Edwin Grant sipped the light chamomile tea as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. This old dusty house needed his daughter back, but she wanted to be independent and out on her own. He allowed her to live her life out there, beyond the ancestral home, into the world that he lived in.

Often, his daughter would ask why, if he used his magic so often, didn’t he become the president of Pharmcare. Magic was not meant to be so obvious, he kept trying to explain. Magic is tiny ripples in the pond of fate, that slowly ebbs away at the shoreline, taking a grain of sand at a time until the shore itself has changed.

He used his ability to create to cause these small ripples. He made himself indispensable. This is why, in his 60’s, he was both being passed over for promotion and sought after for his talents. 

Edwin opened the large mahogany door into the master suite. No familiars were allowed to cross this threshold without their Master’s permission, the only room in the house off limits to everyone except himself.

Here, he kept his more precious objects, objects d’familiar to remind him what he put out there. The workshop held the potential; the bedroom suite held the productions. 

Of course, he never had the heart to destroy his creations. They existed until they starved for attention or power and faded away, then used again another time, like the Monarch.

He dressed in his pajamas, a harbinger of an older time with his wife and daughter. They looked like they came from a different time, at least the 50’s. Dark plaid button-down top and bottoms, barefoot. He climbed into his bed that he made every morning upon waking. It was something his wife instilled in him when they married.

He stared at the ceiling (BEGIN INFO DUMP). Tomorrow was Wednesday, and he would provide the Monarch butterfly to Lei Zheng, who was the account manager for the Myosun Project. He had been assigned to come up with the graphics for the mailings from PharmCare. 

Myosun Construction employed mostly people from the West coast, and also, their employees were mostly of Eastern descent. Chinese, Indian, Korean, Cambodian, a few Philipinos thrown in for diversity. Based outside of Silicon Valley, the construction company built high-rise buildings in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Monarch Butterfly gave him some ideas, but he wanted to know what was necessary.

One thing about corporate culture was its lack of communication. Although they would have meetings, either virtually or in person in the office, no important information was ever passed down—no official information, that is. The Monarch Butterfly was a recorder of information that would eventually be returned to Edwin, who would be able to tailor-make the mailings to the group of people the project aimed at. 

This was his indispensability. Only he could come up with the right mailings. He was the go-to graphic designer that everyone wanted to have on their team. No one knew how he did it. But at the beginning of every project he would present the account manager or project manager with a plant or fish, saying that they didn’t even have to take care of it, but would they please return it if they left the company? Most people didn’t follow that simple direction, which is why he often found his gifts in the trash. Dottie, the HR director, still had his spider plant which would tell him about people who left, were leaving, or had moved on in the company and no longer needed his services. He would go search out those people’s desk, and discover his presents there, either on the desk or in the trash.

He has been passed over for director too many times to count, but he was fine with that. He didn’t want to leave his position as a gear in the machinery. No one expected too much from him and he always over-delivered.