Night ended in disruptive sleep to a foggy morn and mind where the sun had no power beyond the grey blankets and where the people stayed chilly and weary. An early frost protected by the fog collected on the window pane, obscuring the outside world. A feeble white glow emanated in, illuminating nothing but the papers on his desk, reflecting off the white to perfect an unearthly glow. Yet Robert was determined to make the light his. Before him on a waist high bureau where once jackets and ties lay in substandard cleanliness was a rather intricate puzzle, papers of thorough depth presented to him the instructions to devise the rejection of impossibility. As the particle relayed the required reading that evening, Rosalind gave her reprimands and Robert gave none a heed. What is a looking glass to a door, Robert thought, but a pale mockery of ambition.

He sat on a dining chair, positioned askew, stolen from another room. His body leaned in, hovering over the notes, nigh indecipherable to the common passerby. His hands toyed with the pen, keeping the fingers agile as every so often a jotting of a quick comment and question. His brow furrowed, eyes in the act of dissection. About him was the scattered evidence of a crude refurnishing. A nightstand stood propped against the bureau side. Some blueprints, in disarray and creased after being dropped with nary a consideration, rested on the floorboards, waiting to be noticed and read through, to finally be rid of their unseemly appearance. An eclectic collection of textbooks and journals huddled underneath his chair and some lounging on the edges of the bureau top. Of course, in the vicinity of his bedroom he had not the full access to his notes and files but what he brought with him, the barest of his and the fullest of his other, serviced him to satisfaction. His true goal was privacy, something that the laboratory had yet to correct.

Calculations and calculations on end, a busy mind walking through this eden of knowledge, Robert carefully dissected every number, every word of theory, picking up the pieces of a door, and one by one fitting his escape. Surreal was the key word. While his main goal was the operation of his device, his mind wandered, crossing the borders of reality with a greater ease than his body. He imagined a city in the skies, towering behemoths floating in defiance to the earth. Yet the architecture he did not care for, whether it be stone or steel, he focused upon the machinery that enabled such levitation. The sheer engineering that fascinated him, the possibilities of the housing, the gears, the wiring. The majesty of progress and success that so enthralled him pushed him to marked audacity.

So surreal was the concept. Another reality had been difficult enough to grasp and to comprehend in comfort yet to physically experience, to have a chance to, both excited and terrified him. Entire sheets were filled with the complications and possible consequences on his desired outcome yet did nothing to hamper his resolve. Robert completed a few more adjustments to the work before leaning down and reaching for the blueprints. The plans were spread cleanly on the bureau surface, the notes moved to the nightstand. Robert stared at the daunting task. To follow Rosalind's recommendations meant substantial changes, enough to persuade him to scrap his original idea, his device, highly inefficient to the point where it would have been better to start anew. He rubbed the back of his neck and frowned. It would be challenging, his budget.

Robert shook his head and bent over to find a clean print. Only to his dismay he remembered he had almost run out of usable supplies. He checked his notebooks, far too late for almost.

He leaned back on the chair, his arms hanging limp over the rests. He glared at the muddled scratchings then to the window. The frost had yet to clear, a heated afternoon still far off. I suppose, he mused, I suppose I have to leave. He patted his work with a languid motion and then heaved himself to his feet. A careless step knocked some folders aside, cascading paper all around. A sigh of exasperation left him. Robert shifted the mess to a slightly less aggravating pile, collecting handfuls some by some. At last to his contentment, he headed towards his bed where a proper set of clothing lay stranded.

A soft crunch underfoot caught his attention. He inspected the floor and found a mussed sheet. Stepping back, he apprehended the loose offender. Robert inspected the page, fixing the creases and reading the first few lines. He recognized it to be a figment of a conversation with Rosalind. A dismissive scoff and it was tossed aside, landing on the bedding. By naught but half an hour, he was dressed and prepared. A careful consideration of the windows led him to close the curtains and leave the room, checking twice that it was locked.

Bustle abound upon a city wholesomely alive from the people off on their travels to the homestayers in their comforts and their loves. Robert sighed upon the top steps outside his front door and readjusted his coat collar. He descended onto the street and followed the walk which way and that, passing by the boutiques and the pitchers in midst of exaggeration, up by a circle road, a square, a park by his side, the fleeting people buzzing softly in the early light over some freshly printed news, birds that chittered and laughed above him, and a cool wind wrapping itself across the city and its people, knowing each so well.

Carriages made their racket alongside him mingling with the shouts of porters and fare hagglers. Robert paid small attention to an argument on a corner that ended in two gentlemen bellowing and patting their backs in jest. The smell of newly baked bread wafted over the street and induced him to hunger, a reminder that he had not eaten this morning. He watched through the window as he passed by, the baker in a bustle to make sales and hand out bread. A cash register rang constantly and the people all clamoring.

So content they seem in this world, he idly thought. His footsteps sounding alone on his side of the street. What is a day to them but a scrap of bread and a poor man's promise of wealth. Another corner, turned, and there he faced a stationers.

As he entered, he was greeted with a spritely voice, full of youthful charisma. It was the owner's nephew, Robert recognized as he saw the boy put down the clipboard on a stack of boxes, most likely in the midst of inventory. The youth waved a good morning and Robert nodded back. Passing piles of clean paper for all sorts of purposes of lettering, poetry and prose, by the cases of journals and notebooks and rows of finely made pens and ink bottles, Robert approached the counter. The youth grinned at Robert, "Mr. Lutece, back again so soon? What do you need today, sir?"

Robert replied tersely a few packets and fresh blueprints. The youth took a battered black pencil from behind his ear and noted the quantity, attempting to tally the price. Robert watched the boy work through the arithmetic, then frown, the silent apprehension of the face. Numbers were crossed out then rewritten. Robert rolled his eyes and suggested the correct sum. The youth's smile turned crooked in embarrassment.

"Ah, yes, thank you Mr. Lutece." The boy mumbled and set off to collect the supplies. Robert leaned against the counter, observing the boy pull the required materials from various shelves. What is that boy's name, he tried to remember, testing various combinations to match with an inquiry.

"Where is your uncle, Jack?" he asked in curiosity after a momentary spark of memory.

"Sick," the boy poked around for the blueprints, moving aside colored papers and envelopes. "Real sick, got a fever upstairs. Gots to take care of the place all by myself." Here the youth beamed at Robert as he walked back to the counter, items in hand. "Said if I do good, I gets to get paid twice as much and he'll take me to a pint or two when he gets better."

Robert gave a vague smile and waited patiently for the boy to wrap the materials in a brown package. Robert handed over the amount and again, had to watch the youth struggle with counting the change to which Robert kindly corrected. The boy gave his thanks and as he stamped the package, he pointed out of the window to a shop on the other side of the street. Robert followed with a slight turn of the head.

"They opened a few days ago," the youth patted the package in thought, "It's a bookshop, still haven't got the sign made from the woodworks yet. Thought it might interest you, Mr. Lutece. I can't be bothered to read anymore, just need to know what papers are for what." Robert peered at the unnamed shop, catching books of odd colors and sizes on display. Robert kept in silence and grabbed the package under an arm.

"Perhaps. Thank you Jack," Robert nodded and bid the youth a good day and well wishes to the uncle. Robert left the boy back to his original duty, detailing a clipboard on their current stocks. Robert briskly crossed the street, avoiding the groups of people and passing horses, and ended in front of the bookshop. A few women chatted in front of the display, having a less than quiet discourse about some poetic author. Robert made his way past with quaint apologies and entered the shop.

The books gave him the nonverbal greeting, showing off their covers and enticing with their stories and information. Rows of novels and published journals confronted him face to face and more huddled on the floors, some still in their crates, waiting to be unpacked and others left carelessly on chairs and tables. Robert was not alone. He passed some of the perusing customers on his way to an empty corner of the shop. In this corner where Robert could observe the people without being shoved was marked as resource. Textbooks of animal taxonomies, scientific charts, and maps all lined the rows along with dictionaries and scattered encyclopedias.

An armchair sat between the bookcases, next to a small coffee table holding a dim lamp and a thick textbook, its back facing Robert, denying him its contents. Curious, Robert set his package on the table and at a whim chose the solitary work, flipping to the cover. A Baron's Compleat Taxonomy Pertaining to Ornithology, the title read above an engraving of a songbird like specimen. Robert with a vague interest fingered through the pages, the descriptions of several hawks, vultures, and larks he quickly skimmed until the little black bird found him, its beady eyes staring straight at him. The sketch, quite lifelike, captured instantly his full attention. It was to him an exact duplicate of the bird of yesterday. The bird inspired within him a sense of oddity akin to what he had felt when he first saw his particle impossibility. Taking a moment to find the chair, Robert cleared the books upon the seat and sat down. A sudden voracity consumed him.

A starling. The little black bird was a starling. The name brought up a peculiar reaction. A hand moved to his breast pocket and from there pulled a sheet of paper folded thrice. He tapped the paper against the page and then unfolded the same page he had left on the bedding that morn. An inconsequential remnant of their intertwining past, he read through again. Early within the jottings was a mention of a Ms. Starling, a petty comment that declared a songbird of an oddity, not a care for contemporaries. A nuisance, Robert. Whenever she chirps and sings, there seems always to follow some maddening tragedy.

A wry smile alighted at the end, maddening indeed Robert repeated. The circumstances of yesterday caused him ire that still lingered with him through the morning. Robert read on hoping to put the anxiety to rest but found nothing to his resolve. The mention of the starling was idle chatter and conversation soon dove into the depths of their neighbors.

"Tell me about your neighbors," it said, the original Morse code sitting above the translation. Bullet points of his reply, useful in keeping track of what he told his other, littered the rest of the area, scrawled out in mere sentences was his life. This sheet of paper was the equivalent of a weak memoir he thought as he reread this conversation.

The explications of the aid they received, the charms and morose experiences with the family, an amusing tale in the midst of night of a tree toppling down the neighbor's roof and the subsequent antics of housing. Then the mention of Gerald, the brother of their person of aid. The mere mention provoked a scowl. Reminder of failures, Robert recalled, mouthing the words with distaste. A scoffed escaped from him as he tossed the paper to the table in defiance to the most pressing matter.

A brow furrowed as he tried to defer his attention to his starling. He read through its habitat and its feedings, and turning ahead, its behavior. Amongst its avian brethren, it has within itself a most marked gregariousness, a fearlessness that toed the line between satisfying curiosity and playing out suicidal intentions.

To read through such taxonomy was a waste of time in his pursuit of transcendence, but a wariness gnawed within him on the prospect of returning home so soon. Another glance to the paper beside him. He wondered whether to have another confrontation, to dare invite the living shade that damned him. He turned another page only to find the beginnings of another bird's discussion. His hand clenched the corner of the book. He was no one's plaything. Now, this was a world of little matter to him. Every problem would just disappear. Absolutely disappear. The consequences did not matter.

He closed the book with a soft rustling of pages and at his feet, spotting the coming rays of light. He looked up, through the nearby window to the world outside and watched as the people walked by. He frowned in his shadowed corner. What is a looking glass to a door?

x-x

Gerald was alerted to the sound of a clattering lock. A swift peek around the archway caught Robert as he hung his coat on the rack, a package resting near his feet. Gerald announced notice for a hearty lunch but without a word, Robert swept past him, disappearing up the stairs, footsteps fading away. Gerald could not help to hide the disappointment on his face. He leaned against the wall and rubbed his shoulder. An old ache drained his eagerness for the day. From where he was, he could spy through the windows. An early afternoon sun, but off in the distance, dark clouds nary held at bay.

His hand fell from his shoulder as he sighed. As if he could sleep a night's misery away.

Robert made his way through the small halls, coming to an open door, Gerald's stead. Robert gave it none a thought but could not help as his neck craned in to look through as he passed. His gaze fell upon, in the corner of a spotless room, a pot of white violas sitting along a small lacquer box on a stout drawer. Robert huffed. He never understood why Gerald kept such care of the flowers. A hand raised to his chin. Thinking back, there were always so alive as if the idea of death never crossed their minds. The flowers always bloomed on time and their leaves forever green and crisp.

Robert shrugged and moved on to his room. As the lock clicked behind him, an ease settled over him and once more that day, he smiled.

The day passed on as the fading light led the dark lumbering clouds across the great expanse of the sky. One by one as the specks did multiply on the glass, did he wonder if then was the right time to intervene. The rain itself was lifeless, but cold and clear. To him rain no longer signaled wasted plans or flooding disaster. By his age, he had learned to take silence and idleness in stride. If only I had a good garden to clean up by the end of this shower, he chuckled.

Gerald settled the tea pot and cup on the platter. A hand brushed aside, opened a cabinet, and took from it a single candle already settled upon its holder. With a deft movement, he stuck a match and set alight a vague sort of courage. The fire danced in the many raindrops around him. From one light, there can be begot so many more against the darkness, he muttered. But ah, what can I do even if I know that, he sighed as he heaved his way on the steps.

Then too did Gerald pass his open door and too saw his white violas. With careful balance, his shifted the platter to one hand as the other closed the door. Is everything now a great shame to me, he ruminated with every step oddly growing heavier. Those flowers are better kept than you are, Robert. A sudden clattering prompted him to pause in step and rearrange his hands on the platter. Yet no matter the effort he put in and the changing of his hands could stop the platter from ever precariously leaning off to one side. His shoulder ached tremendously. A looser man would blame the weather Gerald supposed.

At last, the butler came to Robert's door and with three taps, urged the young man to supper.

"Escapism isn't good for the hunger sir," he intoned, the platter now resting at the foot of the door. Gerald waited but no reply. Another three taps and Gerald stroked his chin in wonder at how to make peace with his ward. He felt lost in this home of his, stranded by a door. He gaze fluttered about from ceiling to floor, ending on the dwindling candle on the platter at the foot of the door. I shouldn't dare cower and wait for petty remarks. Gerald made a fist and pounded on the door.

At last, there was the click and the creak of an opening door. Robert could not be seen but the piercing glare condemned nonetheless.

"What do you want," Robert snarled. Gerald crossed his arms and reciprocated the glare.

"I want to finish our talk from last night." A loud scoff met Gerald and Robert moved to close the door. A strong hand stopped the door in its swing. Gerald took advantage of Robert's momentary surprise and forced the door even with Robert leaning on the other side to open. Robert staggered back to the floor, scattering the papers around him. In the harsh candlelight, Gerald watched Robert's hard expression give way to subtle fear and disbelief. "I am not giving you a choice, Robert."

"Are you threatening me?" accused Robert, hardly hiding the rage. Gerald shook his head and carefully bent over to pick up the platter.

"Hardly" was the stout reply. Gerald stepped aside the still flustered scientist and laid the platter on a clean corner of the bureau. Robert watched the man in his infuriating transgressions. The serene calm that emanated from Gerald frustrated him to no end. At last with a heave, Robert stood up and grasped Gerald by the shoulders.

"Then why would you do this?" Robert shouted, hunched upon Gerald. Yet Gerald hardly flinched. Instead, he simply smoothed off Robert's grip and patted Robert on his shoulder.

"I do not know what has transpired the last few days to make you so irritable, but please let me assure you, I just want to have a good conversation bereft of all attempts of damned shallowness and I apologize to have it so roughly in this manner. I really do not know better how to phrase all this." Gerald revealed, idly fixing Robert's skewed collar. Robert wrested himself from Gerald.

"Do not keep me like your damned flowers," he glowered. The butler nodded.

"Aye, this is so. And at once when you became my responsibility, did I think I was able to do so. Do you understand, Robert? That we have yet to exchange a serious word between each other?"

"We have exchanged many the serious debates," Robert chided.

"Not the way I want such to be though. It always is the topic prematurely decided with no hope of digression," Gerald watched the small fire flicker on an ever waning wick. In this dark room, only his face was illuminated.

"Your point?" Robert went about collecting the papers off the floor but kept an ever watchful eye on his intruder.

"I want to try tonight, to satisfy your jealousy." Robert bit his lip. The word. This single word that speared through his reason. Why would he dare, his thoughts hissed. He was an unholy distraction to his wonderful goal. They had between them he considered an inoperable gravitas, so virulent and cruel as the fire of an only candle died between them. The faint moonlight revealed the smoke rising only to disappear.

"You mean, why I am your shame?" a darkness growled.

"You ask me what my shame is," Gerald laid short pause. "A very long time ago, I made a promise that I would keep you. Not as a pet, no. I never intended that. Indeed, that I would help you and guide you. I made this promise to everyone and they trusted me. And yet, I grew negligent, Robert. I grew complacent. I believe you to be incorruptible."

Robert snorted in disgust, but made no motion as to stop Gerald. In fact, a strange sense of rather driving curiosity stayed his hand and voice.

"As a former soldier I should have known better than that," Gerald chuckled halfheartedly, instinctively touching his aging wound at the shoulder. "Innocence does not survive long in this world."

"So do meager belligerents." Robert set the papers on the desk. His darkened eyes reading over the freshly finished blueprints with a deep hunger. As his fingers ran over the lines and calculations, there alighted within him the very familiar want of escape.

"I was supposed to help you." Six somber words broke his reverie and dragged him back to reality. "Not because I made the right choices but because I knew where the worst ones led. And yet, I betrayed everyone and even now, I cannot bear to do anything in my cowardice." Gerald took the candle in hand, the wax cold and brittle, the crumbs breaking and staining his hands. "I did nothing. I let you become the plaything of another. That is my shame Robert."

"How pathetic. Nothing but sentimental drivel," a whisper from the dark. Gerald raised the candle to his chest.

"Ah, but what else can it be? I'm sorry Robert if you expected some great design. Life is a bit simpler for me. I don't know how to inspire, to rouse exemplary achievement."

"I do not believe a promise is all that ties you here," it accused back.

"Whether or not you believe is inconsequential to whether or not it is; for that, it simply is," asserted Gerald.

"For that, you are insufferable. You have failed your promise and you have failed giving me a proper answer. For whatever is the reason that you choose to stay here, how can it be worth all this?"

"I have nothing else Robert. I do not often find a good place to stay nor do I have great dreams. Instead, I have my promises, dreams of others I pledged to protect. And despite my cowardice, I still," a pause, a sigh, and then Gerald looked straight into the blackness. "I still want to help and if I must, I will pay the price of my life to protect yours even if I do not know what to do." Gerald took a step deeper into the room, one open hand extended slightly in the air and the other holding as if the candle still had its roaring fire. "It is you Robert, my shame, and my hope and I was disappointed in myself last night about my words. I do not take so easily to conversation and I cannot shoot my words as easily as I can fire a gun, but this I know, is what I mean. I refuse, no more am I to be a coward in your presence. Please let me a chance to-"

"Get out," Robert mustering nothing more than a frustrated, whispered command, an unrequited forgiveness. Gerald's arms fell without a sound, a body turned to the door, but his gaze remained fixated to the figure before him.

"I understand, sir."

x-x

His heart may have felt lighter but by no means was it better. Gerald looked back. Robert lived at the end of the hall. He could barely see his door in the shadows. It was almost too easy to imagine, to realize, that one day he would open the door and find nothing.

Nothing at all but the endless, dark expanse.

Gerald rotated the burnt candle in his hand. He did not know what so urged him to take alone the candle. His head bowed before it and he rubbed his eyes in silent anxiety. A single voice occupied his mind. It is one thing to know the truth and another to act upon it. This voice had a face. It had a history. It had one thing that Gerald so very envied. If only you can decide for me, old friend, Gerald pleaded.

He slumped against the wall. Weak knees forced him to the ground. His hands still tightly clasped around the candle. But this candle was new if not slightly battered from the rough and tumble of his army knapsack. Gerald looked up and saw the faces of his regiment, all just as young and battered as the candle. They were all huddled around a fire; their setting obscured by the darkness around them. They all looked his way with awe as if they were in the presence of some great general. Gerald had nothing but confusion.

"What's with the candle?" Gerald heard but could not tell from who.

"It's a bit of a charm, really. A bit naff come to think of it." His voice even though he did not speak. He felt a stranger amongst his once closest friends. Yet the scene continued on whether or not he understood it. "Ma got me into it. Can't help it now, I suppose. Used to light it whenever we had troubles. She told me, we'd just burn away the worries. Always at night, then by morning's come, the candle would've died and we would start the day anew." The company laughed but one in the far back came in from the shadows. Gerald could not help but to smile and he knew the words.

"Then we light the wick."

x-x

The rain continued on with their incessant rapping upon the window panes. The escaping, silver moonlight that slipped through the curtains, across the wooden floor, sliding through the many messes, curving through the precious chinaware found itself on a very peculiar bureau and read a very peculiar line on paper of unearthly glow.

The consequences mean nothing in a universe no longer mine.