IMMOLATION: Chapter 24

Matt needed to open another window. The dust was getting so thick in the air that he was having a hard time breathing without coughing. He pulled the cord for the blinds and they slid up, allowing even more sunlight to flood into the room and he opened the window. Immediately, the cross breeze blew the dust out of the room and Matt breathed easily at last. He turned back to the room. It looked good with all the natural lighting. The carpet even looked better, most of the stains were gone and those he hadn't been able to scrub out were faint in the sunlight. It had taken him the better part of the last week to clean his apartment but the results were worth the effort.

“I can't believe I lived like that for so long,” Matt said aloud to himself before returning to the filing cabinet he'd been working on before the dust overwhelmed him.

Even though the cabinet was designed to help organize, very little organization actually existed within its drawers.

“Midterm...midterm...final...” Matt muttered to himself as he placed each set of papers into their own respective piles. “Notes...doodles...Heat Machine!” Matt cried as he extracted a large collection of papers from the drawer. He rifled through the remainder of the drawer and pulled out a few other sheets of paper, adding them to the ones he already held, and then moved over to his desk.

A stack of papers, the largest in the room, sat on the middle of his desk and Matt added his newest found notes to the stack. Beside that stack of papers was a smaller, less yellowed with age, pile of papers. His cell phone sat on top of the smaller pile with a sticky note that read: follow up.

“I should call her,” Matt said but he returned to the cabinet rather than picking up his cell phone.

His search through the cabinet failed to reveal any more notes on the Heat Machine and Matt returned to his desk and began sorting through the large stack of papers. Every once in a while he glanced over to the smaller pile of papers and his cell phone with the note.

“I'll call her tomorrow,” Matt murmured and he continued sorting.

Unfortunately, the stack of notes didn't need that much sorting in the first place and within a few minutes he was finished. Matt glanced at the small stack again, he to hesitated, and then moved to the cabinet. Several little piles of paper surrounded it and Matt busied himself for several minutes placing them back into the cabinet in a more organized manner. Again, Matt found himself completing the task much faster than he anticipated and he looked back at the small stack on his desk.

“It's probably too late to call,” Matt said, but then noted the amount of sunlight streaming into his apartment and knew his argument held no weight. “Alright,” He said, “I'll call her.”

Matt crossed the room, picked up the phone, and began looking for her number. It was on the back of the sticky note. He started dialing but then paused.

“What am I going to say?”

Matt tried a few lines of opening dialogue but none of them sounded right and he felt more like an idiot than before just for trying to practice.

“It's just research,” He told himself, “It's not like I'm asking her out on a date.”

Matt finished dialing before he could stop himself again and paced while he waited for her to answer.

“One...” Matt counted as the phone rang. “Two...Three...”

A part of him hoped she wouldn't answer, that way he could just leave a message.

“Four—

“Hello?” Joan's voice said on the other side.

“Um, hi,” Matt said lamely and he rifled through the stack of notes, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder.

“Hi,” Joan said, a hint of amusement in her voice, “Who is this?”

“Oh, right, this is Matt.”

“Matt who?” Joan asked and the papers Matt was shuffling fell through his fingers and onto the floor.

“Matt Wellis,” Matt said, “I took your measurements a week back.”

“What?” Joan, Matt could tell, was growing annoyed.

“I mean I measured you fire, remember? And then we went to the coffee shop for the interview,” Matt waited but Joan said nothing. “Any way, I have the results and I thought you would be interested in what I found.”

“Oh yeah,” Joan said, “I'm sorry. I'm just a bit distracted right now. I would love to see what you've found out.”

“Great,” Matt said and hoped he didn't sound too eager, “What time works for you?”

“This week's pretty busy, but this weekend should be fine,” She said.

“How about we do lunch again this Saturday?” Matt asked.

“That should be fine,” Joan replied and Matt quickly wrote it into his planner.

“And I was wondering if I could get some more readings some time,” Matt added before he lost his nerve.

“Um...” Joan considered for a few moments.

Matt held his breath.

“How about this,” Joan said, “Do you know the Pottery Barn?”

“Yeah,” He said, even though he didn't.

“Lets have our meeting there around noon and we can get two birds with one stone.”

“Sounds good,” Matt said and made a note to find what and where the Pottery Barn was, feeling great about how well the conversation was going.

“Great,” Joan said, “Oh, gotta go, my dates here. Bye.”

Joan hung up.

“Good for her,” He told himself, looking down at his planner and frowning as he read what he'd written on the following Saturday: date with Joan. “Not quite,” He said and scribbled out the word date and wrote research in its place. “I bet he's a jerk,” Matt said for no other reason than to make himself feel better. He smiled a wane smile and went back to organizing his old files.