Outreach

- 1 -

Though it doesn't have to be, this is a love story.

I don't like love stories. I don't dislike them either. They're not for me. Truth be said, the concept of romantic love is one I find alarming and elusive, and against the human race I would lay the indictment of being unduly obsessed with it. Having studied it from every perspective I am still none the wiser, and yet people, little, afraid, and isolated, quest ever onwards in search of tokenistic metrics of value bestowed by someone else. They depend, to excess, upon another person, forsaking all else, forsaking all the effort they could instead have expended on life, on creating, on exploring the myriad wonders of this universe, until the day they fall out of love in a spewing volcano of recriminations and hurt. What, by heaven, is the point?

This love story is a little different. This one is Sam's.

Convention might have me say that the story begins on the day which changed Sam's life, but this is a typically absurd example of the human tendency to speak mysticism over sense. Every day of his life has changed his life. Every day of his life is his life. People choose to look for big, significant acts of fate which aren't there as if convinced it was something minor but vital that day which sent their arrow of time spinning off on a new trajectory – 'oh, if I hadn't missed the bus that day then I wouldn't have met my future business partner in the café while I waited for the next one' et cetera et cetera. A tedious and misplaced fixation.

It was the work of my hand. Nothing could have been simpler than providing the wrong number for Maria.

It was a working day for Sam and Max on the day which I choose to begin. They work in a basement. Above is a glass and steel tower of grim aspect which reaches arrogant heights in the sky. Tedious people of varying degrees of skill work with varying degrees of success at every level. It's not the best company: I'm still trying to iron out the kinks. Max knows that I own it but often forgets. Sam has no idea.

"Pass me some crisps, will you?" Max asks. Sam throws him a packet and I silently disapprove. Max is overweight and listens to absolutely none of my advice about this. Unlike Sam, glowing and golden, Max fits perfectly into this basement like a sun-fearing troll, sprawled lazily in his chair. I compose another argument to put to him about why he must exercise and then give up. Worlds would fall before me, should I want them to, but I cannot control Max.

His hand dips sharply into the packet again and again. A heron in a fishpond. There is grease on his keyboard.

Outside, men, like gods, soar high, seize fire and shape the world unto their liking. Meanwhile, Sam and Max fester underground. The basement (nicknamed 'the anus' by those above it) is as dark and depressing as you would expect from a vital and underacknowledged department of two people. It's not a place I would choose to put up with myself, and Max sometimes nags me to do something about it, forgetting my role as beneficent overseer who doesn't interfere directly. If he wants it renovated he can ask someone lower down the chain than me, but he won't get off his lazy arse and do so. Renovation would probably involve removal of all the cameras dotted around the room, installed by my neurotic predecessor. Not my choice, but I use them. I could watch everything again from several different angles if I wanted.

The phone rings and Max wipes his grease and salt covered fingers on his shirt (disgusting) before answering it.

"Yello?" he grunts. I swing around in my chair as I have an idea, which I won't explain to you because you'll most likely find it boring. I note it here for my own recollection. It was one of the most useful ideas I've had this year, even more useful than Fish's Principle of Divisive Interchange which anyone familiar with the field of translational gravinometry will know I won an award for, an award which my assistant collected since I could not attend myself. This idea was a really good one.