Saturday mornings were usually Samuel's favorite time to write.
The apartment was quiet, the street outside still half asleep, and the sunlight from the single window in his office came in at just the right angle to warm his desk without blinding him. He made coffee, set it down within easy reach, and opened the bound manuscript from the print shop.
The plan was simple: go over Chapter Eleven in red ink, tighten the dialogue between Marshal Corwin and Xirathul, maybe give the drifter a sharper introduction. He flipped to the right page, pen uncapped, mind already sinking into the burnt flats.
The mug was in his hand before he even realized he'd reached for it. He took a sip, set it back down and clipped the edge of the manuscript.
It happened in slow motion: the mug tipped, the coffee sloshed, and a dark ribbon of liquid rolled across the page like a tide over sand.
"Ah, hell….."
Samuel scrambled for a handful of tissues, blotting at the paper, cursing under his breath. The ink bled instantly, turning Corwin's standoff into a brown stained blur. Whole sentences vanished in a heartbeat.
By the time he'd mopped up the worst of it, the page was ruined. The paper had gone soft, curling at the edges, and the words that remained were smudged into ghosts.
He sat back and sighed. "Well," he muttered, "guess we're rewriting that scene from scratch."
He set the damaged copy aside, pulled up the digital file on his laptop, and found the same scene. Fingers on the keys, he started over, the smell of coffee still sharp in the air.
Outside, a car horn blared somewhere down the street. His upstairs neighbor turned on the vacuum. Life went on.
By noon, the scene was nearly rebuilt cleaner, maybe even better than before. The accident was already fading from his mind, just another clumsy moment in a life full of them.