We still dream of the 4-hour workday

The loudest thing in the room was the ticking of the clock.

The air conditioning was a drone that easily faded from notice.

The people were silent, distant. Barely murmuring, only heard between the clock ticks.

A small cluster of people drifts closer; on the way to the printer? The copier? To talk to you?

You can't hear them any better.

They are drowned out by the clock, the ticking, ever muffled.

You stare at them blankly, waiting for them to pass or to make their demands.

You stare at them.

Waiting.

They don't notice. They pause, chatting amongst themselves.

You can't hear them, and don't care about anything they'd have to say.

The clock ticks.

Time passes.

Inspiration need only strike once

There... now no one can have it! No one will ever have such power!

BWA HA HA HA! Are you serious?

I've sabotaged the device! I've destroyed all the plans, the notes! No one will ever be able to use them again.

You fool! You blind, condescending FOOL. Don't you get it?

Get what?

The same thing that brought you here, that let you win... THAT will ENSURE that we'll have this again. Maybe not now, but someday.

What?!

Your blind, unrelenting stubbornness, your refusal to let go... don't you see? The barrier's been broken! People won't need the notes or the prototype, the fact that IT CAN BE DONE is enough!

No... no!

Yessss. People are relentless in pursuing impossible goals... now that they know that there IS finish line, that someone else has done it... they'll never let it go. They'll figure out OTHER ways of doing it. More efficient ways. Cheaper ways. More powerful ways. Safer ways. In a sense, I should be thanking you... with the plans gone, people will find other methods, ways that aren't so easy to destroy. Rather than cribbing off the notes, they'll make up their own prototypes.

Even devotion must know limits

She wandered through the desert, eyes closed. Direction didn't matter. The position of the sun didn't matter. Following dunes didn't matter.

Sand. Heat. Being alone. Those mattered.

She burned, under the sun, on the sands. She never stopped walking, never slept, never drank.

Eventually, inevitably, she ran out of desert and hit the coast.

She'd ignored the sound of the surf, but when she stepped in the water, she stopped. Forcing her eyes open after so long was painful, but necessary.

Seeing all that water, seeing that the desert could end... she trembled for a moment. A furious, horrified wail tore itself out of her throat as she stared, minutes stretching out. Before her breath gave out, she spun around and fled back into the desert.

Prevarication is, today, an example of equivocation

He lied.

He tilted his head to one side, listened to them, and consoled them with all the sympathy in the world.

He tilted his head the other way, and promised the world to those that wanted it.

He lied, and they loved him for it.

He nodded and swore he could make it all happen.

He lied, and lied, and lied.

He was caught out, and forgiven, and believed again.

He never changed, though. He did nothing, nothing but lie.

Coercion and focus

Look over there.

What is it?

Just look.

I'm busy.

It's right there!

And I'm busy! Just tell me about it.

No, you have to see this.

No, I don't.

Come on! Look!

Just use your words. I'm in the middle of something here.

It'll only take a second!

I don't care! I'm not looking!