(This was fun to write, leave a comment if you liked it so I can get some of that precious dopamine)

Briston Smokehouse, sipping his morning coffee, offered his wife the expression he had developed over his many years of highly functional marriage. His eyebrows both sloped upwards towards the middle, suggesting the Peak of Concern. His mouth curled downwards at the edges, forming the Empathy Crescent. And on this particular morning, Briston had deemed it necessary to call across the topography of his expression with the Song of Sympathy, a short sliding note that starts high and ends low. Thus was Mrs. Smokehouse assured that she had not just splashed her worries futilely against the mind of her husband like an ocean wave against a boulder.

Briston had honed this expression over many mornings just like this one. It was a masterful technique of the conversational arts, a frictionless touch that could placate his opponent while slipping past without losing precious momentum. Briston did not consider himself to be an unkind man, but mornings were times for preparation. The psychic accumulations of sleep needed to be wiped away, and there could be no unnecessary weight taken on.

Once he had finished his coffee, the first of his body’s many potential distractions had been addressed. Soon, he would need sustained focus, and each of these was a danger to it. Having placated his stomach with food and stretched out the kinks from his muscles, he dressed himself in clothes that had no itchy seams and no tight corners. A short spark of terror erupted within him when he couldn’t find his sunglasses, but this was quickly soothed when he recognized their blue-gold shine sticking out from under the couch. He was ready.

Briston kissed his wife, walked out the door and began. He took his place in line. He was more experienced than some, and so he didn’t press against the people in front like others did. He didn’t tap his foot or let his eyes wander. Consistency was everything.

The line faced the monster, the killer. Everyone in line looked at it, one by one, in their own way, as they passed. It could, in an instant, grab someone, twist them and pulverize them before they could realize what had happened. Some people had said to Briston that there was really no way to manage it, that the monster was too quick to react to, too inscrutable to be predicted. Briston hated those people, more than anyone else in the world, more than even the monster that he was rapidly approaching. Until there was proof, he would leave nothing to chance.

Some of them were distracted, and Briston pitied them. After passing the monster a hundred times without danger, their eyes wandered, and so they wouldn’t see the pounce coming. But he would, he was no sucker.

It was Briston’s turn. The monster ignored him. It would get someone else today.

I’m the fucking master, he said to himself, and the evidence was behind him.