Mr. Rivers

Mr. Rivers sat unblinkingly at his desk.

"Tap tap tap," went the old tree against the panes of the window.

"Tap tap tap," went Mr. Rivers' pencil on the desk. He had been staring at the blank wall across the study for over half an hour now and to no avail. The plain beige paint wasn't exactly giving him the spark of enlightenment he needed right now. With a sigh and a grunt, Mr. Rivers sat back in his chair. The old chair creeked against the hardwood floor in protest to the weight shift. He rolled his head to the side and stared at the bookself to the left of his desk. Old, dusty books stared back at him. When was the last time anyone had dusted this office? Oh well, he thought, old books are supposed to be dusty anyway.

Mr. Rivers looked around the rest of the study. It was exactly what he thought a good study should look like: dark wood covered the floor and shone in the reflected light of the fire in the hearth. The mantel was large and took up almost one whole wall. It held some dusty old photographs but predominitly featured a carved pipe placed on stands in the center. Mr. Rivers was not a big smoker, the pipe was mostly for effect, but he did take it down every now and then, when he was deep in thought, to take a few puffs. In front of the fireplace were two arm chairs placed at an angle on a crimson rug. They were just the kind of chairs you would expect in a study; chairs that looked like they had come out of an old Sherlock Holmes movie. The opposite wall was covered in bookshelves holding his precious books, as well as a few other odds and ends. His desk sat in front of the window, facing the blank wall and the doorway. It was a good desk: dark, carved and polished wood, heavy and ornate. The desk was his favorite part of the office. It was his working place, his creative haven and his thinking corner.

"Tap tap tap," went the old tree. It was ticking away the minutes, the hours, that Mr. Rivers sat at his desk thinking about nothing. With another sigh, he pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and pulled himself up from his chair. Nothing had come to him, and nothing would. It was time to chalk the situation up as a loss and move on.

Mr. Rivers opened the door of the study and walked down the hallway to the sitting room.

"Alright," he said to his somber son, "you can keep the puppy."

As he turned and walked back down the hall to the sounds of his children and their new pet celebrating, he couldn't help but smile just a tiny, private smile. Sometimes not being able to find the answer is the only answer you're going to get.