Morning conversation

[B.D. Adams]

In the crisp early morning hours of the day the messenger located his recipient for delivery just where he was told the person would. Knocking twice upon the door, the delivery guy opened the door and entered. Overall the room was dark and there was just enough light creeping through manila curtains to prevent someone from looking like a fool by falling over anything. The floor was not cluttered. Sitting at a writing desk, it’s lamp turned on and light directed to the miniature ivory statue that was being held between the two fingers of Benjamin Daniel Adams. The eyepiece of a microscope was in the other hand as he was examining the object in his other. The messenger stepped forward and held out the folded letter. “A letter sir. It came for you this morning.”

A slow turn of his head, how he hated being disturbed while in the midst of working even if he had given them a reason as to the terms for disruption. The eyepiece was set down and the letter taken up without so much as a nod to the messenger. He had delivered the message, that was his job, no reason to puff the man’s head up for something as simple as delivering a letter. Whether the man now stayed or went was his own prerogative. To properly read it he had to put the statue down, and so he did, the sound of it rocking on the writing desk a second or two before settling. Upon the letters opening he read the first few lines and discovered that it was something he had been waiting for.

• Two hours later •

There was something to be said about the quietness of a winter morning. Beautiful in it's own way, the sun drawing illustrations on the snowy ground with shadows. The air was chilly and not much was heard outside of the animals and shopkeepers arriving early to set up for the day and secure a prime location in the Marketplace.

A large gated stone wall separated The Marketplace from it's neighboring city New Haven and, for what he knew, the gates never closed but monitored by local patrolmen. Benjamin was loitering at this wall, a few short bushes speckled here and there, hands in the pocket of his leather coat as he leaned laxidazically. To the passerby it looked as he was simply standing there with his head slightly bowed, watching the small meandering of people.

"I don't think it's a good idea."

"You're paid to do a job, not to think. Now get it done." The one to whom he spoke wasn't seen and could have been coming from any of the surrounding bushes. The direction of it not certain.

From within the confines of his smoke grey blazer, out he pulled a small object, wrapped doubly in a dark cloth. This object was offered out and vanished soon thereafter. Disappearing into thin air. "Show them that and you shouldn't have any trouble at all." His hand was pulled back and placed back in his pocket. Benjamin turned to place his back against the wall. "Be quick about it. There is a daimon there; quite possibly two."

There were things he had left to do, and there were people which he had to attend. Dates to keep. With all the other complications that rested about he didn't have the time for incompetence.

"But aren't you --"

"I'd watch my tongue if I were you." Benjamin's words snapped, holding only a small degree of annoyance. The morning was getting on and more people would soon be making their way around. "We are done." He pushed off from the wall to meander through the Marketplace in the morning hours of the day.