Clotho's Loom (Chapters 1 and 2, of 19)

CLOTHO'S LOOM

               PART I: FLOOD

Chapter 1 

FRIDAY 

In a quiet house, in the protracted hours of early morning, nothing apparent to the eye moved--not even the man who sat in the kitchen, staring. A fresh, tall glass of icewater stood within reach, yet seemed remote on the plain of table stretched before him. He desired it, yet now that he had settled, he did not wish to move; he wished nothing to move. He felt terrible. Shadows of blinds in window frames, painted by the rising sun, did creep their way along the floor, though so imperceptibly that any ant, burdened by a crumb, might slip their confinement. The temperature in the room climbed by half-degrees. The man blinked and watched, though in his torpor refused to acknowledge, a microcosm of activity taking place before him: the temperature in the glass fell, then, in a swing like a pendulum-arc, syncing itself with its environment, rose. Droplets formed on the outer surface. An ice cube popped and tumbled. Solid to liquid to ether to energy. His dark eye and dormant brain knew little of the way of these things. He stretched out his hand lethargically, brought the sweaty glass to his lips, and abruptly drained it. 

William Wyrd grimaced into the upraised well telescoping before him. The sensation of heat exchange in his throat and stomach visited him not unpainfully. 

His morning thirst had prevented him from noticing, at first, the particular paper he chose to set his glass down upon. It stuck to the base. He had fished it irrelevantly from the shuffle for a coaster, and now the cup bled upon it and magnified a part of the writing. The brown, official-looking United States government envelope had lain, until now, for days on the white linen of the kitchen table, the bottom of a pile of mail stacked, then neglected, for last night's party. He had just turned thirty-nine years old. His habit when hung over, as this morning, was to fumble through the collection and discard most of it unopened. Even the grandson of first-generation immigrants had learned not to fear the very appearance of authoritative missives--it probably disguised an application for a credit card. He gazed blearily down and withdrew a half-cupcake from his mouth, then tossed the stale bit of food on to the heap threatening to overflow the trash barrel. Postmarked Quantico, ten days ago. 

Something shifted among the acids of his stomach. Tearing the damp envelope and scanning its contents, yawning as the microwave signaled his reheated coffee ready, Will's immediate reaction--a cough--was followed by the white placard slipping from his fingers onto recently scrubbed, now sticky tiles. The inhaled air tasted bitter in his nasal cavity. He snatched a paper towel from the rack by the sink window and carefully parted two blades of the Venetian blind with his fingers. Still nearly dark out there, the vague florescent streetlights cast an indigo haze over the cars, the neat square lawns, the vertical driveways. The evening drone of beetles through the screen had ceased, hours before. All looked still, in order. Will's face dropped to where the card had fallen between his slippered feet, over the small belly he had developed since a few birthdays ago. Things had blurred. He must be in worse shape than he thought. 

Will groped about on the countertop among the punchbowl, tumblers, and saucers of the scattered service; he had wandered out of the bedroom again without putting his eyeglasses on. But instead of going for them, he leaned low against the counter, not wanting to dignify the placard by touching it again. He smiled grimly. No. They weren't drafting anymore, hadn't been since he was a kid; and he'd done his time in the Marines almost twenty years ago, during the Gulf War. A trickle of memories seeped into his mind. Running--crawling--through a series of ninety-degree South Carolina and Virginia days. Just a kid, fresh out of a new G.I. Bill enrollment, and fulfilling the first adult commitment of his life. Later, the desert. There, it was worse.