A pinky fingers worth

A Pinky Finger’s Worth

Burghausen Castle, present day.

There were nineteen people in the hall when Ethan began counting.

He counted again and found twenty. Someone stood behind a pillar near the entrance, almost entirely hidden in shadow.

It was easier to count them than to look at the empty chair at the far end of the room.

A few sat around the long table. Others remained against the walls, their hands folded or hanging at their sides. No one touched the water. A man near the windows had been holding the same glass since Ethan arrived.

Some of them had blue eyes that glowed in the dim hall.

Achilles stood beside a stone pillar. Ethan had seen him walk toward things that made everyone else retreat. Now he stood motionless, watching the entrance.

That frightened Ethan more than the silence.

He looked down at himself. Dark trousers. An ordinary shirt. One sleeve folded higher than the other. Kate would have noticed. She would have taken his wrist, rolled both sleeves properly, and told him to stop moving.

He adjusted the sleeve.

Across the table, a woman looked at the clock.

“What happens,” Ethan asked, “if we cannot convince him?”

Several faces turned toward him.

No one answered.

Somewhere beyond the hall, footsteps approached.

Ethan pressed his thumb against his wedding ring.

For a moment, he was back in a small kitchen in London, trying to close a bag.

---

London, 2021.

The converter did not fit.

It had fitted the night before, when Ethan tested it. He had measured the bag, wrapped the device, placed it inside, taken it out, and repeated the process twice because he knew what mornings did to careful plans.

Now one corner caught beneath the zip.

“No,” he whispered. “Come on.”

He pulled the material away from the casing and tried again.

Behind him, the kettle clicked off.

“You’re arguing with it already?”

Kate stood in the doorway wearing his old T-shirt. Her hair had flattened on one side while she slept. She squinted at the kitchen light.

“The bag,” he said.

“I assumed you weren’t talking to the kettle.”

“It fitted yesterday.”

“Everything fits yesterday.”

She came beside him and looked down.

The converter was about the size of a small car battery. Most of its casing was dull metal, except for a narrow inspection panel through which a faint white light could be seen. One corner had been replaced with a different alloy. The replacement was darker than the rest.

Kate ran a finger over it.

“Is this part supposed to look like that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Very convincing.”

“It’s a prototype.”

“I know what it is.”

She gently moved his hands aside, lifted the bag around the device rather than forcing the device downward, and closed the zip.

Ethan looked at her.

“Don’t,” she said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to explain why that worked.”

He smiled.

For a few seconds, it was an ordinary morning.

Kate poured water into a mug. Ethan checked the folder on the table. Identification. Entry confirmation. Presentation notes. Test results. He touched each item without taking it out.

“Have you eaten?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

He looked at the folder.

“Ethan.”

“I’ll get something there.”

She opened the bread bin.

“There won’t be time.”

“There’s time to stand here checking the same four papers.”

She put two slices in the toaster.

He checked the time on his phone and immediately wished he had not.

“They’ve given me twelve minutes.”

“You told me.”

“Twelve minutes to explain something they’ve spent three years refusing to read.”

“Then don’t spend the first eleven telling them that.”

He let out a breath.

Kate leaned against the counter.

“Show them it works.”

“They’ll want to know how.”

“Good. Then they’ll be asking you questions.”

He looked toward the bag.

The little kitchen had become a workshop so gradually that neither of them could say when they had stopped eating at the table. A soldering iron occupied one end. Tools filled a biscuit tin. His mother’s notebooks were stacked against the wall beneath a patch of damp he had promised to deal with before winter.

It was March.

Kate followed his gaze.

“Leave all that. I’ll clear enough space for breakfast.”

“I’ll do it when I get back.”

“All right.”

He heard the ease with which she said it. She no longer argued with promises like that.

It would be different after today.

He had thought those words often enough to distrust them. After the next test. After the next meeting. After someone finally understood.

But the device worked now.

For thirty-one hours it had supplied a steady output without measurable depletion. He had changed the instruments. Repeated the measurements. Disconnected every external source. Then he had sat on the kitchen floor until dawn, watching a lamp remain lit.

A quantum converter.

He had written those words at the top of his presentation. Beneath them, he had written a sentence he expected half the room to dismiss before he finished saying it.

A battery capable of producing limitless energy.

His mother had spent years trying to make that sentence true.

She had never seen the lamp.

The toast rose.

Kate buttered it and put a piece in his hand.

“Eat.”

He obeyed.

From the bedroom came the sound of a small cough.

Both of them turned.

A moment later, Nessa appeared in the doorway with a stuffed rabbit hanging by one ear.

“Are you going now?”

“Soon.”

She looked at the bag.

“Is that Grandma’s machine?”

Ethan crouched.

“It’s our machine.”

“Mine too?”

“You held the torch.”

“For a long time.”

“For a very long time.”

She considered this, then came closer.

“When you come back, can we go to the ducks?”

Ethan opened his mouth.

Kate watched him over the rim of her mug.

“Yes,” he said. “We can go to the ducks.”

“Today?”

“Today.”

Nessa held out her little finger.

He hooked his around it.

Only then did she seem satisfied.

Kate took his empty plate. He had not noticed finishing the toast.

At the door, she straightened his collar.

“You don’t have to tell them everything at once.”

“I know.”

“Speak slowly.”

“I know.”

“And let them finish their questions.”

He looked at her.

“That happened once.”

“It happened with the bank manager.”

“He wasn’t asking a question.”

“No. He was trying to tell you we couldn’t have any money.”

Ethan laughed, then stopped.

Kate’s hand remained on his collar.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

He looked back into the flat.

Nessa was sitting at the table now, making room for her rabbit between a multimeter and a stack of unpaid envelopes.

“I’ll make it worth it,” he said.

Kate’s expression changed.

“What?”

“All of this.”

She glanced behind her.

“Ethan.”

“The years. You working extra shifts. Waiting for me to—”

“I didn’t marry a future exhibition.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

He wanted to explain that this was precisely why it mattered. Because she had never demanded anything. Because Nessa thought carrying a torch was a share in an invention. Because they had both accepted so little from him that he could no longer bear to offer them the same.

Instead, he kissed her.

She held him for a moment before letting go.

“Call me when it’s finished.”

“I will.”

“And Ethan?”

He turned in the doorway.

“You’re allowed to come home even if they say no.”

He nodded.

He did not trust himself to answer.

---

The pavement was still wet.

Ethan kept the bag on the side away from the road. Twice, people brushed against him and he turned his body to protect it. Beneath a shop awning, he stopped to check that the zip had not opened.

A message arrived from Kate.

A photograph of Nessa and the rabbit at the kitchen table.

Beneath it:

Your assistants expect payment in duck food.

He smiled and typed:

Tell them their demands are unreasonable.

Then:

Love you.

He put the phone away.

He was late.

Not disastrously late. There was still time to register, find the hall, connect the converter, and make certain that the display unit had the correct input.

The exhibition confirmation said adaptors would be provided.

He should have brought his own.

As he walked, he went through the beginning of his presentation.

His name. The device. A brief explanation of the conversion process.

He had removed most of the part about his mother.

It had been too long, and Kate had gently reminded him that he was there to show them a working machine. There would be time to tell the rest if they listened.

Still, her name remained on the first page.

Rose Evers.

He had printed it above his own.

At the crossing, he shifted the bag to his other hand.

Someone beside him stepped forward.

Ethan followed.

He heard the horn before he saw the car.

There was time to turn his head.

There was time to pull the bag against his chest.

Then something struck him with such force that the street disappeared.

---

His mother had used the dining table too.

That was the first thing he remembered whenever he opened her notebooks: not her face, but the table beneath her hands.

It had a split near one corner. Small screws sometimes rolled into it, and retrieving them required a knife, a magnet, and language she told him not to repeat.

When he was seven, he believed every home contained a machine that nobody was allowed to touch.

His friends’ homes proved otherwise.

One afternoon, he stood beside her chair while she tightened a connection beneath an open metal housing.

“Mum?”

“Mm?”

“Why do we always do this?”

She continued turning the screwdriver.

“Do what?”

“This.”

That made her look up.

He gestured at the table, the wires, the curtains she had forgotten to open.

“Wouldn’t it be better to go for a walk? Or play hide-and-seek?”

Rose put the screwdriver down.

Outside, children were shouting in the courtyard. Someone had brought a ball.

She looked toward the window, then back at him.

“Come here.”

He came close enough for her to take his hand.

“There’s an enormous amount of suffering in the world, Ethan.”

He frowned.

She pulled him gently between her knees.

“People get cold. People get hungry. Sometimes the things that could help them exist, but they cannot afford to use them.”

“Like our heating?”

“Yes,” she said. “Like our heating.”

He looked at the machine.

“Will that make us warm?”

“If I can make it work.”

“And everybody else?”

“That’s the idea.”

He thought about it.

“How much suffering is there?”

“A great deal.”

“A thousand?”

He pulled his hand free and raised both hands, spreading all ten fingers.

Rose smiled.

“Yes, my little one. A thousand. And even more than that.”

He stared at his fingers as though they had failed to represent the number properly.

She took one hand and folded down his pinky.

“If we remove even a pinky finger’s worth of suffering from this world, our purpose will have been fulfilled.”

“Only that much?”

“Even that much.”

He looked at the bent finger.

Then he looked toward the window.

“Can we go outside after?”

Rose’s smile faded a little.

She looked at the machine, then at the screwdriver beside it.

“Yes,” she said.

She stood and reached for his coat.

Years later, he would remember the lesson.

For much longer than that, he would remember that she had taken him outside.

---

He woke because someone was saying his name.

Not loudly.

That was what made it frightening.

“Ethan.”

He opened his eyes.

Kate sat beside him.

For a moment he thought he had slept through the exhibition.

“What time is it?”

She put a hand over his.

“Don’t try to get up.”

He had not realised he was trying.

There was a tube in his arm. A pale curtain. A screen producing a regular electronic sound.

His mouth was dry.

“The bag.”

Kate closed her eyes.

“Where’s the bag?”

“Ethan, you were in an accident.”

“I know. Where is it?”

“We’ll talk about it.”

“Kate.”

Her hand tightened.

He tried to move his legs beneath the sheet.

Nothing happened.

He looked down.

He tried again, more deliberately, as though the first command had been unclear.

Kate began to cry before he asked her why.

---

Afterwards, he remembered the doctor’s hands.

They rested loosely together while he spoke. Occasionally, one moved to indicate something on an image.

Ethan watched them because looking at Kate was harder.

There had been surgery.

There was damage to his spinal cord.

There were things they knew and things they would need time to understand.

“Will I walk?”

The doctor paused.

Ethan hated him for the pause, then felt ashamed.

“We need to be realistic about the injury.”

“Will I walk?”

The answer was longer than he wanted.

He listened to all of it.

When the doctor left, Kate wiped her face and reached for a cup of water.

“Here.”

“I’m not thirsty.”

“Your mouth’s dry.”

He let her help him drink.

A little water ran down his chin. She wiped it away with a tissue before he could lift his hand.

He turned his face toward the window.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

“Where’s Nessa?”

“With a friend.”

“Does she know?”

“She knows you’re hurt.”

He nodded.

“She made you something.”

Kate took a folded piece of paper from her bag.

In the drawing, three people stood beside a yellow house. One was much taller than the others. Above them, a sun occupied almost half the sky.

“She said that’s you,” Kate told him, pointing to the tallest figure.

“Why am I so big?”

“I don’t know.”

He looked at the long, uneven legs Nessa had drawn beneath him.

“Put it where I can see it.”

Kate found a place beside the bed.

---

They returned the converter in a transparent property bag.

Ethan had insisted.

The casing had split open. The internal assembly was crushed into itself, and the ceramic lattice at its centre had broken into fragments so small they resembled pale sand.

He recognised the darker corner Kate had touched that morning.

It was almost undamaged.

Everything it had been attached to was gone.

For several minutes he examined the pieces through the plastic.

He turned the bag over.

A loose component slid into view. He recognised it immediately. It had taken seven weeks to obtain and another three to modify.

He pressed a finger against it through the plastic.

Kate sat quietly beside him.

“I have the measurements,” he said.

“I know.”

“And the drawings.”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t have to start again.”

She moved closer.

He kept looking at the broken parts.

“The difficult part was making it work. I know it works now.”

Kate put her hand on his arm.

“I know, Ethan.”

He nodded several times.

Then he asked for his phone.

---

At first, people answered.

They were sorry to hear what had happened.

They wished him a full recovery.

They regretted that the funding round had closed.

They encouraged him to apply again when a functional prototype became available.

He wrote from the hospital bed. Later, he wrote from the flat, where the table had been cleared because his chair needed room to turn.

He attached the test results.

He attached photographs.

He explained that rebuilding would take less time than the original development, that the theoretical obstacles had already been overcome, that the accident had destroyed the device but not the work.

He removed that last sentence from the next email. It sounded emotional.

He shortened his messages.

Then lengthened them.

He stopped mentioning the accident unless someone asked why he could not attend in person.

One man agreed to a video call, listened for seventeen minutes, and asked whether Ethan had considered setting up a public fundraiser.

Another wanted access to every notebook before discussing terms.

Ethan ended that call himself.

Afterwards, he stared at the dark screen and wondered whether pride was something he could still afford.

The man’s email remained in his inbox.

Twice, Ethan began a reply.

He sent neither.

---

Kate went back to work.

They rearranged the flat.

A small cabinet moved into the bedroom. A rug was rolled up and placed behind the wardrobe. The kitchen chairs were pushed against the wall.

Each change helped.

Each change made the accident harder to mistake for something temporary.

Nessa learned not to leave toys in the narrow space between the bedroom and the bathroom.

No one asked her to do that.

One evening, Ethan found her moving the rabbit from the floor to a chair.

“He was in your road,” she explained.

“Thank you.”

She nodded, pleased to have helped.

He waited until she left before putting his hands over his face.

He tried to keep working.

Some mornings, he opened the notebooks before Kate woke. He calculated costs, revised the assembly, searched for cheaper components.

He found ways to rebuild the converter with less.

Then less again.

Eventually, every reduction required him to assume that something would work without testing it.

He recognised the point at which a plan became wishful thinking.

He had rejected other people’s work for less.

He closed the spreadsheet.

From the next room, Nessa called for help finding a sock.

He went to help her.

---

The replies became less frequent.

Then they stopped.

There were still advertisements, payment reminders, newsletters from organisations that had declined his applications. Once, a supplier sent him a discount on a component he could no longer afford even at half price.

He unsubscribed.

Then he went back to his sent messages.

Kate found him there after midnight.

“Come to bed.”

“In a minute.”

She stood behind him.

On the screen was an email he had already rewritten six times.

“They won’t read it tonight,” she said.

“They might be in America.”

“Are they?”

He did not answer.

Kate pulled out the other chair and sat.

For a while, neither spoke.

The refrigerator hummed. In the room beyond the wall, Nessa shifted in her sleep.

“I could sell the equipment,” he said.

“Do you want to?”

“No.”

“Then don’t decide tonight.”

“It’s taking up space.”

“So are the chairs.”

He looked at her.

She was tired enough that the joke barely reached her face.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

He turned back to the screen.

“I was supposed to make things easier.”

Kate watched him.

“I know.”

“You should have married someone sensible.”

“I tried. He spent our first date explaining why the electricity bill was a moral problem.”

Ethan almost smiled.

“You asked what I was working on.”

“I thought you’d say a kitchen.”

He looked down at his hands.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Kate moved her chair closer.

For once, she did not offer encouragement.

She put her head against his shoulder and remained there while the cursor blinked at the end of an unfinished sentence.

---

In the morning, Ethan opened his inbox before breakfast.

Nothing.

He checked again after Kate put a plate beside him.

He ate because she was there.

Across the table, Nessa tried to balance a spoon on the rabbit’s head. Each time it fell, she looked at Ethan to see whether he had noticed.

He caught it once before it reached the floor.

She laughed.

For a little while, he forgot the laptop.

Then Kate began gathering their things, and he turned the screen toward himself again.

“Anything?” she asked.

Ethan shook his head.

She glanced at the laptop, then bent to fasten Nessa’s coat. The zip caught halfway.

“Stand still.”

“I am.”

“You’re helping with your whole body.”

Ethan smiled.

Nessa came over to him, carrying the rabbit beneath one arm.

“Are you coming?”

“Not today, sweetheart.”

“Tomorrow?”

He looked at her.

“We’ll see.”

She leaned against his knees, and he bent to kiss her head.

Kate picked up her bag.

“There’s food in the fridge.”

“I know.”

“Food, Ethan. Coffee doesn’t count.”

“I’ll eat.”

She came beside him and kissed him. Before drawing away, she rested her forehead against his for a moment.

“Call me if you need anything.”

He nodded.

Nessa waved from the doorway.

He raised his hand.

Then they were gone.

For a little while, he could still hear them in the corridor. Nessa was asking something. Kate’s answer was too quiet to make out.

The outer door closed.

Ethan turned back to the laptop.

No new messages.

He opened the email he had been writing before breakfast.

I would be grateful for the opportunity to demonstrate—

He deleted demonstrate.

There was nothing left to demonstrate.

He tried discuss, read the sentence again, then closed the draft.

His mother’s notebook lay beside the laptop. Near the bottom of the open page, she had crossed out a calculation and written it again in smaller figures.

He rested his hand on the paper.

Outside, a car started. Somewhere upstairs, someone moved a chair.

He sat there until the laptop screen went dark.

Then he leaned back and closed his eyes.

For several moments, nothing moved.

Ethan opened his eyes.

They glowed blue.