Abraxas: Inbox

[restingstitchface]

✉ ☏ 🎞

This is Dr. Crane. I'm not available right now but my answering machine is. Maybe you can hold a conversation with it instead?

Comments

[restingstitchface]

Anything but canasta.

[oversight]

Canasta wouldn't be my choice either. I get the feeling people in the Free Cities would enjoy chess. Maybe you can teach people now that you've got a set.

[restingstitchface]

[Sigh.]

Why are you involving yourself in my affairs, detective?

[oversight]

Oh come on. Do you really think I'm going to interfere? Was it a Trojan chessboard?

[restingstitchface]

In every sense of the word.

Our relationship is fruitless so you left a gift outside my door. I know a trick when I see it.

[oversight]

I'm not sure I'd call it fruitless. Personally speaking. If you don't like the chess set, you can sell it. Someone might pay a few coins for it. I won't be offended.

[restingstitchface]

Why would I ever sell it?

[oversight]

Well, if you don't like things collecting dust, maybe that makes the most sense. Are you not planning to play?

[restingstitchface]

Well, it's been a long time.

Would you like to suggest who I should invite for a game?

[oversight]

You have patients, don't you? Maybe they'd like to play.

[restingstitchface]

I don't play games with my patients.

[oversight]

[ Somehow he has a hard time believing that. ]

Friends, then. Neighbors. Colleagues. You know what they say about all work and no play.

[restingstitchface]

[Well, that gets his interest.]

Are you telling me to lighten up, detective?

[oversight]

Isn't that what you're always telling me, doc?

[restingstitchface]

Only when you ask, detective.

[oversight]

I'd play if you could stand it.

[restingstitchface]

Well, I suppose I have withstood worse.

[oversight]

Yeah, me too. If you're not going to bleed me or drown me or sacrifice me on an altar, we'll do okay for an hour.

[restingstitchface]

One hour, then.

Your place or mine?

[oversight]

Your place works fine. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't appreciate mine.

[restingstitchface]

Ah, are dishes abandoned in the sink? Are your socks dangling out of draws?

Come on, detective. I've lived in worse places.

[Hi, gran.]

[oversight]

Yeah, fine, whatever. If you want to lug that shit around, feel free.

[restingstitchface]

Point made. It's Saturday tomorrow so let's call it my place at ten. Be prompt.

[oversight]

If I'm late, you can start without me.

[ But he won't be late. In fact, he will be right on time because that's who he is as a person. Just in case, he's had his breakfast and such, although he wouldn't be surprised to find Crane serving tea sandwiches and Earl Grey. Dressed in something new, he's been forced to acclimate to the available attire of the Free Cities, but that won't last. Soon enough his job will lead him to money which will lead him to choices he doesn't have now. ]

Knock, knock.

[ He knows he's expected, but he still feels like it's necessary to announce himself. ]

[restingstitchface]

[There is nothing to eat: neither a plate of sandwiches nor a pot of tea to drink. He has always refused to dine with others with the freedom of choice. Blake is neither an associate or a friend. Nobody he needs flatter - not that he resorts to flattery.

He is sitting on his chair when his guest announces his arrival. His journal hangs open on a page covered with notes written in a spider's script. Notes of yesterday's appointments. Corrections scrawled in the margins.]

Door's open. Take a seat.

[Blake will find the chess set prepared and waiting on his table, pulled into the middle of the room so they will have space. Punctual.]