Alternate opening to MG
Fingernails tapped a staccatto against the wood. The long dead innards of an oak rumbled with it, threw it back in tightly controlled irritation to the walls and windows. A boy sat in front of the long desk, trying to become one with the chair in hopes to escape the owner of the rapidly moving hand. Long knobby knees pressed together and sandaled feet hooked around a lower rung, as sticklike fingers gripped the seat of the chair in the absence of arms to cling to. The woman, the owner of the hand on the other side of the broad desk, abruptly flattened her hand against a pile of papers and leaned forward. The boy's frantic eyes dodged around the room, catching a bit of light glinting off a candle in the corner or the shine across the polished handle of a black pen.
"This is unexcusable." The boy shrunk back from the calm voice, a smooth female alto very different fromt he anxious, tapping fingers. "You know what the punishment will be."
There was along pause that expected na answer in the air. The boy swallowed hard, and jerked his chin up and down in a nod. "Y-yes, ma'am."
"Very well." Leather creaked as she leaned back in her chair, a finger touching the joint of her sleek sunglasses. "You must leave. Now."
There was another long pause. The boy stared down at his feet, past the ragged edge of his tunic streatched across his knees and to the fraying strap of his sandal. His fingers curled tigheter around the wooden edge of the seat, holding himself tight when everything else wanted to flee.
"Well? Go." The last was punctuated by a solid tump of her palm against the wood.
The boy went.
----
"Ouch!" A solid thunk echoed against the linoleum as his head hit the bottomside of the kitchen table. WIncing, he ducked his head and rubbed at the back of it as he backed out from under the table, banging a knee against a square metal box and nearly tearing out half the cables as he did so. He sat up and sighed at the blank monitor that echoed his own face back at him. The black of the screen was a washed out mirror of a small, cluttered kitchen and a narrow face with a large pair of glasses setting on his noise. Sighing again at his own relfection, he slowly lcimebd to his feet and looked around at the eletronic clutter. The Monolith sat like a waiting beast, the fans no longer humming nor the soft whine of electricity a background constant. It was a bad idea to leave the house with it on. Sometimes he came back and new things had appared on the desktop, and he didn't want to know how that happened.
Crossing the kitchen floor he stopped by a bag flopped over next to the door. The one room lead right into the other, the living room with the couch he slept on and the door that lead to a long, white hallway that was the rest of the building. Times like these, the small apartment felt cramped and he noticed how low the cieling was more. He was still staring at the black shoulder bag, rubbing at the back of his head more in thought then pain now. There was no avoiding it, he knew, but it was never exactly pleasent. Just to make sure, he leaned across the hip level divider between the kitchen and the living room and hit the button next to the blinking light of his answering machine.
"Hello, Blue," it echoed back at him, the tape crackling a little but the strange woman's voice still making him shiver. "I've something I need to talk to you about. Do visit soon." Click. The tape ran out, and the gears turned as a high wine of automatic rewind shook the old machine.
He turned back to his bag, slouched over by the handle of the door, and slung it back over his shoulder. Slowly, he pulled his keys out from the glass dish by the door and left the small place that he was reluctant to call home. Blue didn't really like the ratty place that much, nor the way the elevators shuddered and groaned as he got into the one at the end of the hall, but he didn't have the money to spend on a better place to live. The people above him had loud, thumping music, and the woman below was an opera singer who was loosing her voice, so he'd gotten it cheap. It was the best he could afford. With a shudder, the elevator stopped and shuttered open it's doors. He stepped out into the dirty streets of the lower end of Philidelphia, and followed the gutter and the flutter of pidgeons to the nearest subway. It wasn't a long ride into New Jersey, but it was a longer walk from the station to where The Lady lived.
Just posting another snippet as it wriggled into my brain. Trying to post whatever comes to me as a hopefuly exercise to make my creativity move better and maybe finish something.