MOAB

Chapter i

Chapter i

Yanni went upstairs to his office/lab. He fired up the laser and turned on the computer attached to it. He closed the blinds to darken the room, wore his protective glasses, took out his e-cig and vaped in the path of the blue laser beam pointing to the ceiling.

The fake cigarette smoke made the laser visible, but it was still going up straight as an arrow.

Yanni was annoyed by that silly adherence to the laws of nature.

He puffed a few more breaths and punched different variables in Matlab.

The blue light beam simply flickered a bit, but kept on straight.

Yanni grunted and then stared at the blue dot on the ceiling, thinking about equations.

He worked hard like that for seven hours straight.

Thalia came up and brought him a sandwich. “Were you sitting in the dark all day?” she asked.

“I can’t see the laser with a ten thousand lumen light source flooding the place,” he said.

She forced a smile, clearly not getting the concept and she told him, “I need you to look after the kids, need to shop a few things.”

“Yeah, coming right down,” said Yanni to her as she was closing the door.

She left him downstairs, sitting on the couch, with the baby in his arms and Georgie throwing flour on his toy truck. Cartoons were playing on the TV, loud to near cochleus-bursting levels and the baby was crying for her mother. He picked her up in his arms and gave her a pacifier. Then he grabbed the tablet to message his friends on f*******:. He started tapping then realized the screen was dirty with chocolate, so he wiped it hastily. He added all his friends to a group chat on f*******: and told them about the party Thalia was making preparations for.

Then he needed to text Niko. His friend was the only one not on f*******:, he was old-fashioned that way. He knew about it of course, but he always insisted on never accepting f*******: addresses from girls, only their phone numbers (if they didn’t hop on his ride right away). He thought of anonymously checking out a girl’s photos as perverted, and they sent him their nude pictures by themselves anyway as soon as they found out he was an architect.

Nikos called him back, “Yasou, did you think I would forget man? September the second, the night we burn the house down, every year, fifteen years on now!”

Yanni felt slightly ashamed and said, “Yeah, I’m afraid the party will be a bit calmer this year.”

Nikos said, “Like the one last year and the one before that. Getting married does that to you. Yeah, no problem man, I just want to hang out with you guys, I never get to see you anymore.”

“About that, it might help if you bring along a more suitable date. Last time, our wives nearly tore our eyes out, man. You fueled the fire for decades of nagging,” said Yanni.

“Haha, yes, that was priceless!” said Nikos laughing. “No, don’t worry, I have no date. I’ll come solo.”

Yanni frowned at the unusual statement and asked, “Solo? You? How come?”

“I found my Muse,” Nikos replied. “Let’s go for a drink and I’ll tell you all about her.”

“You sound serious. I need to know more,” said Yanni.

They arranged a time and place and then Yanni checked out the tablet, which was now covered in flour and drool. Georgie was sitting on his truck pretending to steer a freight of precious flour. The other married friends had all replied to the group chat, had liked and sent smilies and started talking about bringing that fine bottle of wine everyone had liked so much last time.

Yanni sat on the couch, held his baby and waited for his wife to return. All he really wanted was for his Muse to come back.