The Requiem

You know, there are times I think my boss really hates me.
I can’t go a day without something going wrong. A file wasn’t lodged correctly, a deadline wasn’t met, a photo was too blurry, or an article is all shades of wrong.
The asshole can’t be bothered to do it himself, that’s why he doesn’t like it done any other way.
I wish I could say this to him, but what would he care, he’ll just sit there and act like it’s no one’s fault but my own.
Maybe you try harder.
Fuck you, try harder. I try harder every damn day and still he doesn’t care.
I work for a newspaper company, The Daily Speech. Just tabloids and rift raft if you ask me, but hey, it pays the bills.
It’s in an office. Not the ones with all the little cubicles. It’s about the size of a public bathroom, and it even comes with the special charm of smelling like one. Everyone has their own little desk, a faulty computer from the mid-2000s and a fax machine, because Mr know-it-all can’t get off his lazy ass to walk two metres and hand you the work himself.
And the work he gives, oh boy, let me tell you, some real hard-hitting stuff that makes everyone gasp in shock and awe. Such extraordinary tales like Woman finds used panties in pantry, is she eating her own filth?
Or Man finds burst tyre in car after running over a possum. Can he go to jail?
I wish I was joking, but this is the stuff he generally makes me write. I went through two years of journalism courses for this, and all I get in the end is the front-page tabloid of a boy choking on cereal, with the tagline, Oak Cereal, can it kill your kids?
I want something more, something that I’m truly passionate about. I don’t know what exactly, but something that makes people want to read more, something I’m proud to have my name on. I mean, it pays the bills, but I’m not exactly jubilant seeing my name under the tagline, Are Aliens living in your basement?
A day comes by, and I see Mr-know-it-all, sitting all alone, flicking paper triangles through arched fingers, patting himself on the back every time he gets a goal, and I work myself up to talk to him. He’s not scary, in fact, the opposite of menacing, it’s just he has that look as if anything you say sounds childish to him. Those weird I look down on everyone eyes.
I take a deep breath, fix my shirt, and march up to him.
All I want is another job, a new story to write, instead of Cats, are they really felines, or just dogs with whiskers?
So, there I am, standing before him. He, completely oblivious to my presence. Me, standing there, chancing a heavy breath to see if it alerts him. Hint, it doesn’t. Now, it’s just awkward, he’s really doing this on purpose.
Ach-mmh, I mutter, and he throws his eyes up to me. Blue, a deep blue, like ken doll blue. His black hair gelled up like a ninety’s boyband, and a black suit that barely fits him. He’s the bro type, or at least that’s what I would call him. You know, loves his muscles, keeps the facial hair at a minimum but just enough to prove to society that he’s gone through puberty, and uses words like Yo and sup. I’m half expecting him to strut in here with dumbbells tied to his ears instead of the single diamond piercing he got going on, and start calling me blud, giving me gun signs.
Oh god, now the universe knows that it’s bound to happen.
Anyway, clear the thought, he’s looking at me, Mr Brian Hammer. Good lord, I rue the name.
I clear my throat, and ready my words, before he holds up an involuntary silencing finger. I beckon to the silence, and wait, to see what prosperous plan he’s got now.
“Let me sense you chick”.
The name calling, it’s starting.
“I sense you have something to say about…”, the stupid articles, “about….”, the embarrassment of a boss you are, “about…” oh for the love of God, spit it out.
“…about my wicked new ring. Isn’t it Coolio?”
A ring. The finger he’s holding up, it has an emerald ring on it.
“Not exactly”, I say, trying not to sound too Irish, he likes to call me a leprechaun if I sound too Belfast. Some day’s he likes to poke me with an extendable stick and say “look, I’m poking a lucky charm”. It gets tiring after the first twenty times, and it doesn’t exactly make sense. He came from England a few years ago, and he still hasn’t quite got the concept that not every Irish person sounds the same.
“Oh”, he says, slightly disappointed, “then whatever could be the matter?” The eyes come into play, like he’s waiting for me to burst into tears and run home to my parents.
“It’s just, I was wondering if there was a possibility that I could swap stories. I was hoping to display a wider array of techniques I learnt from my college courses and write articles that actually speak to people. You know, get them interested”.
He looked flabbergasted, and he laughed as he spoke, “Is what your writing not enough?”
“Not exactly…no…no, I don’t think people want to read about cats being dogs, nor what I wrote last week either”.
“I thought what you wrote was wonderful, really captured the imagination”.
I was beginning to lose him, “Thank you Brian, I appreciate it, but the article only got twenty views online. I don’t think too many people cared about potential sightings of flying hippos, or if the ant crawling in your kitchen, is a Russian spy. I just…I just think people would want to read something more. A bit, I don’t know…dangerous”.
A sparked erupted in his eyes. I could almost see the little light bulb flashing away atop him.
“Dangerous eh. Not bad bro, not bad”.
And there, after I thought I had done the lot and succeeded in my conquest, the tides turned. Amanda Monroe, you are a daft cow.
“How about, Ketchup, truly tomatoes or forbidden blood?”
I just looked at him, trying to screw together my unhinged jaw, “Where did you find that from, Brian?”
He tapped his head, showing off his new ring and giving me a wink, “From the old noggin here mucker. It’ll get the people going”.
Going to throw it away, I was about to say, until, would you have believed, he had something else to say.
“I think if you found a piece on international trade routes and how tomatoes get to and from the country, we could unravel a conspiracy here”.
This was the point where he began talking like a nursery schoolteacher, teaching the class about letters and numbers and what noises a car makes. I’ll be honest, I faded out, all I saw was the ugly glint from his earring now corresponding to the horrifying shine from his emerald ring. He did not even notice I was half a world away when I tuned in again to hear him say.
“…and we’ll include the flying hippos. It’ll be a great story. Now, off you pop”.
“What?”
He went back to playing with his paper triangles, and I, now apparent to his ignorance, waddled off to my desk, avoiding the eyes of my co-workers. One of them, Jane, has a crush on Mr Hammer, says she likes the type.
“You know, perky guy, always talking, big muscles”.
Dickheads, you like dickheads Jane. The last guy you dated facetuned you in every photo and you genuinely thought you were aging backwards.
I really don’t have the heart to say the things I think, even as Jane began throwing balls of paper at me, trying to get my attention with some hot gosp as she puts it.
After the fifth ball, I answered, “Yes Jane”.
She scuttled up next to me in her chair and leant on my desk, her fingernails slightly nibbling at her lips, “Well, did you get your story?”
“No, he was more interested in tomato conspiracy than hearing what I wanted to say”.
“Well, maybe he’s onto something. Maybe tomatoes could be the next big plot for world domination”.
I can’t understand how I was to look at this woman without seething in anger. I honestly don’t know how I tamed my gaze or else my eyes would have torn holes deep into her flesh. I bit my tongue, cleared the ire from my head and answered, “Maybe, maybe he is right”, I spoke with such deliverance that I was sure my tongue would fall off from the lies, “maybe McDonald’s ketchup is the true evil behind kids these days”.
“See, there’s the spirit. Always look for the cloud amongst your silver lining”.
“It’s the other way arou….”
“Anyways”, she said, blasting back to her desk, and lifting her handbag, which was a sight to match only the great Brian Hammer. It was emblazoned with white gems that looked hot glued, “have to run chick, got a lunch date with Belinda at two. Can’t miss it, you know what she’s like”.
The office Monster, Belinda. Never really had any chance to speak to her. First time we spoke, I must have said something really out of place about the strange taste of the coffee, and she jabbed me with a vicious retort, “I don’t think the little African children would thank you for that. They worked through blood, sweat and tears to grow those beans”.
“They’re from Brazil, and they’re two weeks old”, but she didn’t hear me as the click clack of her heels was like bullets going off around me. That was my first and last interaction with Belinda, and I was more than thankful for it.
Now that Jane was gone, it left only me and Brian alone. He had now moved on to typing something that consisted of five minutes of work before he shut down his computer and took his leave.
“You staying?”
“Yeah, just until I get this finished”.
“Make sure to lock up afterwards”, he said, flinging me one of his many sets of keys.
Finally, alone at last, on a Friday afternoon, with the whole weekend as my oyster. My mind a haze of thoughts and apparent frustrations that swooped out the window the moment Brian left the room. Contained, contempt, somewhat wellbeing laid clean, I began typing, seeing what lay out in the world for me to grab, to rejoice in my words and create a narrative that all could enjoy and not just out of pity for some woman writing about rats and their possibilities of being secret US Military spies, God I still remember writing that one. I was a laughingstock on Facebook for a week.
There, I sat, and typed, and scrolled, and typed, and scrolled once more, and…nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing. A load of rubbish about some hyped-up celebrity changing hair colour or some infection of gluten in gluten free bread that caused an uproar among the tinfoil hat wearers stating the government was trying to kill them. Turns out someone just bought the wrong bread without looking at the label.
I checked the time.
Six o’clock, Jesus, it’s been four hours.
I was about to pack away my things and secure the office when a notification came up on my screen. A little blue box that usually indicated a report in my local area.
I saw the little tagline that vanished into a parade of dots off the screen, but it was enough to pique my interest.
Man found dead in local river beside ruined……
I clicked.
And I read.
And my heart stopped.
I’ve found it, I thought, I’ve actually found it.
My story, the one I needed to cover. Something that would actually get people interested, something that would bring back my love for this job.
And it all started with one Mr James Alderson.