Phoenix felt like too open a city, too flat. There was too much room, too much visibility. The roads were wide in the heart of downtown, an area that, in most cities, would be filled with a million suited businesspeople, packed together as tightly as the premium real estate would bear and spinning the wheel of industry together. And because of the unrestricted terrain of the open Arizona desert allowed Phoenix to the luxury to grow as far to the horizon as the free enterprise system would take it, Reid felt exposed and conspicuous.

He almost lost Noel’s car three times, only to find her for the last time parked in front of the Dial building on Central Avenue.

He’d been working on a new program. A role-playing game this time. He called it ‘Natural Elements.’ A player was presented with fictional scenarios involving some form of drastic, natural disaster. In one, the player started in a small mountainside village above which a volcano has erupted. The player then has thirty minutes before a wave of pyroclastic flow envelops the ground they stand on. The player has tools at his disposal and must create shelter or a means to escape in enough time to avoid death. The object of the game was to survive. And think survival through. If, for example, a player chose to create a shelter but neglected to store food and water, they would die of dehydration and starvation even if their shelter withstood the volcano’s flow.

Reid stared through the windshield as detail began to take shape in the world outside the car.

"Fine. You can sit there like a child. It won't change anything.”

He spoke softly, not looking at her. "You almost fucked us back there."

“I just wanted to make sure the housekeeper was under control,” she said. “Whether you pout or not, no harm was done."

The light breeze felt good against his face.

“Okay. You’re up,” he said.

Noel swung the gate open and stopped at the other side; alert, watching, listening. Reid crouched behind her, his hand on her back.

Today’s project started innocently enough, with a small idea and a basic outline for a program. Then the features grew and he punched out code for hours; debugging, refining, and following all the threads of the program through to their ends. Everything had to be not only functionally correct, but pretty to read in raw form, flawless, and as short as possible.

Someone moved about the room directly above Reid’s den. He heard the upstairs shower come on.

And she wasn’t about to let that happen.

That the customer would have to wait, couldn’t be helped really. She had been practically forced to take the early lunch because of a new single mother that worked on the other side of her small, tidy cubicle. Because of the new employee’s situation – of her having to run her pair of no-doubt illegitimate children to or from day care – Constance had to change her lunch hour. Because she had chosen to not marry, to avoid the inconvenience and pain of motherhood, she was being punished. Was that fair?

Is it possible that someone who has a real (not imagined) talent for writing could lose it over the course of a few inactive years? Does natural ability fester, rot, and decompose beyond the point of resuscitation?

I should write every day. I should also eat healthier and work out; lose this weight that makes me slower than I could be. Although I realize that there are limitations to what I could do even if I was a slim as Sean Yates, I know I could be faster, I could be healthier; Just as sure as I could call myself a writer today if I had just eaten writing properly over the same years that I left it unfed and unwatered, conscious that I risked killing whatever gift I started with..

So is that it? Is that the conversation that goes on in a person’s head a thousand times a day that stops them from really doing the little things that could lead to the future they would have for themselves if you could predetermine such a thing?

He had promised his sister he would try and return to his old life today so he dragged into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He found a brand new toothbrush, razors and shaving cream under the counter.

At the mirror, he took stock of the bloodiness of his eyes and the pallor of his jowls. He thought about what he would do that day, summoning the motivation to move.

His eyes followed the unplugged cord to the lifeless telephone on his computer hutch. On the top shelf of the hutch, a cartoon desk calendar reminded him of the day she disappeared -- he hadn’t turned the page since. He hadn’t done much of anything since.

He woke with a snap and bolted upright, his first thought on the emptiness of Noel’s side of the bed. He looked at the alarm clock on his bedside table; 3:10am. He tuned his ears to the house. Silence.

He rolled out of bed and checked the bathroom “Noel,” he called. No response. He looked into the upstairs guestroom. Empty.

He sat on the wooden porch in front of the trailer, his head buzzing, with his back to the door. The television in the room behind him was left too loud as usual. It was tuned to a re-run of a five-year old Saturday Night Live. Two actors playing semi-retarded children are annoying a group of adults at a dinner party.

"Is Dad stinkalicious because he stinks and you love him?"

A perfectly wise and funny thing to say. I so want to have tee shirts made with that word.

a.k.a. Why Southwest Airlines' policy of not assigning seats is not fun for people who travel regularly; bored, tired, annoyed people who have to act like ten hungry children at a breakfast buffet which has five plates of smiley pancakes and five plates of corned-beef hash.

05:42 (92)
Pumping up the tires.

05:45 (119)
Rolling for the ride with Scott.

06:00 (132)
I am wiping the sleep out of my eyes.