Deliberation and thought process had vanished alongside Parker. John sat at his desk, both hands behind his head, the backrest of his chair leaning far enough to be a tip-hazard, and he swayed from left to right, and right to left, over and over again. The can of now-room-temperature cola sat beside the previously abandoned cup of coffee, and John wondered how many different items he might be able to collect before he ran out of containers or got noticed by insects. He shifted his eyes to his computer monitor, begrudgingly lowered a hand to tap the touchpad and reanimate the screen, and then eyed the time displayed there. It had felt like hours had passed since Parker had left, when in reality it had barely been one.
“f**k it,” John told the empty room. If he wasn’t going to be able to ge
