The power was out. I showered by candle light.

I was about to put on a wrinkled jersey and leave for work when the power kicked back on.

I wasn't too aggressive ironing the wrinkles out.

...

She was first in line. She was pretty. She looked clean cut and professional. The normal guy was running late so they filled his desk with someone not normal.

I wasn't in possession of my A game so I tried to keep things all business; any friendly banter would be phony. I don't like phony. I asked only simple questions and never really looked at her.

As we were about to finish our business I glanced up at her from the paperwork. She possessed a power that was quiet. She seemed quite sure of herself. It was a surety acquired by experience and expressed due to knowledge and not arrogance.

Without cause she smiled at me. Her eyes were soft blue. I slowly looked away, trying and failing not to smile in return.

I wanted to damn her for making me smile when I didn't want to, but I could not.

....

We passed the guy as we entered the elevator as he was exiting. The elevator door closed.

"That was..." He recognized the guy we had passed but couldn't remember his name. He didn't look familiar to me so I said nothing. To help me remember something I never knew, he started making a rolling motion with his hands.

I was waiting for more clues so I said nothing.

"That was that guy" he added.

It was a guy with dark curly hair dressed in business casual and carrying a bicycle helmet, that much I knew because I just saw that much but he still thought he had given me enough clues as to the guy's identity and he seemed a little frustrated with me that I could not name the guy.

But then it came to him and he mentions the project that they both worked on.

Yeah, I wasn't with you on that one, is what I thought.

.....

The publisher called me with a problem.


"Oh," I said trying to stall for thinking time but nothing got thought.


Then the owner called and asked what it was that I gave her for her birthday. I told her it was a memory card for her camera about four times the size of the one she has presently. She said I would have to show her and also said that her laptop would not go onto the internet. I told her a couple things it could be and then mentioned that the publisher called me.

"He said he left you a message on your cell phone but that you hadn't returned his call."

"Yeah, he did call but I could hear him."

I told her the problem and my solution to fix it.

"Oh, I didn't know you were coming in tonight."

"I wasn't until the publisher called."

"Can you fix my internet tonight, then?"

"I'll try"

......

He's a forty year old baby with a two year old daughter.