"Jimmy?"

"Huh, what?"

Jim's vision was blurry. He could make out a half-finished cup of cold jasmine tea on his desk and a Wikipedia page on the historical demographics of Ireland open on his computer. Wait, what was going on? How did he get here?

"I was going to ask if you're busy, but clearly that's not the case," Penny giggled, gesturing to Jim's screen. He was normally better at obscuring his idleness with a stack of useless documents cluttering his desk and complicated-looking graphs scattered across his computer screen, but evidently his mind had been a little too clean today to feign the busy-body persona he typically fielded for the sake of his superiors.

"Have time to chat?"

"Sure. Sure." Jim pulled up his spare chair from behind the corner of his cubicle and plunked it next to his desk.

Penny was a younger woman who had only recently finished working as a student under Jim's direction and had now been brought on as a full-time contractor. Her official title was "business analyst", though what she actually did was a mystery well beyond the mental capacity of either her or former mentor. It was more nebulous than Jim's position, even, and his was so ill-defined it verily straddled the border between reality and myth.

"So, how are you on this beautiful Monday?" Jim asked, awkwardly rolling the syllables as he closed his browser and swung over to face his new desk-mate.

"Jim, it's Wednesday...." The look of genuine confusion in Penny's face was slowly morphing into concern.

Had he really just lost two whole days? Gone into a dissociative state and wandered across his life without anyone in the driver's seat.

What had happened in those days? What could he have done?"

"I ... I ... don't...," Jim sputtered.

"I'm just fucking with ya!" Penny slapped her knee, her wide, rounded face stretched wide in raucous laughter. She noticed a look of relief flood over Jim's facade. "Holy, shit! You actually fell for it too! You really thought it ... it ...." Penny couldn't complete the sentence; her slim body had run out of oxygen, and she was entering into minor convulsions, still laughing but pathetically slurping for breath. Her snorts were only more humorous to her, the impetus for another round of breathless guffaws. Even Jim couldn't help but manage a chuckle.

"You never fail to brighten my day, Penelope." Jim grinned, a warm and generous smile that only a very treasured few had ever laid their eyes on. "Now, how can I help you?"

Penny wiped a few tears from her eyes that had been rustled up during the violence and took a giant gulp of air before settling down with a few lighter chortles, like the follow-through on an impressive basketball throw.

"Yeah, uh," Penny shifted her head back and forth, a little uncomfortably. "Well, see, I wanted to talk to you about something, actually."

"Oh, who would have guessed?" Jim retorted, though as always his banter was a touch more hostile than he had wanted it be.

Penny didn't mind, though. She'd gotten used to Jim's acidity long ago. Like a fine wine, it was a taste to be acquired (and spat out on occasion). Penny rolled up a stray notepad on the desk and softly shellacked Jim on the head, a knowing grin on her lips.

"You have not changed. Well, not in character at least." She repurposed the paper to swap at Jim's growing belly. He smiled and pretended to not take offence, but his chair knew the truth, moving back just enough to leave the yoke of the paper without becoming a noticeable retreat.

"What'd you want to talk about?"

Penny leaned back into his chair and pressed her hands against her lap, her eyes falling downward. "You know the New York project?"

"Yeah, of course." Jim shuddered. "I've never heard the DG yell more about something in my life than that stupid fucking thing. That was a little bit before your day, but Jesus Christ, Penny, let me tell you, it was not a great time to be in office when we had that going on." Jim noticed that Penny was still staring at the floor. He lowered his voice and tilted his head down to reach her level. "What about it?"

"Well, Bob and I have been assigned to go fly down and ... close out the project."

Jim couldn't hide the excitement in his voice; he started ranting. "Oh, that's awesome! That's great news. They never flew me anywhere, and I've been working here nearly ten years. They must really like you, Penny. Good job! I hear New York is awesome, and Bob is also such a great guy-."

Penny scrunched her face. "Yeah, but is he though?"

Jim paused. He had never really thought about it in too much depth. He'd really only ever spoken to Bob on a handful of occasions, but he always seemed pleasant enough. The man was a former realtor who truly hated every second of being forced to work in a sector where every process took twice as long even though only one could only expect the work to be of half the quality. He made good humour of it, though: quietly consigned to his fate like the rest of the public service, walking cheerfully to the gallows of civilization in front of them.

"Have you ever heard differently?" Jim asked.

"Well...." Penny was obviously weighing her conversational options. "Okay," she leaned in closer, "he has a bit of a reputation, you know, amongst the women in the office."

"Oh?" Jim's eyebrows rose.

Penny recoiled. "No, not like that." She rocked her head from side to side. "Well, actually..., kind of like that I guess. He has this habit, you see, of getting up these trips. Always with a young, female subordinate. Always alone. And, you know...."

Jim held his hands open and lips pressed together in a sign of confusion.

"You know, he," Penny grimaced, "he tries stuff."

Jim snickered. "Well, you should take it as a compliment then," he said, jovially, poking Penny in the shoulder. "He clearly thinks you're quite the catch."

Penny brushed away Jim's finger hastily and not without some annoyance. "It's not funny, Jim. It's very serious. I thought I'd be able to talk to you about this sort of thing!"

Jim tightened his composure. "C'mon, Penny. I get that this is serious, but do you honestly think that Bob would ever do a thing like that? I mean, he's married and I think he's got kids too. He doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd cheat on his wife."

"Does anyone seem like the type of person who'd cheat?"

Jim frowned. "Yeah, I suppose not." He certainly hadn't thought of that.

There was silence for some time before Jim broke his frown. "No, I still don't buy it," he said, but more softly and with far less conviction then before.

"It's not just that," Penny's voice was getting high-pitched, wanting more and more desperately for her friend to believe her. "He's hit on me in the office before. He always stands too close when I'm talking, to the point where I can feel his breath on my skin, and, and, and whenever I pass by his office, I can feel his eyes following me as I walk away. He just," Penny choked, and looked away, "he just really creeps me out, okay."

"Okay, okay," Jim put his hands on Penny's shoulders, trying to calm her down. "I believe you. The guy's a creep. Now, what are we going to do about it?"

Penny wiped back another tear from eye. Her voice was still a little hoarse. "That's really what I wanted to talk to you about it. I'm not sure what I should do."

It seemed pretty obvious to Jim. "Tell Jen! Get HR to cancel the trip, or pick someone else for you to go with."

"There is no one else! Bob's the one who needs to be there, not me. If I say something, I'll be stuck here and someone else is going to get the opportunity to go to New York and impress the bosses."

Jim shook his head in consternation. "That's not an excuse. You gotta stand up for yourself! You're extremely smart and wickedly talented. There's definitely going to be other opportunities, Penny. You can't sell out for one."

"But there aren't going to be other opportunities, Jim. You said it yourself: You've been working here ten years, and they've never asked you to go anywhere even once. That's the whole fucking point of working in this department! They send you places."

Penny delivered the next part much more calmly, with an almost tender touch, but it didn't stop her words from stabbing Jim straight in the gut. "No offence, man, but I really don't want to end up like you after doing this for ten years."

Jim shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He stared at the ground, not wanting Penny to see the look on his face. "Okay, okay, I think I see your dilemma." He looked back up. "Why don't I talk to Jen for you. I'll bring up other complaints with Bob and see if something can't be done."

"Really? You'd do that?"

"Course I would, Penny. If it wasn't for you being here, I probably would have hanged myself with the fucking telephone wire years ago."

"Oh, thank you so much, Jim." Penny burst from her chair and wrapped him in a giant hug, more or less to Jim's total surprise.

He uncouthly patted Penny's back while his chin remained uncomfortably pressed up against her shoulder blade. Penny interpreted it as an affectionate tap although it was more a sign of surrender, one wrestler signalling his submission to the other. Penny ignored him and continued in the hug for a disagreeable amount of time.

He wasn't totally uncomfortable, however. At least being completely debilitated affords one the opportunity to think unabated.

And think he did.

Jim sat at the kitchen table, his laptop open and scrolling through Reddit as he often found himself on weekend afternoons with nothing to do. He justified this time wasted to his wife as a valuable education experience while he scanned the communities of fellow history and film enthusiasts, but the real source of Jim's curiosity had naturally nothing to do with enlightenment but instead with conflict.

Of course, Jim never went looking for a fight per se, but his clashes seemed almost inevitable on a platform as dominated by right-wing agitators and politically incorrect firebrands as Reddit. Some knight in shining armour had to set the record straight, and unfortunately, more often than not, that mantle fell on poor Jim's shoulders. He always figured that the great martyrs of history never really planned their heroic deeds, but events had led them to make such honorable sacrifices for the good of their fellow man. Jim certainly never meant to lay himself bear before the people's contempt, but if that is what humanity demanded, so be it.

The Viking subreddits were particularly gruesome territory for a moralist crusader à la James. Like the more prominent Nazis before them, white supremacists had co-opted the enthusiasm surrounding early Scandinavian culture as an example of an idealized, racially pure Aryan society. Misogynists openly longed for a world where burly raiders could pillage an enemy town and plod home weighed down by sacks of gold and a newly captive wife on their back. Racists reminisced of sprawling empires of pale, white-skinned warriors spreading across the sea to impale Vinland savages with their spears and hack apart spindly Arabs with their battle-axes. A curiouser crowd trumpeted the burning and looting of Catholic churches by unrepentant pagan tribesmen, suggesting a similar fate might yet befall the modern papists soon enough.

Jim did not believe his fellow internet travelers to be beyond redemption, however, and being the generous, charitable man he was, he had learned long ago to turn the other cheek and accept abuse in the name of enlightening the humble masses. Knowing one tread the path of the righteous provided a screen of invincibility that could not be shattered by even the most repugnant of ignoramus commentary. Like an angel of God, Jim would descend from his heavenly perch and show his wandering, wayward flock the way back home.

Actually, he typed, it's highly unlikely that the later Norse represented what you would call a "single race society", u/OdinHammer69. The Norse controlled one of the most globalized, cosmopolitan empires of the late post-classical period, and there is a long documented history of interaction, whether it be through commerce, politics, science, etc., with other non-homogenous nations throughout the Mediterranean, including many early Islamic states. This led to a high degree of hybridization with later Norse introducing ship-building reforms inspired by Arab dhows, to adopting Islamic art and artefacts. Given the level of civilizational cross-pollination, one can only characterize the Norse trading empires as fundamentally multi-ethnic and heterogeneous in nature.

There. The debate had been firmly settled. Now, it was only a matter of time for others to see the light.

What a fucking killjoy libtard cuck, u/OdinHammer69 replied.

Do you use that mouth to kiss your mother with? Jim retorted.

Do YOU use YOUR mouth to suck the cum out of your wife's pussy after she's been fucked by boatload of Syrian terrorists. Fucking Trudeau fuck.

*a boatload, Jim replied.

Jim started watching the upvotes come in. It was clear he was on the losing end of this fight, and it was time to eject while he still could. He deleted his comments and moved on to another forum.

"Okay, bye honey. I'll see you around nine."

Jim swirled around to see Evi dressed in her studded leather outdoor coat with a pink gift-bag in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, ready to depart.

"Wait, what's going on?" Jim asked, in a state of utter confusion.

Evi stared back, blankly. "I told you, I'm out to Sammy's baby shower, right?"

"No, I don't think-."

Evi dropped the wine bottle and held the bridge of her nose tightly between her thumb and forefinger, her eyes slammed shut against the onset of a migraine. "No, that wasn't a question, James. I know I told you. You just," she pressed her lips together and shook her hands in Jim's general direction," you just never listen to me."

"Akh!" she cried.

"I'm really sorry dear, I must have completely forgotten."

Evi waved it away. "Don't...," she looked down. "It's fine. I'm going to leave now. Enjoy your evening."

"Good...bye," Jim cooed timidly after his wife, much too quietly for her to hear it as she rushed out the door.

He fell back into his chair, befuddled and dithered as ever.

After the initial disorientation had passed, the opportunity of this unexpected moment dawned on him. Now that Evi was gone, Jim could finally return to his investigations unmonitored and untethered. The real work had just about to begin.

Jim scurried to the bedroom and rustled away a tablet sitting at Evi's bedside table from the charging cord clinging onto it. He brought the machine to life and peered deeply into its screen to see what mysteries hid beneath its surface.

The home-screen was dominated by dictionary apps of every language Evi spoke and news outlets from across the known world (or what Jim assumed were news outlets, since he couldn't exactly understand the majority of the writing). He continued to scroll around, searching for some sort of messaging service: Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, Ashley Madison, whatever. He just needed to find the avenues where Evi might conduct her affair, and if he could fully exhaust each of those avenues, then he could rest well at night.

Evi was smart, but Jim had always known himself to be more cunning. Evi's refusal to play strategic board games with him more or less cemented that fact. Thus, he was quite confident that whatever she tried to cover up, Jim was certain to find.

Unfortunately, the tablet was mainly empty. It was a window into a million creative outlets that Evi had always hinted she enjoyed but Jim had never interrogated, littered with apps for drawing, painting, music, poetry and photography, but very little else. Jim had nearly given up on the project when out of the corner of his eye he recognized something that seemed just ever so subtly out of place.

At first, Jim assumed it was just another art program. It was a square with rounded edges tinted purple, and it seemed rather innocent, if somewhat suspiciously nondescript. But, as Jim looked at it more closely, he realized that the inner box and dot in the top right-hand corner made this box seem almost suspiciously camera-like in shape. Not necessarily in the vein of the giant black lens that professionals hauled around today, but the blockish Kodiak disposals that used to be tossed around at wedding receptions and dragged about by children to document their pet rocks and exclusionary fortresses. Jim decided this required further examination, and he clicked open the app.

Jim knew what Instagram was even if he refused on principle to join it. Being so deeply intertwined with the beauty of language and the written word, Jim found it a little retrograde for people to communicate exclusively in pictorials. He was genuinely concerned it was leading to a complete degeneration of human thinking, and he had generally accepted that he and his wife were in agreement on this point, even if it was this point alone. Thus, one can only imagine how startled he was to find Evangeline's Instagram account all in pristine condition on her tablet, ready for Jim's discerning (and prejudicial) eye.

It was no half-assed account either. Jim saw that Evi was nearing twenty thousand followers. Her posts were being liked hundreds of times, and all manner of comments were being left below them, mostly in some form of lecherous (though Jim did allow for some amount of irony in those).

His wife was not shy about her stature either. Every photo showed off a new fashion, new style or accessory, interspersed only with the occasion empty inspirational quotation or meal portraits. Jim recognized some of their greatest hits: crêpes du mer, steak Neptune, fettuccine di Alfrédo, the list went on. And that was not all he recognized.

In selfie after selfie, she lay sprawled across beach-chairs, stretched against walls and dipping into pools in all the skimpiest, laciest, raciest pieces Jim had ever bought her. Every bikini first shown stretched triumphantly across her taut body, then drenched in curve-defining water. Every string of lingerie pressed around her ample buttocks and pulled tight against protruding breasts. Every shirt from his youth stretched from the neck down to pillow her bosom and puff out her nipples. Everything Jim ever thought the two shared alone and in private, now freely available for all to see and comment upon.

In the comment section a stream of lascivious strangers oozed out objectifying compliments of every possible colour in every possible language. Men of all backgrounds, ethnicities and creeds offered tributes limited only by the size of their imagination for but one look, one touch, one kiss, one night. Transactions of every conceivable kind were suggested outright or hinted at through innuendo. There were no limits to the discussion, no attempt at moderation of any kind.

Jim's eyes drank up every detail of every photo, scanning them like a copy machine ready to print a document. Though disgusting and dehumanizing, there was nothing particularly incriminating about any them. They were all taken by Evi herself and all in familiar settings: Evi's gym, their bedroom, on their various vacations. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Everything was accounted for.

At least, everything but one was accounted.

As Jim scrolled back to the top of Evi's page, he found a photo of the lingerie she just had bought, on that so fateful day, the day of the missing twenty minutes. In it, she stood with her nose down, literally navel-gazing as she pulled her panties higher up on her hips to reveal more skin, a delicious smirk just visible, though her eyes were hidden.

Both of her hands were visible in the photo (someone else had taken it). The background was unfamiliar (it had not been taken near or around Jim). Most damning of all, it been posted at 2:00 in the afternoon, at least two hours before Evi would have normally left work.

Thus, it was no longer twenty minutes Evi was unaccounted for. It was two hours and twenty minutes.

Jim closed the app, settled the tablet down and held his hand on his head. No matter the twists and turns, he was getting closer. He just wasn't exactly sure that was still a good thing.