Gibson sat in his office and wondered how exactly he had gotten here."Oh for Pete's sake," he groaned, "not again!" The office was a mess, papers were strewn everywhere, even the ceiling looked like it could collapse any moment. He was going to have to get that carpet replaced. And the coffee maker had broken this morning so he'd probably end up with some black goop. And the printer had just quit working on the third iteration of one of his stories and that wouldn't look great either. He'd been putting it off since Monday. The next day was Sunday. The deadline would be tomorrow. But he hadn't gotten anywhere on his current piece of work and all he wanted right now was to get home. His apartment was cold and drafty without all the heat and the air conditioner wasn't running. He couldn't sleep at night, the sheets always seemed damp. It was driving him crazy. "And what I need is a vacation! No offense, but my boss won't give me one if he thinks I'm slacking off-"He stopped talking as s
When Gibson returned home from work with the latest in the pile of manuscripts he’d written in his free time for the past year, he was surprised to see the sun still up even though it was well past eight o'clock in the morning. It was late for him. He’d been working all night, and although it wasn't particularly exhausting or physically draining on the average, he could barely keep his eyes open any more. And after he had a long day at work... Well, you know. He hadn't slept much this week. Even the fact that he was finally getting some sleep after such an eventful week made him feel exhausted. He dropped his briefcase down by the couch and collapsed into it with a yawn, rubbing his eyes blearily as he sat there, waiting for his computer to boot up. The screen lit up and began its usual startup sequence, but after several seconds nothing happened other than the usual static. Gibson stared at the display blankly, confused. The last thing he remembered was plugging it in before heading
The manager spoke to Gibson harshly. “Are you sure about this?” She held a cup of coffee in one hand and a piece of paper with a hastily drawn diagram on it. It was obviously not the first time she had tried to talk him out of his decision to become a writer. “Yes, ma’am,” he told her flatly, as he took the mug from her and finished off the rest of it. He set the empty mug back down on the table. They were at the diner at the edge of town for lunch. He felt hungry. This was the fifth day in a row where he hadn't eaten any breakfast or lunch and his stomach was starting to churn. “There’s nothing else I can do, ma’am. I’m trying everything. It doesn't matter what I use the materials for." The words came out harsher than he intended, but he wasn’t sorry about that. The manager frowned again at the drawing he'd given her, as though it might tell her something more, then handed him the paper. “This is all I have, ma’am. Please give me your advice.” She looked around the restaurant quick
When Gibson saw his manager’s face for the first time in what felt like years, it was only as an abstract concept that he recognised him. He’d grown used to seeing a man of about thirty or forty with grey hair and a beard; one who could easily pass for an old hippy or a middle class businessman if not for the fact that he had no such facial features, and yet had retained the youthful appearance of a young man in his early twenties – though perhaps Gibson himself might have looked more like that were it not for the bags beneath his eyes and the thinness that seemed to stretch from his scalp down into his neck. It was strange to see him in a full length suit, but Gibson would recognise that face anywhere. His eyebrows twitched when he saw him, his mouth opened slightly, and he couldn’t help the small sigh that escaped him before he spoke. “So, you’re not dead then.”The other man let out a soft laugh, almost as surprised by Gibson’s words as he’d been by his appearance. “No, I am not. T
The sun had began to go down, Gibson knew it was time he close from work , but that didn’t stop him from sitting in the park by the river, a beer in hand. He had come here a lot, when his mind couldn't focus on work and his nerves would begin to fidget. He thought about what he might do next. Go home, see if he could get into bed, maybe sleep for a little while. Or maybe sit at this bench again until he fell asleep, too tired to do anything else. He took another sip of beer as he stared down into the water, wishing there was something more than water flowing below his gaze. Nothing would change much. People's lives were always the same, always changing, never staying the same. But things could be different. He could change things for them. And sometimes things are better. That's what people say, when they're thinking of what you need to do to make their life better, but they're not really sure how to go about it, so you just give them whatever advice you can. He shook his head, then
Whenever Gibson wasn’t home, his boss would come over to the house and do an interview with him about the nature of writing a story. She wanted to understand the process and he knew she was just being polite but it made him nervous. The idea that this woman was actually going to read the story that he wrote every night in bed terrified him. If she ever found out it would be the end of him. And if his editor ever found out… Well, the editor would probably be happy enough with her article in the Sunday newspaper that would feature some sort of ‘creative piece’ on what they were publishing as a result of Gibson’s work. They would have no choice but to let him quit. Or, worse yet, they would want to get rid of him altogether and start publishing stories written by other artists. The only reason why he kept doing this job was because of his family, because he loved the art and wanted to create something special for them but sometimes he wondered if that love had blinded him to something so
Gibson work place was a mess. There wasn’t even a hint of dust in the air. It was always a mess when Gibson worked. No one knew why it was like that since he never cleaned, but it just was. His entire flat was covered in clutter and clutter. He had no time to clean. It was all the same old crap with the same shitty coffee machine. It sucked ass but it made life bearable for him as a writer. He had to write. He had to keep his hand busy while he wrote. Even though he wasn’t really working at all. He just typed on a computer every day because writing was a necessity in order for him to survive. Gibson didn’t have an office. No one in the building actually needed an office anyway. It was too small for anyone to need an office so everyone just kept their things where they always left them. Everyone who was part of the firm did not have an office or space to themselves. They could only do their work outside of the offices unless they were required to do something specific. The company was
Gibson sat in his office and watched the world go by, waiting for it to turn red at some moment that might be meaningful to him, but never was. It was all just colorless noise in a grey world. He was bored. And when he wasn’t bored, or when something had caught his eye, the words wouldn’t come, and he didn’t know what to do with himself. He hadn’t been able to figure out how to write anything since before Pearl Harbor, before it ever began to become a war, because there was no one who really knew what he was doing except for his father, but he wasn’t going to tell him so much as the barest idea of how to get off this boat and get back home to DC, to his apartment where he felt safe, and even though he wasn’t supposed to say such things, he wondered if the man still thought about him every day. Every time Gibson thought of Mr. Kaplan, he thought of what would have happened if they could both have made it back home, but Mr. Kaplan had died a few weeks after Gibson went missing. He could