One Of These Characters Isn't Sad

iii

I change my gaze after what is probably much too long, and settle it on an empty stretch of Norwegian forest instead. I don't like to watch for long periods of time unless I really have to. It feels creepy, however necessary my work might be. But it's also hard to tear my eyes off of Margaret. She's so calm. So at ease. So serene.

She is my assignment, now. I suppose eventually I did have to look at it.

My name is Darien Keyes, and my job is to nudge things. When bits of the universe want to be in the right place, but they aren't, because they never are, I nudge them. They get a hair closer to where they are supposed to be. Everything is a little more right. Not a lot, mind you. Just two people saying hello when maybe they wouldn't have spoken before, or someone waiting thirty extra seconds before they walk out the door, or a random dice roll coming up with a 4 instead of a 3. Little, tiny nudges. That's all the world is, really. Nudges, and what people do with them.

But nudges don't always help everybody. They just change things. I let my gaze drop to the picture of Margaret Kirkland on my assignment sheet. She doesn't seem like somebody who wants her world changed. Oh well. It's going to happen whether she likes it or not.

Enough. I make myself scan the sheet. There are only two numbers that matter there, right at the bottom: four and ten. Four and ten? The numbers are far smaller than usual. I glance over the rest of the sheet, but all the information is general. Four and ten is all I get.

Four nudges to make some kind of change to Margaret Kirkland's life in the next ten days, and no explanation of what change it is supposed to be. Great.

I turn my gaze back to Margaret Kirkland, and hope I can figure out what I am supposed to do.