Many thanks to wolfbait and Arquenniel for the lovely reviews!
I'll try to get a second one up before Sunday.
4. Puppets
Boredom.
It's terrible vice had Will in a strangle hold. If it was possible to die from lack of something to do, his vision would be fading, the world's bright colors being siphoned away with murky darkness.
Glancing up at the only other being in the room, he sighed loudly, hoping for the slightest iota of commiseration. She was his fiancé after all. If he couldn't get her to feel for him then he might as well have RMS Titanic stamped across his shirt.
A rushed smile was the meager lifeboat offered him before her amber eyes flicked back to the computer screen. He'd lost to daffodils, roses, ribbons, and heaven knows what else.
Elizabeth had tried to explain the importance to him, the differences between some twisted red flower and a pale yellow flower with wide smooth petals. All it had accomplished was to waste ten minutes. Will was left to wonder at the quirks of the females that some plant might send them into a tizzy.
He slumped back against the couch. Work was slow right now, leaving him no blueprints to pour over. The ceiling had lost it's interest long ago. He turned to plucking idly at the fringe on the pillow at his side.
"Elizabeth?"
"Hmm."
"Have you found what you wanted yet?" He hoped against hope itself that she might say yes.
"Not yet."
And so it was that Will's eyes returned to roving the little room for something to do. A brightly colored sock lay near a basket of clean laundry. A moment later it was in his hand.
The soft cotton slid through his fingers easily. The little smiling faces staring back up at him, mocking his misery. He'd been with Elizabeth when she'd purchased the pair of socks. She thought they were adorable. He wasn't so easily swayed.
But as his hand slid up the center of the sock he couldn't help admitting that they were soft...the tip brushed his fingers and he made a fist, the fabric bending around his palm.
Oddly enough, it looked vaguely like a puppet. The kind he used to see in thrift store's streaked windows with buttons for eyes, yarn for hair, and a red felt tongue sewn into the heel of the stocking for effect.
In fact, if he twisted his hand just so, the smiling faces morphed into a pair of curious yellow-black eyes, a snout nose, and a twisted little tongue.
"Will, do you think this goes with the…" Elizabeth's distracted voice trailed off into nothing.
He looked up curiously to see that her eyes were focused on his hand, the makeshift puppet's head cocked to the side. Suddenly, he felt an unexplainable urge to justify his newfound friend. "I, uh…it's not what…it's a puppet, see?" The sound of throat clearing echoed oddly in the now silent room.
The slightest hint of a smile played at the corner of her mouth.
He tore the sock off as if it burned him and walked to her side. "What did you need, babe?"
Amusement and a touch of understanding flickered in the depths of her eyes and she turned back to the computer screen. "I like these two. But I can't decide which…"
And for the rest of the night, Will was her attentive helper, the infamous pink sock crumpled firmly in the center of his palm.