The Worker's fingers began to ache, and he took a break. He pushed his chair back from his desk and opened the blinds to the right of his corner of solitude. He rubbed his wrists and rotated them in circles, reminding him of their intents and humoring their real talents, preparing them to give themselves up for another stretch into an adapted purpose. The Worker opened the window and stuck his head out, looking around his house, he noticed there was no breeze outside, and he felt the sunshine give no warmth to his skin, even when standing directly underneath its radiated path. He sighed, only a little defeated, and remembered the promise he had to keep with his work, and knew that he had known there would be no liberation for his soul until he found his mind out of debt with his body. The Worker pulled himself up to his desk, and began to type again; he didn't stop until he was dead. Two^2 Joel picked up his head again and looked out the window; the sun was gone, taking whatever it had brought to the day back with it to the other side of the world. His work was finished, miraculously. None of it seemed particularly important right now, all sort of a blur; one paper after the next, one spreadsheet following the other. When one day of work starts to just spill into the other without warning, it makes it hard to even remember what your job is. Joel looked at his watch, the time was well past five, but maybe the ice cream place would still be open. He picked himself off the chair, knees cracking and back snapping, and walked out his study and downstairs to check on Susannah. The house had survived an afternoon alone with her and her creative tantrums, and nothing seemed to be broken. The chairs to the dining room table had been removed and the blankets had been torn off all the beds, fortresses of fabric characterized the living room floor. The Barbies were stationed in positions of attack on the outside of the fortress' entrance, a piece of cardboard with wooden planks drawn on with Crayola marker. The living room lamps were covered in towels, to muffle their light, it wasn't enough to stifle it entirely, and holes in the fabric allowed portions of light to cut through the living room like carnivorous teeth through the flesh of the submitted. The light fought to envelope the Barbies' profile and shadows criss-crossed the floor, acting like impressions of what the Barbies really were. Teddy bears and the stuffed pig were laying face down in the flooring behind the Barbies. An old toy of Joel's, a G.I. Joe figure, was wedged underneath the doorway of the fortress. Joel felt a dull pain on the back of his skull at its base. He just felt the pain, not quite remembering it before but understanding that it had been with him for a very long time now. Déjà Vu settled in with Joel, and he understood why, but not how. He felt very light-headed, and his eyes began to cloud over with black. A dull rushing sound was blowing in his ears, he could hear his own blood flowing. The dull rush became a sharp ring, and Joel felt the pain in his head ignite and he let a muffled groan form in his throat but swallowed it before it became audible. He stumbled around clumsily and the light seemed to flicker near unnoticeably. He felt like vomiting but couldn't find the will to. His body was collapsing with him in it, and it was all happening near instantaneously. He looked around, for anything to sit down on, he needed to get low, he started to faint. His left foot caught on his right foot, and he fell backwards, landing on a chair which had served as a turret to the fortress, the blanket which had been resting on it pulled off and Joel saw a giant hole form in the middle of the blanket fortress. He felt bad he had destroyed it, but was grateful he was sitting. Feeling began to come back to Joel, and he felt much better. "JOEY! You ruined my castle!" cried Susannah from behind him. Joel looked over his shoulder, towards the hole in the fortress. Susannah had poked her head out from the hole and was making a big show to get the point of her anger across. Her arms were folded, and her bottom teeth were biting mercilessly into her top lip, her long straight hair was frizzled and pointing in directions that defied gravity and were trembling in static electricity. Joel was surprised to see her. The fortress, which had seemed almost impenetrable earlier, was now half-destroyed, and Joel noticed at its highest, it reached not even four feet tall. "Oh, sorry Susie, I tripped. Have you been building this all day?" Susannah paused, and looked around to take another look at her creation. She shrugged. "I guess I did." She said, more to keep Joel quite than anything. Joel looked at the fortress again, and the part of it he had flattened with his butt, the blanket that had collapsed and dragged down another part of the castle with it. Really the whole thing started to look like it was sagging. Joel sucked in a breath of air and stood up. He reached over the back of the chair and into the hole, grabbing the corners of the blanket and pulling them back over the chair. He tied the corner of the blanket around the support of the chair and carefully went to all of the other chairs, tightening the ceiling of the fortress. "You did a really good job Suze! Was it to protect you from the werewolves?" Joel pointed his over to Doogie, who was laying on his back over the furnace covering on the floor. Susannah moved from biting her top lip to biting her bottom lip, and despite her best efforts a smile was tugging at her cheeks. She still kept the angry glare in her eyes up pretty well. "No Joey. That's Doogie. Werewolves don't exist." She said angrily. Joel put on his best serious face. He opened his eyes as far as they could, made his mouth into a tiny "o" shape and looked around like someone might be listening. "Susannah shh! You don't want them to hear you, do you?" He whispered towards her. Susannah acted unimpressed, and looked right back and Joel, her arms still crossed. She even had the courage to look at Joel and yawn. "No really Susie! It's true! Really, there is a reason why people don't believe. Werewolves are tricky, they don't want people to believe in them, because then people would be more careful, and they don't want that! Werewolves think people are too tasty." Joel crouched down and looked straight at Susannah, like he was actually concerned. Susannah looked back at him, and through the sheer need for mimicry crouched in the hole, and lifted a blanket up so she could still see Joel. That's it so far. No TL:DR [Edited on 01.13.2011 2:36 PM PST]