You Are an Imago in the World of Publishing but Sometimes Even Spiders are Shown Mercy

The agent sat in her armchair, a manuscript nestled in her lap. Miasma hung in the air, brought upon by the dim lighting and the storm outside. It coated her tongue. Her eyelids drooped, and she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands before starting to read. She couldn't help but oscitate at the first sentence, but by the end of the first paragraph she was laughing, all signs of sleepiness gone.

Behind the windows, the sky grew darker, not a drop of sun shining through. She squinted to see and kept reading. The paper crept closer and closer to her nose. Her eyes screeched to a halt at the end of the last line. She stared at the last period, then slowly set the manuscript down.

Thunder crashed right aside her window. A mirror on the wall fell and cracked. The agent jumped, awakened out of her revery.

She hugged the submission, excitement bubbling up inside her. It wasn't perfect. There was a elephant-sized lacuna in the plot and some synchronicity wouldn't hurt. But the writing, and the characters, and the voice. She sighed, happy.

She stood and hurried to the phone, hoping the line wasn't down.