Yes,
something feels very different.
Dirk’s hands begin to shake, so violently that he drops his
screwdriver into the chassis of the battle bot he’s working on. It
clangs around for a bit, landing somewhere that will doubtlessly be
very inconvenient to retrieve. It doesn’t matter. There’s no more
time for rap battles, or politics, or wacky hijinks of an
adventurous nature. There’s no time left for anything.
Moisture beading at his temples, Dirk staggers away from his
workbench and braces himself against the wall. His knees are weak,
head spinning, palms so sweaty that the concrete feels smooth under
them. He nearly drops his phone while attempting to dramatically
autodial Jane’s number through the haze of his trembling, sudorific
stupor.
DIRK: Hey, Jane. Bad news.
DIRK: Cancel everything.
JANE: Excuse me, what?
DIRK: All plans.
DIRK: Cancel them.
DIRK: It’s over.
JANE: What’s over, Dirk?
DIRK: I just told you. Everything.
DIRK: Because we’re canceling it.
JANE: Dirk, are you quite okay?
DIRK: Yeah, I’m cool.
JANE: You sound terrible.
JANE: It’s unlike you to call quits on a caper like
this without offering a lengthy diatribe on it.
DIRK: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention.
DIRK: Lengthy diatribes are over too.
DIRK: They’re canceled.
Jane gasps loudly, without a hint of
irony.
JANE: I don’t understand.
DIRK: Don’t worry about it.
DIRK: Just do what I say.
He hangs up on her and brings up his contacts
so that he can text Jake and cancel all their televised fights for
the foreseeable forever. He then blocks Jake’s number,
because if it’s not worth explaining to Jane, it’s definitely not
worth explaining to Jake. Then again, nothing is ever really worth
explaining to Jake. Jake’s number is barely even worth storing in
his phone, if Dirk is being perfectly honest.
Through the workshop window, Dirk can see the sun touching the
horizon. Ah, exquisite: he takes a moment to appreciate the sublime
synthesis of the atmosphere and the existential crisis he is
currently experiencing. The sun is setting both physically and
metaphorically right now. Not bad, he thinks, then
corrects himself, because while there is always time to delight in
the volatility of causality, the whole situation is actually and
for real astonishingly bad.