He had only been searching for five minutes when a small, rhythmic sound started up from the street outside. A car was idling, its bass-heavy music thumping a single, repetitive note that shook the very glass of his storefront.
"Toby," Elias said, turning slowly in his swivel chair. "Do you know what 'annoy' means?" He had only been searching for five minutes
Toby stopped mid-whistle, his cleaning rag frozen. "Uh, like when my sister hides my phone?" "Do you know what 'annoy' means
Elias closed his eyes, counting to ten. A magnet on a mechanical watch was like a flamethrower in a library. "Just... go to lunch, Toby. For three hours." white heat. In the following story
"Toby," Elias called out, his voice a low vibration of restrained irritation. "The solvent. Is it applied?"
The hairspring, a coil thinner than a human eyelash, had Ping-Ponged out of the tweezers and vanished into the shag carpet. Elias sat frozen. The annoyance he had been carefully tamping down suddenly flared into a cold, white heat.
In the following story, the theme of "annoy" is explored through the friction between two contrasting characters in a quiet, high-stakes environment. The Audition