. "Not exactly. I've just been out... finding myself, I suppose. Coming to terms with life. Coming to terms with death."

"Just, eh? That's a fair bit to swallow. And where are you with all that?"

"I think I'm good. I woke up happy, today."

"And you had the balls to wake me up like this? That's it. You can be sorry for that. I'm going back to bed." He chugged the rest of his coffee, turned around, and walked determinedly back to his room, where he proceeded to collapse on his bed. Nikias barely made out, mumbled into the sheets, "No. Really. I'm happy for you. But I'm going back to bed. Hello bed."

Nikias chuckled. It looked like Richard would recover. Maybe he could help Richard get a new monitor, if things went well. Some holiday had to be around the corner, or maybe his birthday... when was Richard's birthday? He couldn't remember. Well, that would probably do then. If things went well.

Nikias was whistling again as he took his itinerary out to the car.

--- 20 --- Monday morning

Bill looked at the clock on his wall, and adjusted his watch to match: 8:47 a.m. He hadn't figured out what he was going to do with Nikias. He hoped things had just worked themselves out on their own. The rest had probably done the boy good.

Three minutes passed, and Bill found his fingers tapping arrhythmically on his masonite desk. He played out their last few beats and picked up his executive-style pen.

It wasn't that he really needed the boy on staff; he was trying to do him a favor. But if he was going to be on staff, he needed to act appropriately. He needed to function appropriately. It wouldn't do to have the rest of his employees chafing against how he treated Nikias. Sure, they seemed to like him, but that wasn't the point.

At five minutes to nine, his intercom buzzed. "Yes?"

"Mr. Hinckley, Mr. Diodorus is here to see you."

"Send him in." This was it.

He saw, through his bubbled glass window, the vague shape of Shirley opening the door, and Nikias stepped in. Nikias was dressed smartly, and looked like the week had done him good. He looked more... self-possessed; sure of himself. And, most importantly, like he didn't have the weight of the world on his shoulders. A person couldn't work properly if they worried about everything that they weren't working on as well.

"Mr. Diodorus."

"Mr. Hinckely."

"Good morning to you."

"Thank you, sir. Good morning to you, as well."

"You seem to be doing better. Please, have a seat."

"Actually, if you wouldn't mind... I took the liberty of setting up the conference room."

Bill wondered what Nikias could have set up in the conference room. "I told you to take the week off!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, I did. I did this on the weekend."

Nikias looked earnest, but Bill was sure he saw a twinkle in his eye. He stood up. "Very well, show me what you've got."

Nikias smiled. "Right after me, sir."

He followed Nikias out of the office and around to the conference room. Nikias opened the door and gestured him in.

Bill looked around. The meeting table still had last week's mess on it. The projector was off. Then he noticed the paintings. The paintings were beautiful, and oddly familiar. He turned to Nikias. "You did these?"

"Yes, sir."

"They're houses, right?"

Nikias chuckled. "Yes, sir."

"Impressive. Very strange, but impressive. I don't think I've seen color used in these ways before, and the shapes... they're almost cubist, right? The differrent persepectives thing? But surreal, too. I'm actually getting a strong impression of the volume of these places. They actually seem familiar, somehow. How do you paint familiarity?"

"I'd say it's a trade secret, sir, but... these are your houses. I picked a half-dozen exemplars of what I considered your most representative or signature pieces." His smile was hesitant.

Suddenly, Bill could see it; could see them all. He recognized them like the back of his own hand, and they were that much more beautiful. They were truly impressive. He looked over at Nikias, in awe, though he tried to hide the magnitude of his reaction.

"So... what are you proposing?"

"I was wondering if the position of 'staff artist' might be open."

He'd never considered that. "It might be, it might be. Would the staff artist be available for other work from time to time?"

"He might be. He might just be, so long as he's not feeling overwhelmed."

"Of course." Bill paused. "I'll have to get back to you, but I'm sure we can work something out. Why don't you go out and get some donuts, and I'll get Shirly to get everyone in here, and see what they think. Don't tell anyone you did them, eh?"

Nikias beamed. "Sure thing, Mr. Hinckley. Sure thing."

--- fin ---