Author Games Compilation [Cycle 2]

Task 1 - The Call [SWAN]

AUTHOR GAMES: EMPTY NIGHT - TASK ONE - GENE SWAN - THE CALL

Dear Miss Swan,

Where has your empathy gone?

Sincerely, The Mirror

She sits in front of a window, spindly with iron and painted wood, semicircular from the ground up, and blue with fog and a dying sky. Her body is a slender silhouette against it, an hourglass figure in shadow. It's a shape shrunken by the size of the desk it sits behind. Shoulders sharp. Bun tight. Cheeks clicking, clicking, clicking. Pen clicking, clicking, clicking. Her nails are long and red and they stretch, cracking at the joints, and she gets to work scrawling words on a form, another form, another form. The pen speeds from contracts to check balances and when she releases it, letting it skid across the paperwork, her fingers flick towards a calculator and start clicking at that, too.

All the while, there's a grandfather clock in the corner, and another clock in the other. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

She hears it, faintly, and bites her lip. Better to shuffle everything finished, push it to the side. Swipe the dust off the mahogany. Readjust the cup of pencils. Still, tick and tock.

"Back to work," she mutters under her breath. Inhales, exhales. A steady exchange of energy through the air. It causes only a slight change, makes the air around her face only slightly hotter, but still it tires her. Still, tick, tock.

Her hand snatches the pen back up, and she bends over another form, face so close her pointed nose is almost scraping against the drying ink. Names, addresses, dates. Still, tick, tock.

Tick, tock. Her face reddens and she feels the flush of heat in them. Tick, tock. Fingers clench tightly around the utensil, knuckles white. Tick, tock. An incessant noise! Tick, tock. Stop, stop. Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick-

The tip of the pen sticks into the wood of the desk, and her palm throbs with the pain of the end of it ramming against her muscle. No quicker does she do this than the presence of another fills the room, and when eyes drift up, Gene Swan looks at Imogen Swan. Not in the eye, for this individual has none; well, she does, but they are blackened to blend in with the rest of her, all the same tone of ebony: skin, hair, lips, attire. She is a walking shadow standing straight and tall at the front of Miss Swan's desk, and she cocks her slender neck, and she says, garbled in the throat,, "Greetings, my origin."

And suddenly the ticking and tocking in the background begins to soothe the woman in the Big Man's chair. "Hello," she replies, gently wriggling the pen out of the wood and placing it calmly at the edge of the paperwork. Her eyes scan her shadow. "What've I done to bring you here?"

"You got frustrated, my origin. I felt it in me and so I came. Why don't you take a break, madame?"

Gene inhales again and leans back against her chair. Pale fingertips smooth over the wrinkles in her dress, ending at the knees where she feels the marble of herself. Nails dig into the skin. "I have work to do."

The shadow smiles, shakes her head. "So get your em-ploy-ees to do it. You, my origin, need a breath of fresh air. We must keep our emotions in check if we want to last to the next ritual." And, with a swift flick of the arm, her charred fingertips tap a little bell on the desk, and footsteps begin to patter their way.

Gene glances at the bell, then back at the shadow of herself. She tastes copper, remembers to quit dragging her teeth across and into her tongue, and stands on strong legs. "I suppose you make a fine enough point." I want to stay here. I want to make sure I'm doing things the right way. "Let's walk, then. You must have something more to say than this."