The Reverend made a flick of his wrist that sent the tip of the fly sailing across the office to land on his bookshelf. It helpfully caught on a leather-bound edition and wedged itself firmly inside the cover. Vicki entered the office to find the Reverend reeling in a copy of the Good Book with some relish, until it edged past the lip of the bookshelf and dropped loudly onto the floor. Vicki tried to keep her eyes downcast, but couldn't avoid seeing the slightly bemused grin of the Reverend.

He was kitted out in waders, a belt, vest and silly hat. 'Come in Victoria!' he said cheerfully.

Victoria picked up the bible from the floor and placed it carefully back into its slot on the bookshelf. The Reverend reeled in his fly and lay the bamboo rod down across his desk. He sighed, and then appeared to muster his resolve. Vicki stood, waiting. 'Sit, sit.' he commanded. Vicki dutifully sat opposite him.

'Victoria, your commitment and service to this ministry have been nothing short of heroic.' He paused. 'Frankly, I think we've been selfish in allowing you to…'

'You're firing me?' Vicki asked quietly.

The Reverend shook his head. 'Not in a million years. We've had an offer from the Evangelical Ministries Association to pass the transmission license in.'

Vicki was devastated. Her head began to hurt. The Reverend saw her distress and quickly moved around the table to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He looked down into her dark eyes, shining with tears. 'Now don't you start that my girl.'

The Reverend leaned back across the desk and pulled over a set of papers, shuffling them into order and donning his reading glasses. 'The EMA will add our transmission area to their own. I have of course, set some conditions, notably, the promotion of our leading producer.' He looked at her warmly. 'I'm leasing, not selling. That's so I can make sure they hold to their end of the bargain, and that's you my child.'

'I don't understand.' Said Vicki

'They get our transmitter and you get your own show. And a pay rise.'

Vicki felt the earth crumbling away from her.

The reverend frowned. 'I thought you'd be happy. Lord knows you deserve it.'

The Reverend took off his reading glasses and turned them over and over in his fingers. 'You've got a promising future ahead of you Victoria, this should be the beginning of a career, not the end of it.' He passed over an envelope. 'And this is from Margie and me.'

Vicki took the envelope without opening it, holding it limply in her fingers. The Reverend looked excitedly at her. 'Go on, open it.'

Vicki robotically opened the envelope and looked at a cheque, made out to her. She stared it at numbly. The Reverend took her expression as shock. 'Now don't think we're being overly generous, you are well worth it.' He stood up, taking her hands and helping her to rise. 'and I expect to tune in regularly to your new show.' Vicki looked at him beseechingly, but said nothing.

---

The clothes tumbled round and round in the dryer. Vicki watched them, absorbed in the chaotic fluctuations of sleeves and underwear. The radio was playing an old Hall & Oates song, in between bursts of product exhortations and a reminder to stay tuned to Classic Rock. The launderette was one of the few places to stay open much past 9 o'clock. The benefits of small town living. Vicki hadn't been further North since College. Town was bigger now, with more development starting to edge outwards into the farmland. It made her feel uneasy again and she shivered. A cough from behind her signalled someone seeking her attention.

It was the dark haired boy again, hovering nervously a few machines away, making it plain that he wasn't encroaching on her personal space. Vicki took the liberty of studying him overtly. He had pretty eyelashes and nice eyes above a wispy stubble that threatened to darken into a beard. He was dressed in cheap bluejeans and a grey t-shirt and had his nervous hands stuffed into his pockets as she studied him; he shuffled from foot to foot. 'Er. Hi.' He said, quietly.

Vicki remained impassive, waiting.

He stepped forward. 'I'm JJ. We met the other day.'

'Are you stalking me?'

JJ's jaw dropped. He blushed.

'Ah no, I'm not stalking you, I ah, um, you, ah.' He blathered, wishing mightily for an escape, maybe an earthquake, a heart attack, anything. 'Help me out here, I'm drowning.' he finished.

Vicki just stared at him. JJ's prayers were answered by the chime of the dryer as it finished its cycle. Vicki began unloading her clothes as if he wasn't there.

JJ waited whilst she loaded the basket and placed it on top of the next machine.

She began folding the clothes. JJ gathered up his courage and started to help her fold them. Vicki picked apart each garment as he placed it down and refolded it correctly. He watched her do it and tried to repeat the motions. The two of them stood in the otherwise empty launderette and folded clothes.

JJ walked silently back to the car beside Vicki, feeling a darkened sense of Déjà vu. Once again, she stopped in front of her car and placed the basket on the ground. JJ was almost dancing in frustration. She opened the door and climbed into the car; JJ's hand shot out and grabbed the window ledge. 'At least give me your number!' he begged.

Vicki opened her purse and took out a card. She wrote her number neatly down on the reverse side and handed it to him. JJ blinked, looking down at the card and then back at her. 'Thank you for helping me fold' she said flatly and started the car.

JJ took his hand away from the door as it clicked shut and the car pulled forward and out into the road. JJ watched it drive away, still blinking. He scratched absently at his head with the card in his hand, and then turned it over to read the phone number. He grinned and thumped the air. 'YES!' he shouted, echoing back from the closed storefronts. He pocketed the card and set off with a skip of his heels.

---

The field was awash with flowers open to the sun, except she knew it wasn't light, but his love, radiating down from the heavens. She couldn't meet his eye, but she knew he was watching her. He loved her. She was a flower in the field. His warmth touched her, her petals crinkled inwards as if caressed. She felt as if bursting with joy. Then night fell and the garden was gone.

Vicki sat bolt upright in bed looking at the dark blue shadows of night on her walls and realized she was awake.

---

The truck had difficulty navigating from asphalt to dirt. It had to hit the bank of earth at the edge of the road at an angle. It teetered precariously until a little firm pressure on the accelerator and much cursing from the driver sent it into a crumbling dirt slide onto the grass. The driver braked before he collided with the trees, leaving wide furrows in the moist earth. Phil waved directions from outside the cab.

The driver ignored them for a moment then submitted to direction and clawed around in the grass until he found better purchase on the dirt track.

Phil looked at the ruined section of earth at the gate and plotted silently to kill the idiot with his pitchfork. The driver eventually wound his window down and gave a sheepish smile. 'Sorry about the grass.' He said, seeing the angry welts in his side mirror.

Phil flexed his large brown fingers in and out, like an angry starfish. The driver got an idea what the imaginarily squeezed object was. He chose the passenger door to make an exit from the truck and ran around to the back section, unhooking the tarpaulins and starting the crane motor. Phil walked around to stand beside him. He dwarfed the driver. The driver handed him part of the tarpaulin.

'Here, help me get this off.' He said, gesturing at the coverings. Phil grunted and pulled at them. Together, the dragged the tarps away from the blocks. Phil whistled at the size of them.

'These are the billets. The other stuff is stacked underneath. You got a truck or a cart to put these into?' The driver asked, cautiously.

Phil hopped up onto the back of the truck and inspected the metal slabs. Charlie was going to get a kick out of these. 'What the hell are they?' he called to the driver.

'Mostly aluminum, some steel and a little copper.' The driver hopped up beside him. 'You make aircraft or something?'

Phil grinned, testing his strength against the edge of a billet. The billet was not about to budge and he didn't feel like a hernia today. 'It's for sculpture. So we gonna use your crane?'

The driver nodded. 'Oh boy yes. Where do you want it?'

Phil jumped down from the truck bed and disappeared into the prefab metal shed. A moment later a small forklift puttered out from the shed and docked at the side of the truck. 'Fill'er up' called Phil.

'Jeez that's a lot of metal' Charlie said admiring the billets. Her hand reached out automatically to run her fingers along the brushed edges. She could feel the liquidity of the metal waiting for her below the surface. The aluminum wanted to give way, unlike the fighting temperament of the steel. Visions of lacework and lattices crowded her mind. She grinned at Phil. 'Cool' she said.

'Great, because I ain't shifting it back out.' he said, exhausted. 'The driver wanted to know if you were building an airplane.' he chuckled to himself, but Charlie was already lost in the stack of billets.

'Ok.' He called. 'I'm gonna go.' Charlie waved a goodbye hand over the top of the pile.

Phil groaned as he got to his feet. 'Sure, you're welcome.'

Charlie took a couple of seconds to register and stood back up to thank him, but he was already outside and driving the fork back down the road.

She returned to the pile, selected a billet and used a small garage hoist to upright it in the centre of the room. When it was stable, she placed another billet in the hoist and levered it up to hang above the first. She touched the top surface of the base billet and the underside of the one in the hoist and then lowered the hoist until they touched with a wet smacking sound and runoff bulged like toothpaste in between the two blocks. She used a trowel to scrape the excess away, focusing on the seam, keeping it just warm enough to remain plastic, without collapsing into a puddle.

When the two billets were fused and stable, she repeated the process, moving her ladder to gain enough height to position the next billet. Piece by piece she assembled the billets into a monolith that stretched toward the ceiling.

Working the aluminum, she felt its inherent yearning to burn. A flame locked into metal. Charlie had her inspiration. She began to sculpt.

---

The truck driver moved his spoon around in the beans, making yet more furrows. He smiled. The diner was emptying with the last diners of the 'after work' crowd that rushed in for stomach lining before hitting the working bars. The alcoholic school bus driver sitting at the counter was taking furtive nips from a flask and dropping them in his coffee when he thought no one was looking. Two city workers were lying to each other over the remains of a chili plate special. A student was near the door, reading feverishly from some overly intellectual magazine and eating his sandwich in miserly bites to stretch out the time.

The door opened and a middle aged man in a raincoat entered.

'So much for subtlety.' The truck driver thought to himself.

The man sat at the counter and ordered dinner from the waitress who untucked a pen from her hair and wrote it all down very slowly. The truck driver waited for him to make contact. Instead, the man asked for hot sauce, finished his meal in a hurried gulping fashion, threw money on the tabletop and departed quickly.

By now, the truck driver was finished with his own meal and pushed the plate away. He left a tip and walked towards the door. As he passed the student, the student tipped him a wink, or a leer, or something in between. The truck driver paused at the door, as if adjusting his shoes.

'Got anything for me?' said the student.

'You look like a fucking hippy' muttered the truck driver.

'Fuck you jack; you thought it was the guy in the raincoat, right?'

The driver smiled. 'You got me there.'

'Outside in two minutes. The green VW.' Said the student. The driver stood and pushed the door open.

The driver was leaning against the side of the battered VW waiting. The student waved a hand. 'So. Here we are.'

The trucker nodded. 'yup. Here we are.'

The student looked irritated. 'I'm bored already. Hurry up and tell me so I can get the fuck out of here.'

The trucker waited. 'I think we can do better than this.' He said.

'Meaning what exactly?' said the student.

The truck driver narrowed his gaze. 'Meaning you can behave a little more professionally, or I can kick your ass.'

The student laughed. 'Oh please.'

The truck driver stepped into the students' personal space and confronted him, nose to chin. Peering down at him, the student still felt threatened and stepped back a pace. The truck driver seized his thin jacket lapels and pulled him down to eye level.

He held up a small memory stick and dropped it into his pocket. 'Here's some photo's I took for you. You can tell them I didn't put eyes on the subject, but there's nothing there, just some big guy and a few sheds. It's all on the stick.' He released the student, who stepped back.

The student touched his pocket to feel the memory stick. 'Ok, right. Got it.'

'That's better.' The trucker gave a curt nod and walked back towards the truck. 'Where do they get these people today?' he wondered aloud.

He didn't hear the sound of the shot, but felt the inrush of sharp air as it passed through his lungs. He fell towards the car park gravel, holding a hand to his chest. It came away with the bright red of blood heavy with oxygen.