Current Novel Excerpt: Returning to work

Here's another little chunk of the first draft of the novel I'm writing. Baranatalo has been fired from his job, but returns the next day in an attempt to restore his routines. The following takes place shortly after he is noticed by Lemont, his former coworker in the mailroom. I thought it might be nice to include a piece from one of the few times in the novel where someone is talking to Baranatalo.

*****

“Go, man. Please. You don’t work here. Not anymore.” Lemont looks like he himself might cry now, as though he were shooing away a beloved puppy at a roadside.

A single envelope drips from Baranatalo’s hand as it begins to shake.

“Not anymore,” Baranatalo echoes.

“That’s right, man. Not anymore.”

“I don’t like English muffins. Not anymore.” This is the first time he has given voice to the thought that has been beating against the side of his skull for the entirety of his morning, if not longer. He replaces the envelopes on the table and bends down to retrieve the one he has dropped.

“I don’t like English muffins. Not anymore,” he says again as he stands and puts the errant mail on the table. This time he says it more urgently, as though this were the one thing Lemont needs to know about him. A small cackle breaks forth from his lips in a spasm.

“That’s cool man. No English muffins. No problem.” Lemont’s eyes have lost their pitying quality and gained something harder. He has spread his arms out and lowered his center of gravity. He is preparing himself should Baranatalo attack him, should the situation require physical intervention or restraint.

“My name is not Barry,” Baranatalo says in a loud voice which startles them both. Another cackle escapes him and even he is starting to feel like he has taken Lemont hostage somehow. He is not used to so much eye contact, but Lemont does not look away.

“Yeah, okay, man. Not Barry, no English muffins. We’re all good here. Check on both counts.” Lemont is attempting to sound soothing, and moving back and forth on the balls of his feet.

Baranatalo stares into Lemont’s eyes for a long moment before lunging toward the door. Lemont flinches but holds his ground, proud of himself for having sucessfully averted a crisis. He feels this way in spite of the fact that Baranatalo has not moved toward him at all, but rather fled the room in a rush.

Lemont peeks out from behind the door to check Baranatalo’s passage through the office, wondering if he should call someone, wondering if Baranatalo is planning to attack someone else. Baranatalo is already at the elevator, pressing the call button repeatedly. A man stands next to him, also waiting for the elevator. He does not see the look of horror on Baranatalo’s face, just watches the jabbing finger and chuckles.

“I’m not sure hitting it again makes it come any faster,” the man says.

“My name is not Barry,” Baranatalo replies, darting to his left to take the stairs instead.

Tick...

Still down with migraine, still spending a lot of time in the dark. Today I spent an awful lot of time thinking about time. Time has become a major character in my novel, and the nature it displays is sometimes confusing to me. I've been sorting out why it is behaving as it does within my pages, what it means, how it affects my tale.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that time is behaving strangely in my own life. I have nothing to add to that sentence.

Below is another chunk of first-draft fun from my novel, which touches on some of the time issues I've been thinking and thinking about. I'll still be thinking about this tomorrow.

*****

There is a woman on the train listening to music through a device she has attached by thin wires directly to her ears so as to keep the sounds it produces private and neither annoy nor entertain the other passengers. Baranatalo does not see her.

The musical device is not a common sight on the train in 1986, as it is not a portable device for playing cassette tapes or tuning in radio waves from nearby broadcasters. It is not even designed for the playback of the relatively new compact disc, which stores music digitally, as a series of ones and zeros which through some alchemy are far more accurate at reproducing sounds than the magnetic blips of a cassette tape. Her device is small and sleek and can hold more information than all the computers in Baranatalo’s workplace put together, and yet its sole purpose is the playback of music. It has no other real function. The woman Baranatalo does not see is separated from him by an approximate distance of thirteen feet and twenty years.

There are, of course, millions and millions of people on the train whom Baranatalo cannot see. At every stop, getting on, getting off. They sit over and over again in the same seats, crowd for positioning at the poles which provide leverage and balance for standing passengers. Their hands overlap and pass through one another. There are too many to ever count, and they blur and swim in our vision. Likewise the train itself passes through from time to time, to those who can see these things.

Three young men in crew cuts and horn-rimmed glasses discuss their standing in the involuntary military draft at the back of the car. One expresses a concern that he will not fare well in the government lottery, as his assigned number is considered precariously low. There is a war going on somewhere that he would like to avoid, and he speculates aloud that by becoming a cleric or attending classes at a University, he might avoid the drafting process altogether.

If we focus hard on these men, the woman with the music device vanishes. Harder still, taking in the type on the newspapers in their hands and the styles of their clothing and Baranatalo vanishes, too. We are left with only the thousands of people with similar garb and manner who also blur into one another and through one another on their way to the places of their lives.

*****

The "Endless Hour" contest is closed to new entries, and I'm really looking forward to sifting through the entries tomorrow. There are 59 in total, which is a fair amount more than I got for the GBA(s)FC, but he's been doing this longer and clearly has a much more popular blog.

Click on over and check out the entries. Some of my Blogfriends are over there, in addition to my own entry. I'm not expecting to win anything, but am happy that I entered, and delighted at the positive feedback I've received from the readers over there. My story had generated 18 comments, last time I checked, which is a lot more than the things I write here seem to draw, so it's nice to feel like I'm being read outside of my normal group of Blogreaders.

It's all very encouraging. It makes me want to start getting stories out in the mail and into the hands of editors, the sooner to feel the flip-side and start gathering up my rejection slips. Apparently, three rejection slips is the number the government requires to officially call yourself a writer.

Workers, white space, "Without Rose"

Those of you who have been reading for a while may recall this post, in which I detailed my first day of my recent bout of Dayworking. One of the many puzzling scenarios in which I found myself involved cake, and a strange cake immunity I noticed among some of the Workers.

Today I went in to pick up a check, and while I was there, the intercom once again sang its siren song of free cake to be found in the breakroom. This time, I was free to go in and get a slice.

So there's balance in some things, at least.

*****

I spent a lot of time today looking at a page upon which is written only the words "Chapter Fifteen." My hope is that later tonight or tomorrow morning I will fill it with something more.

*****

Below is my entry to the Clarity of Night "Endless Hours" contest. It's very short, but I hope it tells a story even in its brevity. People have been very nice to it so far over there, which is a bit of a relief, even though I wouldn't have expected attacks or anything. I'm still not sure how I feel about it myself.

Many of the comments I've received so far concern the "twist" at the end, which I found surprising. I guess I didn't think of it like that. It certainly isn't of the "I sold my pocket watch to buy you this comb" type.

Posting this technically violates one of my rules that I have set for my blog: I am not really permitted to edit anything that is posted here. My rule is basically that the writings here be extemporaneous, and when I post fiction it is always the first draft. I guess my story for the contest never technically went through a second draft, but since I submitted it somewhere as "final," it's still technically breaking the rules.

Rules are nice sometimes, but they certainly aren't everything.

*****

"Without Rose"
by maht wells

The front door let out a creak and Tim nearly bolted, letting the exhilaration of coming close be enough. This was his dare, though, and he intended to prove himself. He felt his brother’s eyes on his back as he crossed the threshold.

They’d lain in the bushes and watched the old man push through the crooked screen door and pick his way to the truck. Tim had never heard the old man speak, had only seen him moving from house to truck and back again, and once in a great while sitting out front in an ancient metal deck chair.

He shut the door behind him and stood still as his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. As the green wash faded, he was able to make out a pile of magazines stacked next to an easy chair, and an enormous, overflowing ashtray on the coffee table.

It was when he reached the kitchen that he thought about Rose, once the old man’s wife. Even Tim could feel her absence as he stared at the piling sink, the fallen curtain, the decay. This was his first real image of death, the effects of it and what life could become to those left behind. He would carry this kitchen with him.

“Tim!” His brother’s voice, from outside, probably halfway home already. The old man had returned.

Tim stood still for another moment, weighing his options before he turned on the water, squeezing soap from the bottle onto the dishes.

Current Novel Excerpt: Adventure!

Baranatalo closes in on Michigan Avenue, where the map he consulted before leaving the house has instructed him to turn right again and walk south. He believes he will recognize the building when he gets near. It has been years, but he has been there before. There are lions atop the stairs in front of the building, he recalls. He will look out for lions.

A rumble from his stomach reminds him that he has still not eaten any breakfast, and he ducks into a cafe to obtain something suitable. He has no idea what sorts of foods he might like. He is nervous to try anything but an English muffin, but forces himself to order a bagel sandwich instead. It sounds exotic, and he hopes he will enjoy it. The word “bagel” comes up as corollary to a type of fish in his mind, and he wonders what sort of fish it will be, what sort of fish people choose to consume for breakfast.

The woman at the counter is named Gladys, according to her badge, and she receives his order impassively, not looking at him or asking any follow-up questions, attempting to persuade him to also purchase this or that. He had hoped that she might appraise him anew when he asked for the bagel, that she might be impressed with his worldly discernment. She calls out “Next!” in a flat, weary voice while he is still standing there.

Baranatalo moves down the length of the counter to await his food, and soon a man in a hairnet reaches over the tall counter to hand him a red plastic mesh basket with a sheaf of waxed paper lining its sides. The man in the hairnet wears no badge displaying his name, merely a stained white t-shirt and the hairnet to serve as his uniform. His arms are dark with hair, and he has a thick moustache above what would be a week’s growth of stubble for Baranatalo. The man’s left eye is the same red as the basket.

Inside the basket is not fish. Instead, Baranatalo sees a round bread roll which has been sliced in two and covered with a white paste. He supposes that perhaps the bagel is in the paste. He wonders briefly if there is some sort of culinary dictionary he can purchase to guide him through this exciting time of new things. He wonders also if he would rather not know, if the knowledge would be dangerous to him.

The hairy man also hands him a cup of coffee, which Baranatalo has not ordered. He has never tried coffee, but he knows it is something that the other people he used to work with in the office enjoyed, and since he is on an adventure, he decides to try it.

The bagel on bread is delicious. Tangy and creamy, and the bread is warm and chewy. The coffee tastes like something forged in a dark place by malevolent forest creatures. It is bitter and earthy and makes his stomach rise, but he forces himself to drink it anyway.

Soon he is fed, and he remains at his little table for a few minutes congratulating himself on a successful breakfast. He has completed this task with an ease that makes him feel grand and even bolder than making the eastward turn on Washington instead of the left which would have taken him to where he used to work. Anthony Baranatalo is a man of the world. Anthony Baranatalo is fitting in.

Current Novel Excerpt: Tomato soup and Johnny Carson

It's been a while since I posted a fiction excerpt, so I thought I'd pop something up to remedy that. Since I'm gearing up to spend a lot of time with this project, I thought maybe you'd like to learn a little more about my protagonist, whom you last saw getting ready for work in Chapter Two. This excerpt is from Chapter Thirteen and is set in April, 1986. The normal, first-draft disclaimer applies.

Baranatalo pours most of the soup into a large mug and carries the mug with him into the living room, where he drinks it on the sofa while staring again at the muted television.

The man on the screen now is Johnny Carson, running through his monologue in front of a curtain. Baranatalo can see from watching Carson’s face where the punchlines are, and smiles to himself when the comedian reaches one, enjoying the expression on the man’s face more than he might the jokes he tells, as Baranatalo does not understand a lot of the jokes on the program.

He drinks the soup and finds it delicious. It tastes like something familiar and reminds him of childhood. He cannot recall purchasing the can in the first place, as it is not a part of his normal diet, but he is suddenly grateful for its presence in the cupboard. He likes it, and he will add it to his list of consumables to be obtained from the market the next time he goes.

He drinks it fast, relishing the heat against his throat as he swallows. There is something like safety in the warm liquid, and he drinks it greedily and refills the mug with the rest of the soup from the kitchen, drinking that down, too.

The soup has recharged Baranatalo, even though it is bedtime. He is almost always asleep by the time Carson brings out a guest, but over the lip of the mug he can see that Carson has moved to the desk and is chatting amiably with a beautiful woman. This is just another thing people on television do that Baranatalo does not fully understand, talking to each other excitedly, at ease with themselves and each other, apparently unaware of the physical attractiveness of one another. Or aware, and acting somewhat differently sometimes, luring the other person into a kiss or a dimly lit room and a commercial break.

There is the television and there is the soup, and Baranatalo is wide awake at nearly eleven at night enjoying the latter as he puzzles over the former. The beautiful woman laughs at something Carson has said, throwing her head back and putting her hand on the desk. Carson beams at his triumph, and Baranatalo wonders if the two are lovers. He watches to see if Carson will kiss her or lead her into darkness, but the commercial break comes and they are still at the desk, the woman still touching the desk, Carson still looking into the camera to say something, and the large sidekick sitting silently on the other side of the woman. Baranatalo thinks it is perhaps the sidekick that prevents the kiss. He is possibly there to chaperone the event, to keep things from moving too far.

Either that, or the kissing is what they do while they watch the commercials.

When the camera again shows the desk, Carson’s is the only face in the frame. He says something into the camera and another person walks out from behind the curtain, this time a handsome man wearing a beige sportcoat he has pushed up his arms to catch on his elbows. Underneath the jacket he wears a bright red t-shirt, which hangs low down his neck to display a forest of chest hair. The woman moves away from the desk, and Baranatalo wonders what it is she has done to be discarded in such a fashion. Carson does not speak to her again.

Fiction Excerpt, NaNo: Beginning of the kite scene

Another little chunk of first-drafty goodness from the NaNo piece, which today completed its first reading (something like a child saying its first word, maybe). The reading was performed by a fellow writer and Worker who liked it perhaps more than I do. He made me start thinking about developing this book more fully and getting it into shape for submitting around to start getting rejection slips of my very own. I've gathered some ideas over the last few months for what needs to happen in order to make this into a book, and he seemed to like the ideas I shared with him. So, who knows? Maybe I'll be spending some time on this in the next couple of weeks to see if there's a book in there after all. Big, big thankya to my friend for taking the time to read my manuscript.

*****

The kid in the lime-green tanktop was flying a different kite now: the original, airplane-shaped contraption lying in a heap near the tent his family had used to establish their base camp, using the tent to slowly annex more of the park with a grill and an array of chairs. The airplane kite had been impressive, swooping and sailing through the air, although clearly designed for even more elaborate tricks in the hands of a more skillful operator.

The new kite, more properly diamond-shaped, trembled in one spot in the sky, nervously twitching in the air directly above Will’s head. It seemed excited to be in use, as eager to please as a puppy surrounded by children. He had a thought that it might inadvertently urinate on him, losing control of its bladder in all the excitement.

Will lay on the grass, his head resting on his backpack, one arm folded up to cradle his head, revealing flesh as pale as a catfish on the underside of his arm. Although his more frequent rides to the lake had burnished some of the skin on his arms an olive-tan, the undersides stayed white, as did his fingers, the sunburn patterned like a fingerless glove on the backs of his hands, due to his gripping of the handlebars as he rode.

He was smoking a cigarette and watching the kite, Greg sitting a few feet away, intently reading a book of short fiction written by software designers, periodically calling out some detail that seemed to confirm that the workings of the software encoders’ brains were different from those of most fiction writers, some insight or description he found interesting.

Will wasn’t listening to him, folding his mind instead into itself, watching the kite and drifting from thought to thought. Now that he had assigned an emotional state to the kite, he found he could not look away from it. It broke his heart to watch it, shaking as it did in a manner that now could mean nothing other than excitement. It seemed so innocent up there, unaware of the inevitable disappointment that life would bring it, the months or years at a time it might find itself unused, stuck in a closet. Will was surprised to find himself on the verge of tears.

He closed his eyes, watching the navy blue streaks the sun had burned into his retinas fade against the red to orange gradient of the inside of his eyelids. Even within the psychedelic display his eyes were providing, there was the kite still: a pale green hole in the sky of his closed eyes. He was watching still as the streaks and the kite faded away completely, replaced by little shapes which formed a pattern and moved in a way which suggested he was moving backward through a tunnel, like the opening credits of Doctor Who.

Probably my eyes’ screen saver, he thought, but he started to think that maybe the backward movement was indicative of something as well, his brain trying to tell him something. The thought struck him that perhaps a few months or a year from now he might see a different sense of motion, once he had straightened out some more of his life, moved forward from the place he found himself mired at the moment. Maybe then he might lie on the grass and see an entirely different show when he closed his eyes against the sun.

“You asleep?” Greg asked him. Will grunted to indicate he was not. Greg had no follow-up questions.

Current Novel Excerpt: A morning routine

This is from the novel I'm working on now. It's not polished, but I felt like sharing something that isn't from my somewhat awful NaNo piece. This takes place early in Chapter Two, which is set in early April, 1986. As with all the excerpts posted to date, this is very first draft-y. The writing is, perhaps, a little overly clipped and terse.

Beside the bed is a nightstand, upon which rests a digital alarm clock. It tells the time in angry red characters, blockish and terse. Like many mechanical objects of this period, it lacks elegance. It displays numbers using only straight lines and right angles. It has a radio built into it, but Baranatalo does not use this feature. The radio and the time and the noises it produces at a scheduled time are all it can do. It cannot determine the day of the week, or the month and date. It is unaware of time beyond a 24-hour cycle which it repeats and repeats.

Anthony Baranatalo presses the “snooze” button on the alarm clock and moves to a sitting position on the bed. Pressing the button means he has nine minutes before the alarm shrieks and cries again.

He rubs the sleep from his eyes, the last shred of a dream fading from his mind like a blob on his retina caused by looking too long at a bright light. He sits there at the edge of his bed with his head bowed, waiting for the next crash of his alarm which signals the beginning of his day.

When it does, it breaks the spell holding him motionless, his arm stretching out absently to silence it as he rises to his feet.

Baranatalo moves into the bathroom, cranking both of the knobs of the shower full on and causing water to pour from the head of the shower before adding a thin strip of toothpaste to his brush and brushing his teeth. There is a mechanical quality to his actions. When he has finished moving the brush against his teeth, he spits three times into the sink before pouring a capful of mouthwash into his mouth. He gargles it while turning “C” knob counter-clockwise to increase the temperature of the water streaming from the shower head. The shower begins to shriek, emitting a high-pitched steady drone which Baranatalo can no longer hear, any more than he hears the lumbering, industrious sounds of the El train a block and a half away. The sound from the shower is heat and pressure.

Baranatalo gets into the shower, throwing his underpants onto the floor behind him as he lets out a long, slow breath and feels the water warming his body. Steam rises from every surface the water touches, and Baranatalo’s skin turns a deep red as he lathers and rinses, then lathers and rinses again. When his hand presses against his torso, it leaves a white reminder of its presence for several seconds, his true skin color reappearing beneath his hot shower skin.

Once he has completed the requirements of the shower, he moves back into the bedroom, the excess water from the shower dripping from his body and onto the hardwood floor, as he does not possess a bath towel. He selects from his closet the leftmost of the identical white dress shirts which is slightly rumpled before he even puts it on, but more so afterward, wrinkled and clinging to his wet skin. He dons a pair of slacks over a fresh pair of underwear and sits on the bed to don black socks and shoes. He transfers his wallet from the previous day’s pants and places them into the hamper next to his bureau, then returns to the bathroom.

Baranatalo wipes his hand across the mirror to remove the remaining steam, creating a reflective but blurry surface on the glass. He slathers shaving cream across his jaw with the other hand, rinsing both hands afterward in cold water from the tap in the sink. He shaves quickly, scraping the blade in quick rows across his cheek, around his mouth and down his neck. He rinses his face in the cold tap water and watches his blurry, steamy reflection in the mirror for a moment, warily, as if expecting his reflection to do or say something. His mouth is slightly downturned, which is its normal position. He pushes his hair back onto his scalp, away from his sightline. His large, melancholy eyes gaze back at him, awaiting the same thing. Neither of them speaks, and so he rubs a green deodorant stick against his armpits, reaching under the shirt to cover first one, then the other with a thin layer of chemicals and antiseptic scent.

Coffee and the Cobbler: another fiction excerpt from NaNo

Sorry to do this to you two days in a row, folks, but I'm unbearably tired, and thought posting another excerpt would be a good excuse to give you an idea of what the book was supposed to be about. As well as saving me from trying to be clever and interesting in a new post at 2:30 in the morning.

The basic premise is that Will, a guy in his early thirties, has made an ambitious list of twelve things to change about himself in order to feel that he has a better life. This list has manifested as a set of New Year's resolutions, and when we meet him shortly after the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day, he has already broken eight of his resolutions. The novel follows his attempts, over the course of a year, to change his life. Yesterday's excerpt was from a part where he joins a gym.

Man, that plot sounds cheesy. I should point out that this is not really something I'm planning on whipping into a legitimate manuscript. This novel was written in November with no previous preparation or outline and remains unedited, except for some minor deletions below where the characters reference a story not contained within the excerpt. It was also largely written extemporaneously, and I often had no idea what was going to happen next, which was nice as an exercise, but not really where I want to live as a writer. This is from Chapter Four.

I'm posting these excerpts not because I believe them to be awesome, but because I kind of like them, and thought maybe I should post some fiction before sponsoring a fiction contest.

Like the last one, this segment features a character dropping the F-bomb. Consider yourself disclaimed.

I swear I'll post something new tomorrow.

* * * * * * * *

Their waitress approached; young, blonde and a little plump. Will guessed she was a new hire from the menu she carried with her as she approached the table, and from the way her eyes darted nervously around the room.

“Do you guys know what you’d like?” she asked. Her voice was much higher pitched than Will would have guessed.

“I’m ready to order,” Greg announced. “Coffee and the cobbler.”

“Wasn’t that a detective show from the 80s?” Will asked.

“What?” The waitress looked a little flustered.

“Coffee and the Cobbler. Nevermind.”

“I think it was on CBS,” Greg said.

“And for you?” She looked at Will, focused on getting their order so that she might sooner escape to her perch behind the counter, where she felt safe.

“Coffee and I think maybe some of the cheesecake,” Will said.

She took their menus and retreated.

“Coffee and the Cobbler,” Greg mused. “I think William Conrad was in that.”

“Jake and the Fatman. Although it’s probably fair to say that William Conrad probably had coffee and a cobbler from time to time.”

“I notice you didn’t say some cobbler.”

“Well, he was the Fatman.” Will stirred cream and sugar into his coffee. Greg left his black and took a long drink.

“So you’re working out. Quit smoking? Or your job? Dating anyone new?”

“Uh...no, no and no,” Will patted the cigarettes in his breast pocket. “I made a profile at a dating site, and I’ve traded a few emails.”

The waitress brought the coffee and desserts.

“Thanks. Can I also get a bread pudding to take home?” Will was planning to return to work on the non-profit group’s anti-smoking posters when he got home, and thought he might be up late working on it. He like to have something sweet for the middle of the night. The waitress walked away without responding. They watched her go.

“Did she hear me?” Will asked.

“Maybe she thought it was yet another hilarious comedy bit. Or you’ve failed yet again to make a new friend. So is Stacey officially gone yet?”

“No,” Will said slowly. “The thing with Stacey is...ah, fuck it. Nevermind.”

“Aw, c’mon. The thing with Stacey is...?”

"Ah. Fuck it. Nevermind," Will repeated. "Just forget it.”

“Sure, friend,” Greg said, narrowing his eyes and stretching out the words. “Consider it forgotten.”

Fiction Excerpt from NaNo

Thought I'd put a little taste of my NaNo piece up for your perusal, Blogreader. Although this isn't something I'm planning on publishing, I like bits of it, and thought I could maybe share some of those bits from time to time. This here's from Chapter Three. Comments and feedback are of course welcome.

WARNING: There is language in this excerpt which may be unsettling for some very sensitive readers. So don't read it if you've selected a small group of words to deem offensive.

Will’s guide at Crunch! was named Gordon: a hulking, easily excited man with a penchant for the word “pumped” and a sleeveless t-shirt which read “hobo.” He walked Will through the four floors of “awesome workout gear,” before guiding him to a table in the juice bar.

“So, you in?” Gordon had ordered a blended fruit drink and poured it into two cups so that they might share it. There were shots of wheatgrass, vitamins, bee pollen and Will didn’t know what else, mixed in with what tasted mostly like strawberries.

“Bee pollen?” Will countered. He had very poor sales resistance, and wanted to take the pitch as slowly as possible.

“Oh, yeah. Full of protein and helps you stay healthy. We didn’t used to carry it, so I was pretty pumped when we got some in.”

“But a bee isn’t a plant. It doesn’t produce pollen.”

Gordon looked sullen. “It comes from bees,” he insisted.

“I’m just saying that it’s probably flower pollen, which maybe bees have gathered. Or done something to. Um, this is delicious, by the way.”

“Yeah,” Gordon latched on to the opportunity to stop scrutinizing the pollen. “These shakes rock like a motherfucker. This one’s called ‘Strawberry Fields,’ if you want to order it again once you join. Usually a good one for after a workout.” He finished his portion of the shake in one long draught, wiping his lips with a napkin in a way that struck Will as dainty and weirdly endearing.

“Like a motherfucker,” Will agreed. “’Strawberry Fields.’”