Writing career decay? What the hell did that mean?

The listed date matched their argument in the café. He had checked enough times in his own diary, even marking it as DL-Day (death of life-as-he-knew-it).

Perfect description too, of the dissolution of his career. The end crept up on him, a noxious vine, tendrils climbing the creative wall he’d built. Knotty suckers pried into cracks, pushing and prodding until the whole thing, meaning his life, weakened and collapsed.

Below his entry was another for her.

Oh, and how nice for Miss Orelia Mason. His orbit decays while hers rockets. She’d written:

Orelia Mason to write a best seller

A page later Morris’ name appeared.

Morris Usher to represent and sell my book

So she had stolen his agent? He saw now how this possibly worked. He flipped forward looking for current dates seeking another entry noting his agent.

Stop thinking of him in that way William. He hasn’t worked for you in a year. Now he’s dead, and he’s nobody’s agent ever again.

He soon found Morris Usher noted, with a minus next to his name.

Ah, so here was why the man met his maker.

If the notation of embezzled from clients was true, possibly he’d been sent to meet the other guy in hell. Maybe he could swing a deal down there.

An obvious pattern emerged. Good luck. Bad luck. Wishes that came true, created by a genie in a book. Fascinating reading if it wasn’t true and didn’t tell the story of lives devastated.

His imagination required only a single line to visualize each victim’s suffering or each winner’s joy. No flights of fancy necessary to see Orelia’s fortune and her wonderful life. He had enjoyed a front row seat for nearly three years, and the show was a horror story.

The sound of a child crying invaded his thoughts and caused him to look up. It was the boy with the kite, but now the kite was on the ground and his father ran toward him. The man picked up the toy and they walked away together.

As he watched, William noticed the light had begun to fade, and he knew he must move soon. A few more minutes he told himself. Nothing had settled in his mind on what he could do with the book. He still couldn’t understand how it all worked.

He flipped backward, reading a few lines from each page. As he read notes from the past, he felt as though he’d climbed aboard a time machine. He traveled through Orelia’s recent years, from a woman to a teenager, then back into her childhood to a girl named Nem Stratton. The further back he went the more her entries became childish scrawls, covering only small infractions by other children or teachers.

Stick figures decorated the edges of this section. He smiled (before realizing he shouldn’t) at a misshapen dog biting on a stick-boy’s leg. This Jeremy’s crime? Calling a young Nem weirdo. Poor Jeremy. William hoped the animal wasn’t rabid. Ten points to the kid for getting it right about her; she was a weirdo.