Churning Nowhere

The 9th Floor has been quiet for a week. The lights were dim and inside, you espied flickering shadows cast from the hearth, fluttering across the drawn blinds. In the dim pale pressing into the night, you could make out…was it a figure?

For I was here all along. Watching you. Plotting…

By day, my machinations held my focus; secret efforts springing forth to physical being. The drawing of my pipe casting smoldering red over the papers scattered at my fingertips. The ash that chanced on the work below my only distraction.

A rare glance up from the work table showed me that my positions in the market were going nowhere cumulatively, though individually they are all over the map. Churn and chum would be a description for it. My high flyers pulled back. My losers and lollygaggers advanced.

And nothing happened.

My focus returned quickly from that sight, back to work.