He sighed as he looked at the equipment spread across the tables, accumulated from over a year of exhaustive work. Maybe the answer would come to him in the night, while he slept—but no, that was romantic thinking.

“Honey.” His wife’s voice gently chided him from above. “Honey, I can’t do all these dishes by myself.”

“In a minute,” he groaned, slumping onto a rickety stool.

“I’ve been waiting for thirty, dear, and you still haven’t changed into a werewolf.” He didn’t bother to correct her. “Now,” she continued, “while you’re busy being human—come help me with the dishes!”

By this time, his mind had already wandered off again, into the cobwebbed nooks and crannies of the basement, where his oldest ideas lay. Sheaves of notes and scribblings from his first years of experimenting—some of those ideas still lay untouched, some may have potential—

“Sweetpea—!”

“What?”

“The dishes, sweetpea, the dishes!”