I’ve not jumped in to NaNoWriMo this year – have some other writing-related opportunities on the radar, and trying to clean up some older material. below is the most recent exercise for my writing group. A friend posted the opening sentence to his blog feed with a link to a music article. The music article linked to a Wikipedia entry. I just loved the sentence so much I suggested it to the group. We all hated it as a fiction prompt because none of us write/have yet written science fiction to speak of. That said, I feel that what I came up with may lend itself to a future longer piece…

“It’s time for you to re-familiarize yourself with the suppressed decade known as 19A0 and the Phantom Time Hypothesis.”

Keren didn’t precisely hate her Fundamentals of Time Travel course. The whole first week had felt like a rehash of what they already knew. The entrance exams assumed knowledge of the hypotheses already. It was more that the entire degree program required her to learn a lot of theory that had nothing to do with building time machines. All she’d ever wanted to do was design and build Time Travel Devices since she could distinguish past from future. All her aspirations hung on the degree and all its theory. Legally, however, practice had to wait.

“When Wozniak patented the crashless engine in 1985…” The professor whose name Keren couldn’t manage to remember sensed confusion and stopped a moment. “1985 Original,” he continued, “what we’re now calling 19A5 to specify the fifth year of the first of the sealed decades. When Wozniak patented the crashless engine, he threw several industries into a panic. It wasn’t long before the people were baying for a crashless economy.”

“But sir,” a classmate piped up, “that was 234 years (objective) ago. We’ve only had crashless engines for sixty years.”

“Sixty-three, son. And this is why we talk of various time hypotheses. Who can name the seven time hypotheses?”

Keren already understood the basics of the seven theories on which most time travel scientists depended, and started talking before the professor pointed at her raised her hand. “Pseudo-Real, Real, Imaginary, Actual, Phantom, Uncertain, and Stratified, sir.”

“And under which hypothesis do we discuss a 234 year old crashless engine, young lady?”

“Keren Moss, sir. Under both Stratified and Actual. The sealed periods fall under Real, Pseudo-real and Phantom.”

“Good. But impertinent. Surely they’ve taught you to wait until called upon to speak.”

 * * *

 As the lecture hall emptied, Keren started chatting with a young man who was walking alone from building. “We already know the names of the hypotheses and the underpinnings of each one. In mnemonic order and in orders of importance. But at a certain point…”

“I know,” the boy replied, “All the hypotheses run together – the equations all look the same. I’m Shan. What’s your name?”

“I’m Keren. It’s not that bad. Show me one equation and I can usually tell you what hypo it goes with. But, come on, Strat and Actual are the only ones that really matter in practical TTD construction. Why do we have to get into it with all the others?”

“That may be so, but all the big firms want you to show you can analyse the lot within an inch of their propositions.”

That was Keren’s problem: All the program’s studies pointed to the dreaded Seven-Level Exam. They’d heard horror stories. The admissions packet even contained an FAQ to address these.

“Do we really have to take the exam naked?”

“No. Should you be invited to take the Seven-Level Exam at the end of your studies, you will arrive at the testing centre on the appointed day, at which point you will change from your street clothes into an examining jump-suit. All supplies you need to take the exam (pencils, pencil sharpener, and paper) are provided in the testing room.”

The student then had to prove each of the hypotheses to the extent known with no recourse to any calculating equipment. Full credit on at least five and nothing less than partial credit on the other two, or you could kiss goodbye any dreams you might have entertained of TTD design. Any time travel you wanted to do at that point, you had to pay for.

The mechanicals firms would look at your CV if you earned full credit on the right three. Less than that and you might as well resign yourself to being a retail time machine grease monkey. Passing the program’s entrance exam got you that far, though.

“Shan, I’ve been building limited TTDs since I was six years old. I outgrew the 12/100 law when I was 8. All I’ve wanted for thirteen years is to program and build the reals ones. For the love of Ford, I have more practical knowledge wasting out of my fingertips than 80% of the kids in that lecture hall combined.”

“You’re way ahead of me, Keren, and my mom’s a programmer for Muscis Temporis. If I’d been able to transport a hundred grams of anything twelve seconds into the future, much less twelve minutes, my family would have jumped for joy. The machines I was able to build, back when they let me, had to have fire-proofing. If I don’t make it through the exams, they might as well pack me off to Middle Ages. And mom probably will.

“Wait a minute, Shan. Your mom’s a Time Fly? She must have been top of her class. Which school did she go to? What year?”

The founders of Muscis Temporis thought they were very clever naming their firm with the Latin for Flies of Time. The puns got worse from there, though. Entry-level programmers were even called Maggots. At least it made sense once the promotions came around to be able to say you’d earned your wings. The hiring agents at Muscis Temporis, however, required a full Seven. No partial credit. This is one of the ways they became the premier manufacturer of Time Travel Devices – most students aspired to being Time Flies, no matter what their actual proficiency.

“Oh great,” Shan groaned. “Another fan-girl.”

“I’m sorry, Shan. It must be hard on you.” She wanted to be sympathetic, but couldn’t help continuing, “That said, I’d donate major organs to be a Time Fly.”

“Keren, my parents would donate my organs for me to be a Time Fly. I’ll be happy to get out of the program alive. Heck, I’d be happy flipping burgers for Genghis Khan. TTD design is my mom’s dream, not mine”

“Wow, I’m really sorry to hear that. If you don’t mind my asking, did they pull strings to get you into the program? Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”

“No, that’s okay, Keren. I figure we’ll be in this together for a while. You may as well know where I’m coming from. They did not pull strings, but I took an extra year off after finishing my undergrad. My parents got me private tutors and all I did was TTD maths and TTD history for the year leading up to the entrance exams. I lived and breathed TTD for that entire time.” He stopped as though stung by the memory.

“I walked out of it knowing I’d passed. Well enough to get in here? That I don’t know.”

Keren understood that too. She didn’t receive a test result, per se, but a list of schools that would accept her based on the exam results. Westmore was listed in green at the top of her list, meaning the school she was now attending would take her with an application. Blue, black, yellow, and red followed based on likelihood of acceptance. “What colour was Westmore on your results card?”

“Black. They weren’t going to offer me a scholarship, but they were happy to take me on as a full paying customer. And mom didn’t’ blink when it was time to write the first check.”

The two students had walked the length of the small campus from the lecture buildings to the residences. Outside the dining hall they stopped in front of the menu board. The sun was setting and Shan offered, “Given that the folks are covering tuition and expenses, can I buy you a tray of, um.” He waved at the list, “Um, some of that stuff?”

As noted, in my writing group one peson comes up with a prompt and everyone in the group produces something based on the prompt. A few months ago, the prompt was a random page from Coriolanus (the end of Act I, Scene 1 as it turns out) and the suggestion to pick a bit of it and create some fiction. I chose the following lines and came up with the bit below.

‘Half all Cominius’ honours are to Marcius.
Though Marcius earned them not, and all his faults
To Marcius shall be honours, though indeed
In aught he merit not.’

-=-=-=

Connor was lying on his stomach on the top bunk of the bed he shared with his brother Mark. The room was less of a mess than it could sometimes get because every afternoon Connor put his brother’s stuff away to keep anyone from tripping on it. Occasionally a toy car or a discarded sweatshirt would trip him in the middle of the night. How did his little brother manage to sleep through when he always had to get up and tiptoe to the bathroom? The house they lived in with their father and his new girlfriend was small enough that they had to share a room. They never had to share a room when they lived with mom and dad together, but now in this two bedroom house on the south side, they had to take every care. The house itself was clapboard and creaked enough in the wind that it was a wonder anyone could sleep an autumn night through in there. But the others managed to.

So Connor grabbed a quiet afternoon moment while Mark was at baseball practice and dad and his girlfriend were out shopping to read on the top bunk. He liked having the top bunk – it was warmer there when it got cold and closer to the rattling ceiling fan when it wasn’t. Good thing Mark didn’t mind the bottom bunk, Connor guessed. He’d hate to have to fight his little brother for the thing, especially because hours of batting practiced gave his brother a mean punch.

While it was quiet in the house, Connor could just sink into the comic books – especially if the toys were off the floor and all the clothes hung back on their rack. It didn’t matter whose clothes were on the floor, if dad’s girlfriend saw even one article or one toy out of place in their room, Connor got the blame. So before he could relax with a comic book, he had to make the room neat. He didn’t mind so much, except when there was blame to hand out.

“Like last week,” he told one of his friends, “All of my things were neat as a fucking pin. My books were all neat on their shelves, my socks were rolled tight, and the top bunk, where I’ve slept since we moved in to that place, was made.” Connor really knew better than to swear out loud, but he had to. He couldn’t spit out any anger at home at anything or he’d be lucky not to be sent to stand at attention in the back yard until dad or the girlfriend let him back in to the house. “Honestly, I’m supposed to make both beds now? What is wrong with him that he can’t make his own bed?”

“I don’t know, Conn, but you’re too close to home to be talking like that.” Connor and his buddy Brad were at the other end of the block and across the street, but close enough that if dad was sitting on the front porch looking at his paperwork, he might catch a word or two if the wind was right. That had happened, too. “Best get home. You know I always look forward to tales of your house, but if you don’t get to your homework, you might not have one to talk about.”

That was another thing. No matter how much he cleaned, how well he did on his tests, how hard he tried to keep out of everyone’s way, there was always the threat that they’d boot him out. The girlfriend, when she was upset (and when was she not?), always said something like “We can always just send you back to your mother. Oh right. She’s not really anywhere she can take care of you. Best fly right then, young man.” As if Connor needed any reminder that his mom had taken the fall for them. “Yes, ma’am,” was really all he could say. Any third word and she’d go off on another tear. And he didn’t dare look at his father in those moments. Dad was so ashamed of what would happen that when the subject of his ex-wife came up, his cheeks would burn and he wouldn’t look anybody in the eye until something innocuous came into the conversation. A minute’s silence might be enough that he could turn to Mark and talk about sports.

I hate sports,” Connor told Brad later. “Do you think that’s why she hates me? I don’t care about hoops or batting averages or which lineman ended up in intensive care this week. Is it wrong that I just want to read and do decently enough in school that I can get out of here?”

“Do you think,” his buddy always replied when Connor talked like this, “that it might be that you have ambitions to get out?”

“Ambitions. Big word that, my friend. I don’t think I’m allowed to use such big words. Shows I think above my station. Or something. The only one they think should be able to get out from under their roof is Mark. I swear, everything I do right, they give him credit for, and every god damn thing he does wrong they blame on me. Can you explain that too me, Brad? Can you find any reason they might not give me credit for any single thing I do. I study hard and do well on my history test – highest grade in the class on that one. Highest. Grade. In. The. Class. And they find something to praise Mark for. As if praise has to be meted out but they cannot bear to expend the efforts of their tongues to my benefit. So he doesn’t get credit for my grade, but they praise him for something.”

“I can’t explain it any better this week than I could last, Conn. I count my blessings when I split for my own home, though. My mom always wishes we could adopt you when I tell her about that harpie.”

Once again they were close to Connor’s house and he had to hush his friend. “Don’t let my dad hear you talk like that. I’ll never get free of the house again.”

“Sorry, mate. I’ll watch it too. Take care.

So while Connor was lying on his stomach on the top bunk reading his comics, a howl came from downstairs.

“Connor August Reynolds, get yourself down here right now.” It was the girlfriend. As he stretched himself out, Connor asked himself what he could have missed. The dishes were done, the dog’s water bowl was full, he’d vacuumed the living room. “I’m in the kitchen, Connor. Where are you?”

“I’m on my way, ma’am.” Dad’s girlfriend had never been married and was maybe 35, but Connor had never figured out a better way to address her. Her given name would never have done. He could imagine getting one of those whithering praying mantis looks she gave his father sometimes if he ever called her Caroline. Or Miss Harvey. So ma’am it was.

“There were two packages of cherry tomatoes in here I was going to use for dinner. What have you done with them? Did you snack on them in your room? I tell you over and over again not to eat in your room.”

“I’m sorry ma’am. I didn’t touch them. I don’t eat in my room.”

“Don’t talk back to me. You might be able to get away with that with your father, but not under my roof you won’t. Not with me, young man. Where are my tomatoes?”

That was the crux of it. The house was hers. No matter how cramped it might be with four of them living under that roof, it was paid for with her hard-earned money, and they were an inconvenience at best. So anything they did, any word they uttered was really at her sufferance. What could Connor do?

“I’m sorry ma’am. I didn’t touch the tomatoes. You know I always ask before I eat anything.” That was a risk, Connor, he thought to himself. Sean would give him the what for too for letting his tongue slip like thatTelling her what she should know. There was no getting out of it, now that he’d let the words slip out. No getting away from Caroline Harvey’s punishment.

The reasoning always varied. This week, missing tomatoes might be one thing everything else depended on, next week it would be leaving clothes in the dryer more than five minutes after the drum stopped spinning. But at least once a week he got it. “You know, Sean, it’s not even as though she administers it. She tells me where she wants me to stand and then tells my father I’ve done something horrible. Like eat a tomato. What am I supposed to do.

“Go to the corner, Connor. I’ll have your father deal with you when he gets home. Is it too much to ask that you have even half the grace the good lord gave your brother.” Connor always tried to turn away before she started talking about Mark. She got this faraway look in her face whenever she mentioned him, and sometimes when he was right across from her at the table. “It creeps me out and I don’t want to think about why.” “I have a good idea why, mate, and I don’t want to think about it either. So Connor and his mate Sean had a pact not to talk about why Caroline Harvey’s faraway looks creeped them out..

Connor was 13 and a half and his brother Mark was twelve, but a big twelve. Some uncle was built of bricks and Mark got all those genes. Even though Connor was older, he was slim and couldn’t put on a muscle to win a bet.

I spent the 90s in the San Francisco Bay Area and have written a couple of short pieces featuring (versions of) people from the time. Was Ist Ist is one of those. So is this…

‘We could watch them from here,’ Zack said. ‘Right across downtown, just the other side of Broadway.’ Zack picked Jane’s binoculars out of the box nearest him. They were big and heavy. One of the few items Jane possessed that had belonged to her father. A veteran of Korea and administrator of the Stanford MK trials, Stan Vondel committed suicide a month before Jane’s birth. He left behind a note, a government insurance policy and more questions than either answered.

His hobby was bird-watching in his native Virginia, and Palo Alto in the early 60s still offered wetlands enough to satisfy Stan, but that were paved over by the 80s. ‘Doesn’t mean there aren’t birds to be watched, Zack was fond of saying.

The fifth-floor loft into which Zack and Jane had just finished moving their possessions afforded them a view of North Oakland and Berkeley and, more immediately, Highway 880 about a hundred yards and sixty feet down.

Jane didn’t want to humor Zack’s voyeuristic streak and really didn’t want to see Victor with someone else, but Zack was already focusing the glasses. Jane looked over the highway and into the hills while Zack found Victor’s room.

‘It’s at an angle – you can’t see much, but it’s just across from Tribune Tower.’ She took the glasses almost automatically and twisted the old leather neck strap around her hand. A rusted grenade pin  was knotted into  it. Her mother recounted four different stories of the pin, saying Stan at different times had claimed them all to be true.

and focused first on the clock atop the old empty newspaper building. She didn’t move until the clock ticked over a minute and then turned her head a few degrees to the Hyatt.

‘Find the corner of the roof closest to us and then tilt down three floors and left four windows. She turned the knob to see clearly into the dimly lit hotel room. ‘What’s he wearing Jane?’

‘Black jeans, three-hole Docs. Trench and necktie are on the bed.’

‘And the girl – What does she look like?’

Zack listened and looked at his wife as she described herself.

Jane thought about Zack’s need to hurt her. Was he even conscious he was making her do the same things she’d done to him? Each step in putting their life back together seemed to involve him reclaiming, reforming something she’d hurled at him, that had crumbled at his feet. Would his aim, like his focus, be more sure?

‘Do you think Rael was a violation of type for him – a stray waif in a crowd of tall, strong, curly-topped women?’

‘Don’t make the mistake, again, of thinking Rael’s not strong. Damaged more than most of us, but not weak at all.’ She turned to look at Zack.

‘Just a comment on the physical resemblance the new girl bears to you. Don’t put those down. What is she doing?’

As Jane described Victor’s sex, she fingered the pin, like she would a rosary bead. She wished, not for the first time, but for the first time since she’d known Zack, that it still served its original purpose.

Last year’s unfinished NaNoWriMo decided to be a bit of fantasty/SF. The working title Bangs and Whimpers was an effort to get away from the first title I came up with, Fission Chips.

Rano Simon awoke well before dawn and picked up his packed duffel from beside the door to the bedroom he shared with his brother.

The duffel contained an extra pair of sandals, a small repair kit, a change of clothes from walking to meeting with the Lord and some extra layers as the weather this time of year was unpredictable. He would don the nicer outfit after bathing in the river which ran two kilometers from the Manor’s entrance.

The room had no windows and so he left the room by touch. A single narrow window let a sliver of moonlight into the house’s main room by which he could see a package of food prepared by his mother and left by the oven. A hunk of bread, a few slices of cheese and a skin of small beer would see him the 22 kilometer walk to Thatch Manor.

The Simon family had made their goodbyes to one another the night before and while Mrs. Simon would have liked another few words with her son, he didn’t want to wake his parents and delay his leaving the time they would insist on spending with him over tea and breakfast.

His mother had also put out a plate of late summer strawberries. The white fruit would make the first part of the journey a little sweeter. He put these in with bread and cheese.

Rano looked about the room as if he wasn’t sure when he’d return. The round trip would be two days give or take, less if Lord Thatch denied him a corner to sleep that night. No reason at all to think he’d not be participating in the rest of the harvest.

He tied the skin and the bag of food to his belt and shouldered the duffel, trying to take care not to carry it in such a way that the clothes would wrinkle too much. “Damn these formalities. We’re just men. I work harder than he does for being one of the peasants. Who knows whether he pushes his brain hard enough to account for the difference in our stations.

The moon hung at just over a waning half and was low on the horizon leaving him an hour by starlight before the sun decided to peak out. Rano’s mouth watered at the thought of the strawberries, but he figured they’d make the morning of his journey a better place. He set a good pace for the manor in hopes it wouldn’t take him too far into the afternoon. The landscape was rough once he cleared the farm and made his way around the hills that surrounded the bay.

He had taken this road two years before, when he and the others in his year had presented themselves to Lord Thatch. There were four other boys born the year he was  – three minors and one other major. Petr and Karl Benson had spent the better part of the journey imploring the Yarrow twins and Bill Raynard not to embarrass them in front of Lord Thatch. That they were going in order to make a good impression and keep the village of St. Xavier in Thatch’s good graces. Rano didn’t really think the minor boys would make a problem, but expressing their superiority kept everyone in their places. At least that’s what he thought. The fact was, the Yarrow boys knew the woods and hills between the village and the manor far better than anyone else Rano knew and he was lucky they didn’t decide to do a runner and embarrass the major boys.

That hike had been quite a good one, the weather was fine and despite the heckling Rano and Karl gave the other three, they made the journey in good time and arrived together. He told his brother after, “They may be minors, but you underestimate them at your peril. There’s no differences to be seen and they may well be smarter and more capable than either of us. It’s a difficult row to hoe in this village, but if I learn nothing else this year, it’s not to think them lower than we are.” Petr just said, “I know you’re bigger and older than I am and you must be smarter, I think that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard today.”

That attitude of his brother’s hadn’t changed in the intervening years and this is why, Rano thought, the Simon name sits so poorly with Thatch. I think I made a good impression when we presented ourselves. Each of us got the same pat on the head, so there’s no real way to tell.  And who knows if two years later he’ll even remember the time the Yarrow boys and a Benson, a Simon and a Jame presented themselves. He sees a few of us every year and. Rano continued to rumble the possibilities in his head but realised that the only way for these arguments to make sense, for his head to have any satisfaction in the matter, would be to actually know Lord Thatch. And he wasn’t going to know Thatch any better on his journey to the manor, and probablyt won’t know any more about Thatch in this lifetime that will make me know how he’s going to greet me today.

Rano looked at his feet and then at the path ahead and tried to recall just what was up around the bend, but all he had was the knowledge that there was only one path and that Xavier boys, or Thatch, or Thatch’s man Mayo trod on it, what, at least eight or nine times a year. The path with that many people coming along it that often should stay clear. The trees on either side were tall at two or three meters, and the shrubs, this late in the year were pretty bare. Some of the other boys took the goats up here to graze when it rained, and they didn’t want to let the goats wander on their own.

Rano knew about planting and harvesting, but very little about goats or why they came back from grazing. The minor girls who did most of the work with the goats didn’t share their secrets. Female goats, one girl told him when he was very young, are like young men. You tell them to come back, they come back. Especially if you give them a reason.  You’ll get this when you grow up, little Simon boy, you’ll get this. Later on it made sense that they’d go off and graze and come back to be milked. That nothing was going to empty their udders but the milking girls. Pain makes you return.

Rano thought about the girls who insisted that they follow the goats when it rained. It would make sense though, that they’d fill themselves, rain or shine, and come back when they needed a milkmaid to take care of the rest. And he wondered too about the pain. The discomfort gets a little much and they come back to the milking quarters, but they’re just coming back to the one causing them the discomfort. Can goats figure that part out? Or is it just food/pain/ease of pain/food?

This occupied Rano’s thoughts for a good part of the hour before the sun peaked up. He had long practiced the different ways to keep his mind going about some subject or another while he worked in the fields or couldn’t sleep. Meditate on something, anything real, and the mind will keep itself busy enough that passing into sleep or bugging a row of crops or harvesting the row once it was ripe, or covering the distance through the hills that separated Xavier from Thatch Manor would go by before he had to think twice about what was going on in the world or about the soreness in his feet or the scratches from the nettles that grew occasionally over the path.

His main idea when going off into thoughts goat grazing and why they come back when the rest of the world has so much more interesting grazing than that by Xavier was the strawberries. It made a little sense to put a few kilometers between himself and his house before enjoying that treat. Stretching these things out made them the sweeter.  But if he didn’t occupy his mind with something other than strawberries, the time would pass with painful slowness. As it stood a few memories and thoughts of goats with filling udders were enough. By the time he put the goat arguments away, the sun was peaking up and he extracted the first white strawberries from the pack at his belt.

There were nine of the fruits which would just about fit in a cup made of both of his hands. He pinched the pale green stem off of the first one and flicked it away, and then bit into the top of the fruit. He wanted to make sure each would last two bites – one with almost no flavour and the second, the tip of the berry with the hint of sugar in the heavy moisture. The first one bite, he though, was almost perfect for being the top half of the berry – the seeds had almost no flavour, and there was none of the bitterness that an under-ripe berry offered. He looked closely at the tip of the remaining half of the berry. Nice – it’s full size – the seeds have spread out – none of that crunch of the bitter seeds all scrunched together. This bite was sweeter than the first. The hint of sugar and no bitterness at all. Bite and bitter. He chewed the sweet fruit and though of Biting and Bitterness and how those words must once have been the same.  But he didn’t want to think about bitterness at all – if the word were in his head, it might take up residence in his tongue where there should just be the sweetness of the strawberries his mother had left. The pale sweetness made the trip’s uncertainty a little easier to bear.

He decided to make the berries last a little longer by eating a hunk of bread with a little cheese in between the first ones and the others, but he regretted it. After the sun had been rising for an hour or so, he ate the cheese and bread, but something in the cheese was left on his tongue and made the next berry taste weird. Not bad – the fruit wasn’t off. And it wasn’t bitter either. Just strange – not the way a ripe strawberry should taste on an autumn morning in the woods. The thing was, he didn’t know how that should taste either. He finished the berries anyway, even though they weren’t so nice as they should have been. I won’t tell mother about that. She’ll only say that I should know these things. Cheese doesn’t go with anything but bread. Or something like that. Rano figured people who talked that way only said you should have known because the lesson he was bringing by telling the story was one they were only learning in the moment he said it. Even his mother, he guessed, hadn’t eaten strawberries after cheese since she was a little girl and she didn’t remember learning the lesson any longer either. So she would say as if teaching the lesson herself, of course you don’t do that. Draining all the sweetness out of the retelling. So he retold it only to himself as the sun rose a little higher and he figured he must be about a third of the way to the Manor. He looked at the sun as it rose of the short trees around him and tried to calculate how high the sun should be before he ate any more of his breakfast. Knowing that the sweetness of the berries was lost, he opened the skin and took a couple swallows of the bitter small beer.

This is from the middle of a novel I started a couple of years ago.  I was challenged to create a female hero. On a whim I decided on a black female ex-con. I realised far too late in the game that I didn’t have the skills to portray her realistically. I did, however, write about 100 interesting pages. The scene below features the head of a crime syndicate and his son. Nicholas George, referenced in this section, is the ostensible villain of the novel.

Around his friends and siblings, Ben Athos tended to be outgoing and the leader of whatever group he might be in. He put forth ideas in such a way (show don’t tell) that people would naturally buy into whatever he had to say. His siblings engaged in whatever plan he might have for an adventure and his classmates considered him the most important member of any group (how?).

Around his father, however, he became sullen. He answered in single syllable sentences. At the age of 20, Old Athos called him.

“Ben. I have something to discuss with you.”

“Yeah.” There was no lilt even to the word, though he dragged it out a bit.

“I want you to come to my office. It’s better this not be done over the phone.” Ben was still too young to actually believe that some things had to be said face to face, but answered anyway, “When?”

“Is there anything keeping you from coming now?”

“No.”

“Good, I’ll see you here in half an hour. Til then.”

Though it hardly seemed necessary, Ben added a “Bye” before putting the down the receiver.

The drive over was easy enough. Midday traffic was almost not there at all. Ben pulled into the extra space by his father’s car, the one next to the one marked “handicapped” and pulled up the handbrake with a little more force than was necessary. His face had gone from the sullen scowl that took over whenever he heard his father’s voice, to something brighter as he took the curves of the road from their house into town, and back into a scowl as he parked.

He entered the building and nodded to the man at reception who nodded back, with a nonchalant “Afternoon, Master Athos.” The receptionist had been greeting people in the town’s largest office building since the days when the town didn’t seem to be able to support an office development that large, much less the six that sprang up later to define downtown. The receptionist remembered when young men were called Master until they married, or at least had a college degree, just as young ladies were called Miss until they married. Ben’s memory wasn’t so long and the appellation just added to his resentment as he boarded the elevator. Of course Ben didn’t remember the days when the man who now greeted visitors to the building actually ran the elevator.

Old Athos’ office were on the 14th floor of the building and the elevator seemed to go awfully slowly. Time enough to resent that there was really nothing his father could say to make him any happier at being Old Athos’ offspring, son, and heir.

The elevator opened onto an office that took up the tapered top floor. A large Persian rug covered the floor in front of an antique oak desk. The chairs on the rug were only lightly padded, but Old Athos generally didn’t keep people sitting in them very long. Business was concluded, whoever visited stood up, and if the business was concluded well, Athos poured snifters of Metaxa to seal the deal.  If the business concluded poorly, the visitor made sure to convey that whatever blockages were in the way would soon be removed as he backed towards the elevator and Athos put his head back down to his work.

Ben came into the office and approached the desk and remained standing until his father acknowledged him a minute or two later. “Have a seat son. I just need to finish reviewing this document.”

Ben sat on the chair and put his hands together. He leaned forward as much as he dared, but couldn’t make out what his father was reading. Might have been a contract, or an article for tomorrow’s paper that the editor knew should pass muster. Never know where there might be toes sticking out. The most innocuous subjects sometimes had Organismos in an uproar. Ben had no way really to tell. If he were reviewing a contract, he’d have a pencil in his hand, Ben thought. But wasn’t sure. He didn’t spend any time actually engaging the business. The old man wouldn’t let him. Not since the day he told his son that the business had to pass to someone else.

“Right then, son,” Athos said without looking up.

“Yes.”

“Good gracious, my boy. Is there any chance at all you might speak to me in sentences as long, even, as the Bible’s shortest verse?” All the Athos children knew what this meant. “Jesus wept” was a favourite phrase of their mother’s and its source was discussed ad nauseum.

“Yes, father?”

“Fine, Ben. If that’s the way you want it. It’s come time that I follow up on what I once promised you. I told you that Organismos would not continue in our family, and I’ve decided on a successor.”

“What? You’re denying it to Jeremy and Frances as well as to me?”

“Finally. That’s more than you’ve said out loud to me since my last birthday. Yes. The Athos family will no longer govern the Organization. You’ll still be its main beneficiaries, but the day-to-day operation? No. I’ve got someone else to take on the business.”

A silence sat between them as Ben leaned forward to learn who had usurped his place.

Finally he rejoined, “Who? Who could possibly deserve to take over from our family. We’ve run it – you’ve run it for decades. We’ve watched you. We know what to do.”

“No, son. You haven’t and you don’t. Not that this is your fault. I’ve not let you in. This is why, despite your lack of respect in general and for me in specific, you will still reap the rewards of Organismos’ successes. You and your siblings and your offspring for as many generations as I can manage, will continue to be supported well, however much or little you earn.”

“So then, father. Who’s it to be? Don’t I deserve even to know that?”

“The man who will earn your keep, who knows what it takes to keep our interests producing fruit, or golden eggs – pick your metaphor – is Nick George.”

“What? Saint Nicholas’ whelp? What does he know? How does the son of every Greek’s little helper take my place at the helm?”

“It was never your place, Ben. You should know this. And how does he do it? From the minute I first spoke to him, he was willing to get down in the dirt to do the nastiest shit work Organismos does. That’s how.”

Old Athos remained silent for a moment and Ben didn’t break it.

Athos continued, “I said it wasn’t your fault, Ben, because the dirty work of what we do? I never wanted you, wanted any of my kids, to do that. That’s the work you have to be able to do to lead this company, but I don’t want my kids doing it. Let the company earn for you. Do you want to move someplace warm? Do you want to study in Athens or Rome? Do you want to surf in Hawaii until the volcanoes bury Honolulu? Or make movies in Hollywood? All of this is yours for the taking. The only thing that isn’t is Organismos.

“It’s up to you what you want to do, but please don’t fight me.”