The life of a television news executive isn’t
all that cracked up to be. All he does all day is put up with the requests of
his subordinates, which range from asking for new work space that he doesn't have to practically
blowing him for sick leave hours.
Don Dressler found that out the hard way. Sure;
he had an office on the 20th floor of the corporate building, a beautiful
secretary with an English accent and a modified Porsche Cayenne, yet he always wondered
whether they ever had any inherent value.
The clock had just struck midnight on a frigid
December evening when Don took out a glass from his desk along with a bottle of
20-year-old scotch. He had arrived at the office 17 hours prior to opening that
Johnnie Walker Blue and hasn’t left since.
Iran and Israel declared war on each other and
everyone in the world was glued to their television, computer, tablet and cell
phone screens as well. Twitter virtually exploded with traffic from people eager
to keep up with any updates.
“If the world is about to end, then I might as
well get a taste of this,” Don thought to himself while pouring the distilled,
thousand-dollar beverage as one of his TV screen showed a news anchor interviewing
a British war general, asking him if this event was worse than a zombie
apocalypse.
After downing a second glass of liquid gold, he
went on the hourly pilgrimage to the one place where he could truly be alone;
his exclusive hermitage; his very own hobbit hole.
The executive bathroom was as large as the
newsroom on the fifth floor, and the solitude it provided warranted more than a
few visits per day.
Don took positioned his bare bottom onto the
ceramic throne and fished out his phone to check on his texts.
The first was from his provider
asking if he would like to subscribe to a package that enables him to call and
text Canadian numbers for a “low, low price.” He promptly deleted the text. Don didn't know anyone in Canada. Not enough to pay 30 extra dollars per month.
Five spam messages later, he noticed a text
from Regina.
Regina was the “dame” who abruptly “walked into
his life” thus disrupting its flow forever. To say that she was his film-noir
femme fatale would be a detriment to what she truly meant to him.
After war broke out, she immediately flew
to Tehran to cover the ensuing protests. Don had a lump in his throat ever
since she left and it more than likely explained his need to drink. It was
heavier than an Israeli nuclear missile.
“Things are a little more stable now,” the
beginning of her text message said. “The riot cops took out 20 people in the
past hour alone and a lot of the others fled, and none of the foreign media outlets are able to get a
satellite uplink. And I miss you like crazy.”
This meant that correspondents won’t be able to
give live updates on television; it also made Don’s heart sink like the
Titanic.
He went back to his office and pondered about everything. There was no specific thought, and he was crushed under the weight of his emotions.
Looking out the window, he witnessed the snow slowly falling to the ground with the street lights shimmering in between the flakes, creating a beautiful portrait.
Looking out the window, he witnessed the snow slowly falling to the ground with the street lights shimmering in between the flakes, creating a beautiful portrait.
He took out his phone and wrote: “I wish you
were here. It’s snowing outside and everything is black and white on the
street.”
Don then went back to his chair, poured himself
another glass of scotch and continued to watch the world unravel on live television.
