As I scratched out the last period, my body went limp, and I fell into a deep stupor. In my dream, I was back in the forest again. But, though I searched with my eyes, I could not find the two specks of ruby. I yearned for it. I stood up and felt the brass doorknob between my fingers, cold and smooth. I turned it slowly, and I could hear the gears in the door shifting. Suddenly, the sounds stopped, and it would turn no more. I pushed.

“Atlas! Atlas!?”Someone was at my door, and their muffled voice sounded urgent. I groaned into my arms. Stretching, I stood up, shuffling towards my door. I looked through the peephole, and noting who it was, opened the door. Michelle burst in before I could tell her “Good morning, do you want to step in?” she collapsed into the sofa, tear stained face sobbing into her hands.

“Uhm,” I said, a little awkwardly, closing the door behind me and patting her back. “What happened, Michelle?”

“I-I-Its…Joey.” She hiccupped. She sat up and stared into my eyes. “H-h-he… Oh, n-no, I c-c-can’t say it.”She broke into renewed wails.

“Shh. Shhh.” I said rubbing her back, trying to get her to calm down. “What’s he done? I’m sure letting it out of your system won’t hurt. Besides, who am I to judge you? I’m a sad nobody author anyways. And I haven’t got any friends to tell your secret to.”

She looked hard at me for a moment before wiping away the tears with the back of her hand.

“He…He…” she gulped, as if she were letting a large burden off her heart. “He won’t wear the sexy robe for our wedding!”she broke down again, frizzy hair flying about as she threw her arms about my neck, sobbing freely into my shirt. Inwardly, I cared more about whether she noticed the old man stench. I hadn’t changed my shirt from yesterday. I pretended like I cared, like it was important to me whether this Joey fellow wore this robe, excuse me, this sexy robe, or not.  

“I hope I don’t smell like an old man.” I said.

“Only a bit.” she muttered. “Thanks for listening, Atlas. Don’t forget your taxes.” She stood up and left as she had come, in a giant fuzzy blur. I was awake now, to say the least. All intentions of going back to sleep left me, and I decided to make use of my time awake, in reality.

The card was where I had left it, even through all the mess of the other papers I had done the night before. The letters stared up at me, and I grabbed the phone, pushing the buttons accordingly. Blip beep pip peep. Rrrrr. My heart quickened its pace inside me, and all sorts of thoughts scurried across my brain. None of them bode well. It rang a couple of times, with no answer, and I was losing hope, when suddenly the line became quiet for a while. My breath caught in my throat.

“Hello. Vonne Silver speaking, how may I help you?”

“I-its me!” I managed to stutter. I could hear him take in a breath. “Oh, I mean, of course, you wouldn’t know exactly who, right? I bet you see lots of people. Haha. Oh, right. Sorry. I’m a little socially awkward. Don’t mind me.”

“Erm, who is this?”

“Oh! Oh! It’s me, from the station. Atlas Vivienne Pless, though you might not know be by my name. I never did say, did I? I’m the girl with the hat and the sweatpants, with black hair? You know, the one who knows about the….books?”

“Oh! Right!” I could hear his feet running along the ground, and the soft shuffle of papers being sorted through. A pen clicks, and I could imagine him holding it above a slip of paper, nib barely brushing the surface. “Mind if I have your number also?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s fine. It’s…ready? Okay. 548. Yup. 662. Uh-huh. 22. Got that? 64.”

“548-662-2264?”

“That’s right.”

“And your name is Atlas Pless?

“Bingo.”  

He laughs a little excitedly into the speaker. “Where do I even begin?”

“Well, what kind of books do you read?”

“I like Neil Gaiman.”

“Who?

“He wrote, let’s see, Fragile Things, for one.”

“What’s that about?”

“I’ll read you the back. Just a second while I find it.” I wait as he shuffles around, drops the phone, curses, picks it back up, and ruffles around some papers. “Ah! Here it is! Let’s see. Sorry, I’m quite awful at describing books. I think the author themselves do it the best. Neil Gaiman says about his book that it is…"

It ended up to be an extremely productive talk, and before I went to bed, I was able to, with the first stroke, write a story that wasn’t so bad that I wanted to chuck it into the trash.