Artemis did not take Willy’s resignation well.
His sources assured him that a competitor had not nicked his top lieutenant.
This made Waites’ departure even more mysterious. Remorse swirled in his
stomach; he should have seen the signs.
“Willy, Bassadai’s your home,” Artemis told him
on the phone, wondering whether the young man developed a drug problem. “Take
as much time off as you need.”
Success and excess went hand-in-hand. It was
common knowledge that the quirky but visionary head of Bassadai’s largest
division was known for doing lines of cocaine on his boardroom desk. Artemis
himself smoked pot in the remote think tank. Since BTT was one hundred percent
private, anything was possible. Rumour had it all who entered were given
automatic carte blanche to keep them sweet and their creative juices flowing.
Artemis ran his fingers through his dark hair and
sighed. The gossip wasn’t too far off the mark.
“It’s not home anymore,” Willy replied.
Artemis took a calculated risk. “Willy, remember
what I said about Prentice’s offer? Well, forget that figure. He’s offering you
three times your salary. Plus stock options.”
“Screw Prentice,” Willy retorted, his voice laced
with pain. “I’m never coming back!”
#
# # #
Willy’s sallow face bore an insipid beard for the
first time in his life. His weight dropped by ten pounds in a month, and his
wrinkled, unclean clothes hung loosely. A sour smell clung to his body like a
poltergeist. His socks got caught on his long, unfilled toenails creating
unsightly snags. But Willy remained unaware of the gradual personal decay.
Bent beer
cans and bottles lined every surface of his house minus the pea green toilet
and bathtub, and half-eaten pizzas curled up like old soles in scrunched boxes
crammed into an open bin liners leaning precariously in a kitchen corner.
He ran his tongue over
his furry teeth and popped another piece of chewing gum in his mouth. The last
Jiffy Pop container crackled over the stove and the smell of buttered popcorn
scented the stale air. Willy rattled its contents with one hand, located the
bottle opener with another. “Crap,” he muttered. He was down to his last
bottle.
In the adjacent room,
the television blared. The Super Bowl was about to begin. He turned off the
stove, cracked open the puffed aluminum pan and tore the sides open carelessly
burning one on his fingers. He didn’t yelp. It was one of the few physical
sensations he had felt in days. Bowl and bottle in hand, he managed the
obstacle course of shoes, dirty laundry and books back to the living room,
closed off to the real world with tightly drawn curtains and reclined on the
lumpy couch.
Willy customarily spent Super Bowl
Sunday in company of friends or family. This year he kept the world out.
The line up of curvy,
big-haired cheerleaders didn’t register with the same degree. Willy barley
blinked when they kicked up their boots and shook their pompoms. Willy watched
with a detachment akin to an old woman enduring a video on taxidermy.
At halftime, Will
almost did the unthinkable. He stared at the ceiling in a trance-like state
about ready to turn off the commotion when his hand limply dropped onto his lap
sending the popcorn bowl tumbling to the floor.
Willy’s attention
sprung back to life, and he looked back to the television screen to watch a
strange commercial with prisoners dressed in grey shuffling behind one another
in single file. Only their rhythmic marching and a disembodied voice orating
Utopian ideology played in the background. Every one of them was bald and
devoid of expression. Suddenly, a young woman dashed through the bleak tunnel
as the prisoners joined the others sitting in a large auditorium, their eyes
fixed to the orator’s face, projected in black and white. Her white tank top,
red shorts and cropped blonde hair gave life to the otherwise dull scene.
The men did not see her, but guards, complete
with riot gear, chased her up the aisle like hounds to the fox. In her hand was
a large hammer she clung to like a samurai’s sword. Reaching the front of the
room, she stopped dead in her tracks. Her pursuers neared dangerously. She began to spin and spin, her arm
muscles taunt and strained, intent written all over her face. After gathering
enough momentum, she unleashed the heavy hammer in the direction of a massive
Orwell style Big Brother screen, blowing it into smithereens and leaving the
prisoners agape.
The Apple 1984
Macintosh commercial was only shown once. Its effect on the consumer was
exceedingly effective, but the cord it struck deep within Willy went much deeper.
The last three words
heard in the commercial became his mantra: “We will prevail.” Willy Waites
experienced his epiphany on January 24, 1984.
No comments:
Post a Comment