Minor pleasures

Edwin has the best cubicle on the thirtieth floor. If he swivels his chair by about forty-five degrees and cranes his neck, he can see the sky. The floor-to-ceiling window will someday help to enclose a truly monstrous executive ego. But, for now, Edwin can still indulge in natural light.

It’s a minor pleasure, but one he guards jealously. He is sixty-seven years old, deep into his carving years when every birthday slices off a bloody hunk of joy. Sixty-four took meat and wine, sixty-five dulled his sharpest wits, and sixty-six turned sex into something dreary and drugged.

As he does every morning, Edwin walks to his desk slowly and carefully, his eyes trained on his shoes. He’s a big believer in gratifications delayed and moments savored. Like a bridegroom, he doesn’t want to risk an accidental glimpse. Instead, he begins a morning routine that has long since calcified into ritual. Coffee. News. Email. Phone calls. Reports.

Only after ten a.m. does he let his eyes drift towards the blue. He takes in the pure cerulean hue of the day, and feels ever-so-slightly deflated. He was hoping for birds: ambitious starlings, or maybe a gull or two. He’s about to look away when something flutters at the edge of his vision. He blinks and looks again, and then his world, so long a muddle of overlapping blurs, explodes into clarity.

The circuits in his brain crackle and spark the way they did when he was young. Lady Godiva with wings is the best he can do to describe what he sees. Her hair is a cascade of dark brown curls. Her skin is butter with a dusting of gold. Her wings are fully feathered and snowy white. Her areolas are huge and NSFW pink and…oh my God, she’s winking at me.