“I still think it is a bad idea to drop in like this without telling them first.” Lady Arnet walked carefully alongside the electric cart, seeming out of place in this rough wood with her long dark blue dress edged in cream, her hair wrapped in an understated braid. Having crossed three of the four miles on the well-cleared path to the Guerrero place, she still looked to have only just stepped outside her front door.
“Well, it wouldn’t be much of a birthday surprise if I called him up, would it?” James Arnet, Arnie to his friends, kicked a small branch out of the path of the cart, even though the over-sized tires would hardly have had a problem with it. He was a wirey man, like a watch spring forever in motion and strung with potential energy. The collar of his maroon polo was crumpled, creased down too short and folded back. His jeans were a bit too short, too, revealing black socks above his white sneakers. As it happened, they matched today.
“You could just as well have surprised him with your lab equipment if he knew you were coming.”
“Come off, now! You know better. Sharp as a tack, that man is. Sharp as a tack! He’d know I was bringing something as soon as I opened my mouth to say I was coming, and before I was off the phone he’d know all about the spectroscope without me ever saying a word no wise about it.” He was at the back of the cart now, leaning over to peer into the rear camera as if there were something to see in its dark lens.
“He might not even be there, you know. He could be off on one of his collecting excursions or even in town for a change.”
“Bah! He’ll be there or he won’t. The missus is right sweet and she’ll take care of us and his surprise.”
“Or perhaps she’ll be gone with her husband. Then you–”
“Then I’ll just have to set to it in the clean room myself!” He had passed the cart up, walking some distance in front as if leading it.
“Arnie! You will do nothing of the sort. That is his work in there and you have no right to tamper with it!”
“Calm yourself, my dear. I’m not going to touch any of his work. With experiments such as his, I’d scarce know where to begin. And what with the guardianship keeping watch…” He stopped and frowned. “I just want to get this put into place and set up properly. Tuning and calibration could take days in a place like this and I’m not going to leave it in the dirt someplace anyhow.”
“Hmm.”
He sidestepped to let the cart pass between them. “‘Tis true, true blue. I helped him set up that chemistry set he uses for analysis, and the sequencer and even the satellite linkup, you know.”
“Which you never bother to use.”
“Oh, dear me. I fear I lost this argument in the tenth round and have yet to catch up.”
Lady Arnet glared at him as she continued walking alongside the cart, one hand lightly resting on the front corner. He looked straight ahead, with his favorite innocent, “who-me?” look.
Thus it was that they broke the treeline in the first silence of their hike.
I find myself writing bits of stories, poems, or even song lyrics in odd places. Sometimes an idea shows up and demands that it be written down while I’m eating, or in a meeting, or waiting for the bus, or on a telephone conference. Consequently, scraps show up on my desk as precious bits of napkin, envelopes, or powerpoint cue pages. They are found amid meeting notes on my computer, saved as email messages to myself, and scattered across a dozen types of word processor files on every computer I’ve ever used.
Peace.