IGMS Issue 49 (11 page)

I stare up at the tree canopy, at the unseen dawn. The sunbeam I freed will bring the Sun news of me. The Sun will wait, as it always does, its wrath unsated.

You can still have your name
, the map says.
For a price.

The map is honest, at least.

"You fled the Sun once," the wolf says. "If you step within its sight again, it will destroy you, and it will not be quick."

"I know," I reply.

"We can find peace now," the raven says. "It is your choice if you do the same."

Wolf and raven turn, side-by-side, and disappear into the Woods.

I stay on my knees, shivering in the cold.

As I look into the Woods, where the ghosts faded, the shadows curl thickly. For a moment, I catch a glimmer of that face, the one I turned my back on the Sun to find. The darkness is here. It has a name for me all its own.

Will it take me back, even with what I have done?

(I was as bright as the Sun, once. The dark has every right to destroy me as I did the wolves.)

I ignore the map. I will find my own way now; the dawn will always be waiting.

I walk into the Woods in search of darkness.

Graham hit 'return' and pushed back from his office desk in satisfaction. Boss though he was, no one could accuse him of running a boring workplace. Out of all the other business and environmental science double majors he knew, none of them were doing anything as awesome as operating a company out of a reclaimed industrial building in the middle of State forest. He spun a few times in his Aeron chair and came to rest facing the windows overlooking the river. Recent rain had swollen the rapids, and the air outside pulsed with the sound of tumbling water.

His parents would have been thrilled that he spent their bequest on the mill. They went the way they would have wanted, in a bus accident on the way to an environmental protest. Still, he wished they could have stood alongside him when he'd seen it for the first time. The three-story building, tucked snugly between the slopes of the Delaware Water Gap, offered all the space his business would need: a ground level housing the mill's old machinery, a second-floor office space, and a sprawling third-floor warehouse. When he'd stood on the building's flat roof, the view of the gorge and surrounding forest had sold him on the spot.

The mill's freight elevator clunked open downstairs. Graham straightened up in anticipation as it groaned upwards. When the doors rolled back, Ed sauntered in, shaking the remnants of a bag of granola into his mouth. His bike helmet dangled from one arm.

"Morning," Graham said.

"Mrnn," Ed replied.

"Surprised you didn't use the stairs."

Ed switched on his computer and plopped into his chair. "The only thing holding the steps together is rust. You don't use them either."

"I'm usually carrying boxes for the office."

Holding in his glee, Graham watched Ed click open his email, read, and slowly put the granola bag aside. He kept his eyes averted when Ed briefly leaned out from behind his computer. The sound of typing followed.

Graham snorted.

Ed shot him a wry look and stabbed at his keyboard.

Ah, Ed. That competitive streak was one of the reasons Graham had hired him in the first place. Two days after the Assistant Manager opening went up on the Nature's Mill site, Ed had physically stopped by to drop off his resume. Ballsy, but the impromptu interview had gone so well that they'd been kicking back on the roof with two bottles of Graham's homebrew by the afternoon. Graham's first impression of Ed's work ethic proved true. Three days into the job, he'd fixed the glitch in the website's ordering form and realigned the counterweight system of the elevator.

Reflecting on Ed's background in Mechanical Engineering now, in light of the present challenge, Graham felt the first inkling that he was, possibly, screwed. His gaze fell on the space where the copy machine had been. Ed had converted the company's financial records to an online system, eliminating paper waste and toner cartridges. He'd also made noise about getting the mill's old turbines running and becoming 100% hydroelectric. "Think of all the power we're sitting on!" Ed was fond of exclaiming. If he made good on it, how could Graham compete?

"I'll make a chart of our carbon points," he blurted out, drawing Ed's attention away from the computer screen. "You're right. We track everything. Energy use. Food. Transportation. Recycling and waste."

"Total commitment," Ed said.

Graham carried on, unable to stop himself. "The loser blogs to the world a public apology. And an analysis of his failure."

"I don't need an incentive chart. This isn't about ego. It's about the planet," Ed said.

"Keeping score will teach the public."

Ed stared in the direction of the mist rising off the river, stroking the side of his jaw.

"Okay?" Graham asked.

Ed's gaze was clear and steady. "Yes. It's on."

"Well." Graham said. He rose from his desk, suddenly feeling the need to assert control. "I sold fourteen of those new compost buckets with the charcoal filters yesterday. Got to get that shipment packed up."

"Right on, champ," said Ed. He put his palm up in the air.

Graham high-fived it as he passed.

Just as the elevator doors closed, he heard a derisive snort.

Graham's hand darted for the 'stop' button, then pulled back.
The idiot just took a shot at me
, he thought.
That high-five and that "champ" comment were totally sarcastic. Undermining my leadership. And I played right into it
. As he rode the freight elevator up one level, indignation lashed at him.

He exited into the welcome solitude of the warehouse. Even in summers as warm as the current one had been, the place remained damp. White mineral trails seeped from the seams in the concrete block walls, and when it rained, dark patches appeared on the oil-stained floors. Graham rummaged through cardboard boxes and crates, gathering his items on a cart. Compost buckets. Solar dehydrators. Kits for growing your own wheatgrass. Birds tweet-tweeted between the I-beams overhead. He didn't mind sharing the space with those that flew in; the windows were barred, like those in the rest of the building, but otherwise open to the elements.

In Ed's first months of employment, the long afternoons in the warehouse had actually helped Graham get Ed to loosen up. Ed was single-minded, focused. Nothing like Graham's previous hire, who never stopped texting long enough to appreciate his kickass surroundings. Graham found that together, he and Ed were hyper-productive all-stars, often getting the day's ordering, shipping, and bookkeeping done with two or three hours to spare. Afterwards, they'd run around the warehouse like college hooligans, hooting and yelling to hear their voices resound in the cavernous space.

Next was the gamut of office-sports. Broomball on rollerblades, bumping into crates. Office chair crack-the-whip, ending in scraped elbows and bleeding ankles. "Life is compost! Food for worms!" Graham would holler. It was a favorite, fatalistic battle cry from his party days. "But damn it, for now, I'm alive!" Google headquarters had professional masseuses, gourmet chefs, and office ping-pong. He and Ed had their concrete playground. Let those cubicle sell-outs run Wall Street. This was life in the raw.

Halfway to the shelves with the boxes of packing tape, Graham slid, his foot rolling on an object. His ankle wrenched sideways.

"Gah!" He glared. Some feet away, a Whiffle ball spun lazily and came to a stop. The previous week, he and Ed had batted dozens of them as hard as they could at a makeshift target on the warehouse wall. When Ed realized he'd beaten Graham for once, his eyes went rolling and wide in victory. "Ha!" he screamed, pumping his arms in something between a mad jig and a seizure. Graham wondered then, for the first time, if he had let things go too far.

He retrieved the ball and squeezed it, hard. Honestly, the "employee management" moments of his job had always given him a twinge of discomfort, making him feel like some confrontational blowhard in a suit and cufflinks. He might have asked his parents for advice, if they were still alive. But what could they have taught him about authority? He'd operated on a first-name basis with them since diaperdom. Proposing the contest might have been a mistake, but he couldn't lose face by calling it off in front of the blogosphere.

On the other hand, if he won it, he'd show Ed who was boss, once and for all.

When Graham rolled the cart out of the elevator onto the second floor, he stopped at Ed's workstation. Ed was revamping the company website again, and didn't even look up until Graham set the Whiffle ball on the corner of his desk. The furrows of concentration on Ed's face abruptly gave way to surprise.

"No more games," Graham said. "Not until someone wins."