Business Case

Tom was a sharply dressed man. Always. You noticed him as soon as he walked into a room, and this particular room was an office on the second floor. “Thanks for going over the financials in my business case”

“Of, no problem Tom, always happy to help”

“You’re a champ Sarah” Sarah tucked a lock of her curly auburn hair behind her ear. In the process dropping a bundled up tissue out of her sleeve. “Ah, sorry. I just can’t get used to the cold here. I feel like I’ve been sick for months.”

“It’s chilly out there alright” The two of them looked out of the small window in Sarah’s office. The white of the snow bent and curved and somehow managed to make lines against the other whiteness that gave impression that there was maybe something under the snow.

“So, does it look ok to you? Do the numbers all seem to stack up?”

“Oh yeah, it’s all fine really. Just maybe a thing or two” Sarah seemed a little uncertain. Tom looked back at her expectantly, waiting for her to speak first.

“I mean, the hurdle rate you’ve used is correct. And the NPV looks good… the payback period should get signed off…” She was looking more uncomfortable.

“What is it Sarah? I’m happy to relook at the numbers if need be. You know, when you go and see the Big Guy, it’s more of a sales pitch than a math lesson. The detail needs to stack up, but he’s more about the whole scheme”

Sarah had seen plenty of sales pitches that relied on inflated sales to make the business case stick. “Yeah, I understand. The numbers are all fine, they’re good in fact.”

“Great” a beaming, charming smile.

Sarah didn’t like to have her name associated with something if she wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. “If there is a weakness… well, it’s that, the whole thing kind of hinges on this one revenue item for it to work. This um… ransom amount. If you receive the full billion then there shouldn’t be any problems with the financial side of things.”

“Look, I know what you’re thinking, and to be honest I thought I’d leant more on the conservative side with that figure. The whole thing with a Death Ray is that well, it’ll cause a whole lot of death, and destruction. The world governments will do anything to stop the Big Guy from using it. In fact, I think he’s going to love this proposal. It’s classic stuff, the sort of thing he made his name on.”

Sarah sighed, at least internally she sighed, she didn’t want to get into an argument. She’d had so many since she’d arrived here at the hidden building in the middle of nowhere, frozen into secrecy. The conversation paused for a moment and they found themselves looking out the window again, each taking a metal deep breath in silence. The contemplative mood was broken suddenly though, when the siren started to sound, and gunfire could be heard from the floor below.  Sarah was panicked, looking around for her coat and hat. Tom, for his part was clam, he just pulled a pair of gloves from his suit pocket and started putting them on. “Don’t you have a coat or something warmer?” Sarah asked him as she gathered up the papers for the business case and stuffed them into a file as they were rushing out into the hallway and towards the stairwell “I’ll be fine. And unless that’s your CV, I wouldn’t bother bringing it. I don’t think there’ll be any cause to show up for work tomorrow.”

Stunned and panicked, Sarah didn’t quite take in what Tom was saying, she clutched the file to her chest, maybe just for warmth as they stepped out into the pale milky cold of the afternoon. This had always been a possibility, and she had a bag packed in her car at all times. It was time to put the plan into action, straight to the airport and onto the first flight going somewhere warm.

Bullets were flying but she hardly noticed as she ran to her car. She glanced back to see where Tom was but he wasn’t behind her. It looked like there was a man, lightly dressed, maybe just in a suit, walking in the snow away from the building. “Oh well” she muttered to herself “I don’t care if you freeze anyway” and she drove away from the chaos and cracking of gunshots. It was halfway to the airport when she looked down to the passenger seat. She still had the business plan. Maybe a billion dollars was optimistic, but a death ray could still be made to work financially.

Cricket

It's a funny game. As the days roll on the nature of it seems to change, the ground gets browner. Dust starts to kick up from his opponents as they hurl themselves across the pitch. It feels to him as if there are more people around. Maybe there are more, at the very least they're less spread out. No, he thinks, there are more than there was a few days ago. There's certainly fewer from his team. They've fallen slowly, but they've fallen, it's just him and one other now.

It's hot and the sun burns through his whites, he can feel it on his skin. His sweat has turned to a sticky dry salt feeling. Granules stick to his head, and his hands, and well, everywhere. 

It's the fifth and last day. He feels like a win is within reach. There's definitely more of them today, surely, but he feels like the end is close. Things happen at a slow inevitable pace. He can taste victory. No, maybe that's just salt. He swings wildly at times, forgetting the value of concentration. But their concentration is dimming as well, so he gets away with it for now. Slowly, inevitably, he inches closer. Not to victory, but not to defeat either. He inches closer to that hollow feeling of not having won, that is still so much more preferable to the only alternative now. All he can do now is avoid the bitter, the sweet is out of reach. 

Fishing

He lives close to the city, right on the edge of the action. He likes it more here, where things are going on, he likes to watch. The others live out deeper, away from all of the people, but it’s become his home here under the marina. It’s an upside down world for a fish, overhead are smooth bulbous forms and a ceiling that he can only peek through. Below him it’s muddy and craggy and changes in a non-uniform way. He doesn’t bother too much with the bottom though, his interest is above.

Near the surface the fish swims along peering at the distorted view of the world outside of the sea. He prefers the still, calm mornings, he can see things more clearly when the surface is so solid and reflective. Occasionally he’ll see something that he takes particular interest in. Breaking the surface briefly his eyes quickly adjust to the light and dryness as he snaps a mental picture that’ll feed his thoughts and imagination for the days to come.

As much as he cherishes these glimpses he tries to keep them to a minimum, they give him away, they let the people know that he’s there, he worries that people will realise he’s watching them. He swims around the edge of the marina, staying close to the path that they walk each morning and night. This particular morning he is overcome by curiosity and breaches for a second time just before the woman he’s following heads back inland. The splash causes her to glance over her shoulder. He can see her searching the water with a squint, these moments cause him great fear. He’s seen what people can do to fish, seen friends hauled up to the other side of the sleek hulls he swims around. But he needs to watch, he needs more information, desperate that one day he’ll figure it out. One day the fish is going to catch himself a person.

Behind You

Behind you, you hear someone sneeze. In the window of the building across the street you see a man sneeze. The sounds sync perfectly. For a moment, just a few fractions of a second, time stops. You, the man across the street, and the sneezer in your building, you are all frozen. And then life starts again. Time keeps moving. You’re not sure it ever happened. You’re certainly not going to ask Dennis from accounts, when he puts away his handkerchief, if time seemed to stop for him for just a moment, right after he sneezed. That’s the kind of thing that earns you funny looks in the office. It certainly won’t get you invited to the pub for a drink on Friday night. And you want this job to work out. This time, you want people to like you, not think of you as the strange girl with too many bangles who says weird things. You promised yourself that this job was going to be different. You weren’t going to have to explain that it seemed weird to you too, because you weren’t going to bring things like this up in the first place. But this, this can’t go without remarking, surely. How could you let this go? Dennis must be thinking the same thing at the moment, well, if not the exact same thing then something along the same lines, but obviously an internal narrative more specific to Dennis and his particular circumstances. But he’s got to be wondering about what just happened. “Dennis, did you just notice that? Right after you sneezed, time seemed to stand still, just for a second…”

Dennis just looks at you. His eyes look frightened, but the rest of his face is impassive…

Two Jags

It's when walking down the main street, my main street, the street through my 'burb. The place I bump into friends, the place I see those same people every day. Not friends, strangers really, but part of my community none the less. It’s when walking down this street, in this familiar and every day place that I first notice it, or notice the first one, or, whatever. That's when it starts. 

It's an old Jaguar, mid restoration, I don’t know, maybe thirty years old. The panels are all beat up and unpainted. Its exhaust is smokey and the engine sounds like sandpaper. I notice it for how cool it could be. Potentially. But what really made it memorable, that first time, was the driver. He was wearing a tweed jacket, his white beard was overshadowed by the moustache that sat upon it, tidily combed and twirling up at the edges. And in his mouth was a pipe. He looked like a caricature of himself; his appearance was not that of someone you'd forget easily. He certainly didn't look much like a mechanic obsessed with a labour of love. He looked like someone who'd been driving the same car for years. It was a cool car, but it was a tired car, that much was for sure.

Now the thing that gets to me, the part that I can't get my head around is the next day. It was a Sunday morning, and a sunny one at that. I was heading to my usual cafe, a greasy breakfast and strong coffee was beckoning to cure my hangover. I almost didn't notice it. He almost drove past me without me even realising. The bumpers were shining and the paint job was glossy. Through the windows I could see beautiful leather interior. The sound from the exhaust as it sailed past me was almost like music, so smooth and powerful sounding. I would not have even had made a connection with the day before if it wasn't for the driver, pipe smouldering away and facial hair even more elegantly groomed than on Saturday. 

I ran after him when the car stopped at the lights just ahead of me. Smiling through the window I asked the driver where his other car was today, and why two the same? Collector? He looked at me with the slightly puzzled look that people have when strangers accost them at traffic lights. "I don't have any other car son. This is the one I've been driving for nearly half my life now". The lights went green, the car in front of him pulled away, I heard a deep rumble and then his foot lifted from the clutch. The encounter over in a flash, I still can't figure it out.