Athenian I

As usual, Harrison taps the pen on the table, trying to chisel through writer's block at the usual cafe. It's been a year now, but there's no tap running inspiration. The pipes are dry. He never paid the bill.

"Refill?" the waitress asks him.

He picks up the cup and taps it against the saucer. She pours him another cup, strong. He stares at her expectantly.

"Yeah, yeah," she said and dumps a handful of cream on the table after rummaging through her apron pocket.

He stares out the window at the building across the street. Faces have been graffitied and graffitied over on the walls.

As he makes his way down the street, the character hits him like a brick wall. A lifetime is filled in, pieces fall together like a game of Tetris. Nuances, expressions, childhood impressions.

Time stops and he stays still as vision sweeps him. He has known him all his life, lived with him. The picture forming is new, and like the oldest friend he'd ever had, slowly forgotten and reintroduced in one moment of clarity. He is fit to burst.

"Wait. Wait for me to get home. There is paper there. Wait," he says aloud.

A woman eyes him strangely as she passes him by. Men in sharp suits aren't wont to talk like the stereotypical homeless madman.

"You want me to wait?" the voice answers him. "I have waited all my life, just to be born. But I suppose another few blocks won't hurt."

Harrison runs home. He fumbles with the key in the lock but manages to get it open.

"It's about time, Harrison," the voice says. "Must I remind you?"

"Sorry, sorry," Harrison stutters and flexes his fingers over the keyboard, even before he's sat down. He wiggles the mouse and the screen lights up.

"Not now," the voice says. "Let's just chat. You know me."

It isn't a good time to write, so Harrison sits and listens, answers back.

"Jesus Christ, I'm going crazy," he says.

"Madness is relative," the voice answers.

"Do you have a name?"

"Of course. You know it already. Just like you know me. Say it." Harrison is prompted. The name is right there, dancing around the edges of his mind, skipping on the tip of his tongue, but it won't come clear. It will have to wait, just like he had.

The picture is filled in.

The man is fidgety, wears khaki-colored slacks and a pine-green t-shirt. His brown hair is slightly unkempt, a rich brown. He has a slight elbow fetish and likes curvy women with green eyes. Once, when he was fifteen, he'd dreamt of giving up on life and almost jumped off the roof of his father's fifty-story apartment building after the messy divorce with his mother, but something stopped him. He said it was Zeus, and ever since has claimed to be a Greek polytheist. When asked if he really believed he would find gods on Mt. Olympus, he'd answer with a sly smile and change the subject so deftly that no one ever noticed or remembered they'd asked the question in the first place until he was long out of sight.