*****
Picking up the ring yet again, Eric fiddled with it, only half-consciously tracing the pattern with a pencil tip. Round and round it went, always inevitably coming back to the same point before starting another circuit. It reminded him of the Buddhist concept of repeated death and reincarnation. But that was never supposed to be the same life over and over again, rather a different life according to what the previous existence had earned, and there was always at least hope for eventual escape into nirvana.
Good lord, what could he be thinking about? The pencil was trapped in an unending circuit only so long as it stayed in the two-dimensional pattern; real existence was in three dimensions. He had only to lift it out and it would be free.
He would be free … That settled it. He had better things to do than to keep banging his head against the sheer lack of inspiration. He would simply tell Janice that he couldn't produce her story.
She took it badly. "You promised!"
"No, I didn't. You only assumed that I'd do it."
"You didn't say you wouldn't."
"You didn't give me a chance."
"You might at least have had a go at it."
"I've tried my best. It didn't work."
"You could try again."
"I've done my damnedest. I can't do it, and that's that."
"Then how am I going to face Tim after I've told him how reliable you are?" And so on and on, in utter futility. That evening's dinner date was obviously off. He didn't suppose there would be another.
When she had gone and he had calmed down a little, he realised that he had had a perilously narrow escape. So, of course, had she. And maybe, so had Gaston.