On Being Agreeable…a short story

She gently caressed the brass plate as she passed. A soft smile played on her lips as she opened the glass doors into the office. Inside, it was still quiet as her arrival was the first. She turned the lights on full from the nighttime dim and approached her desk. Her eyes glanced at the closed door at the end of the corridor.

Picking up the folders on her desk, she noted the requirements listed neatly on the front of each. Sitting down, she began her day. Within ten minutes, the office would bustle with the arrival of the others.

She, Leslie Reynolds, enjoyed her job although it was temporary. Temporary because she was awaiting the start of the next semester just a few weeks away at the local state university. At that time, she would be a full time student and her part time position here in the chancellor’s office would cease. Leslie enjoyed the excitement of sharing a small part in the chancellor’s nationwide presence. Daily, she would field calls from all over the country for him. Most, she directed to his various assistants, but on occasion, she would put a call through directly to him.

The office had buzzed with even more excitement than usual with the call a few weeks ago from the President. Yes, the President of the United States had called and asked for the chancellor. It turned out that he had made a personal request that the chancellor head an inquiry group to a Central American country. The chancellor’s negotiating skills were on the fast track to becoming legendary.

Leslie looked up as the door opened and the chancellor’s administrative assistant and office manager entered together. They were laughing and nodded a hello to Leslie as they passed her desk. Judy, the office manager, turned back to Leslie. “Les,” she asked, “You will be able to assist on Friday for the meeting of the presidents?” “Oh yes,” Leslie, replied, “I’m looking forward to it.”

Friday, all ten of the state university system presidents would meet in the conference room at the end of the corridor for a quarterly session. It was these meetings that had begun to propel the chancellor to nationwide prominence. Each of the university presidents arrived with an agenda and a slight chip on his or her shoulder. Four of the state universities had prominent successful football teams and those presidents felt, possibly with justification, that their universities contributed to recognition beyond state borders. Squabbling among the system presidents was legendary.

However, the chancellor had managed to not only affect a truce but indeed a cooperative spirit among the presidents that had heretofore only been dreamed about. The university presidents would arrive, some with tight faces and clenched fists, each determined to leave with his or her particular university having its agenda placed in the forefront.

The meetings would usually start somewhat politely but raised voices and even shouts would soon be heard through the thick conference room door at the end of the corridor. At that point, lunch would be served, and the meeting would resume. Some time later, the attendees would emerge, shaking hands and even laughing. As they departed, there would be jesting parting rivalry remarks, but mostly the university presidents appeared to leave as friends. In fact, even the chancellor would remark upon their leaving that they certainly were an agreeable bunch.

The chancellor himself was due in this afternoon from his presidential mission. He had sent daily briefings back to the office. Leslie and another aide had been compiling all the chancellor’s notes awaiting his return. The office knew that this presidential report would take top priority with the chancellor’s arrival.

Friday dawned with an overcast day. Rain was in the forecast and the grayness of the day seemed appropriate for the university system presidents’ meeting. Two of the presidents were engaged in a battle carried in the state newspapers. Three others were uniting to exclude their schools from anticipated budget cuts. It promised to be a meeting to challenge any negotiator’s skills. Well, certainly any negotiator except the chancellor, thought Leslie, as she hurried through her morning to-do list.

Leslie had ordered lunch for the group. It was, as always, from Clint’s Bar-b-q. Clint’s was a local favorite and rumor had it that Clint had been approached about franchising. The food was delicious from Clint’s and his sauce was renown among locals. With the exception of the one university president whose school was local, the others only indulged in Clint’s famous food when at a system meeting such as today.

The food had arrived and had been hauled back into the small kitchen in the office complex. Leslie went into the kitchen to help and was greeted by a small elderly woman with thick glasses. “You the girl that’s gonna help me today?” she inquired. “Yes,” Leslie said with a smile, “I’m sure they’re looking forward to having Clint’s.”

The woman was unfamiliar to Leslie and so she asked her where she normally worked. “I just come for the luncheons,” she answered, “I been retired for a few years and the chancellor asks for me special. I don’t want to disappoint an important man like him. I’m pleased to come in and help him.” As she talked, the woman had opened the bags and containers and was busy filling plates for the presidents. Clint’s famous sauce sat in a plastic jug to the left of all the food spread out. Leslie went to move it and the woman said, “That’s all right. I got it.” And, with that, she reached into an upper cabinet and took out a brown paper bag. To Leslie’s amazement, she pulled out a bottle of vodka.

With eyes wide, Leslie watched as she poured vodka into the sauce. She turned to Leslie with a grin and began ladling the sauce onto the food covering the plates. “Yep,” she spoke, “They sure do love the sauce. I make sure there’s plenty and plenty to go around.” Speechless, Leslie grabbed the two plates she was handed. As they started out the door toward the conference room at the end of the corridor, the woman turned to Leslie with a small grin and said, “Makes them so agreeable, don’t you know.”

In the Manner of Edward and Kelly…..

Chapter Two- Life lessons, in and out of the kitchen.

((to read Chapter One, please click here))

He couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

“Come again?” Edward said in disbelief. His boss, Gary, smiled broadly.

“You heard me. Jed has given his notice. We want you to take his place.”

Edward still didn’t believe him; shaking his head back and forth wishing his brain would spit out the truth. Gary stepped over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder.

“Look,” he said, his voice dropping. “It wasn’t my idea to pass you up for the position Jed got two years ago, I wanted them to hire you for it. I was overruled. This time, I told them, in no uncertain terms, that you deserved the promotion. And thankfully, it was agreed upon.” Edward felt like he might tear up; he couldn’t wait to call Kelly and tell her. As Gary left he rested his elbows on his desk, his head hanging in his hands as he resisted the urge to shout out loud. Finally, the promotion he’d been dreaming of; more responsibility and a lot more pay. He felt the cold of the desk right through the worn elbows in his shirt; all of them were like that. He took care not to button up the cuffs too long so as not to blow out another sleeve. Kelly was pretty good at sewing up the rips, but there was only so much that could be done. Once she had joked that their life was just like his work shirts; worn out and in need of repair.

But it hadn’t been a joking manner when he realized just how right she had been.

Hummingbirds – First draft

These early-morning hours were Louise’s favourite part of the day. She loved to lie in bed and watch the sun create intricate patterns on her bedroom walls. She let her mind drift wherever it felt like going. Eventually it always ended up immersed in planning the day. Louise laughed, thinking that she rarely stuck to her plan anyway, so what was the point in planning?

It was a perfect day to visit her favourite meadow, Louise figured. Spring had arrived early in the Kootenays and her meadow was alive with colour, scent and the sounds of returning birds. If she hadn’t promised to send her illustrations in tomorrow, Louise would have taken the entire day and hiked in the meadow and on the mountain trails. She never tired of being in the mountains that now engulfed her.

It always filled Louise with a sense of wonder that all she had to do was walk out her back door and she was surrounded by the tall pines, cedars and hemlock, with mountains looming as backdrop.

This was the reason why she had chosen this place, far from the way she had always lived. There was something magical about letting in all the sounds that now surrounded her. It wasn’t long ago that she’d lived in a high-rise apartment in downtown Toronto. There she had blocked out the constant noise of a city and mostly kept her head down as she rushed between her office and the subway.

Chapter One: Five O’Clock No More

( an ongoing fictional short story by Kate Selner)

 

It never failed.

No matter how deeply Kelly was into her work, her eyes would lift as if they had a life of their own and fall on the tiny clock tucked into the corner of her desk at the exact minute that the hour hand would slip into the five o’clock slot.

Then the dread would begin in earnest.

It would be inevitable that Kelly would wish, at that hour of five o’clock, that she had a savvier job, with her own key and a reserved parking spot, maybe; where no one would wonder why she was still at her desk late into the night, and where her wounded eyes could hide behind excessive amounts of work that no one else could do. She would have a hipper wardrobe, sleeker shoes and a designer handbag, instead of the thrift shop special that she now, unwillingly, tucked under her arm for her inevitable and reluctant drift home to her empty apartment.

Still, she pushed her hair back and shoved her arms into the sleeves of her coat, winding her scarf around her neck, dipping into her pockets for gloves and toying with her hat. She could pretend. She could muster a smile, a jovial tilt to her head and she could pretend that Edward was still there, that he would be racing her up the stairs in his usual manner, vying for the door lock in a laughable jousting of key chains, then sprinting towards the kitchen to be the first one to light the stove, pull out the pans and whip open the fridge. It was their game, after all, to see who would be the first to get dinner started, therefore absolving themselves of dish duty and earning the remote control rights, balancing the night’s wine on the arm of the scuffed sofa. She would often just let him win. His meals were creative, sassy and superlative to anything she could throw together. His manner in the kitchen was maddeningly casual; from the way he chopped his shallots to the ease at which he simply knew what went best in his dish. She could plan, dream, execute and work herself into a sweat, and her plates just never shined like his did.

And at five o’clock, faced with the dark of a snowy February, a rattling old car whose heat took forever to work, and the restless cadence of always feeling one step behind everyone else, it was, inevitably, what Kelly missed most of all.

The Spectrum, by aria bell

 

 

It’s going to rain for the first time in seven years in LA. The government funded Weather Modification Program begins today, and the media frenzy has spared no expense to broadcast the miracle live to all sectors. The welcome hum of cloud seeding drones above is obscured only by the air of anxious anticipation from the crowds gathered outside. As with all government initiatives, this is a well planned and proper effort. And accordingly, the citizens are eerily hopeful standing in the dust and waiting for the first droplets to fall.

***

It wasn’t always like this. Years ago, the lofts downtown had been gutted and built out targeting affluent professionals working in the nearby skyscrapers. It didn’t take long until that cushy ideal was destroyed by LA’s ephemeral and always creative criminal element. What remains now is barely recognizable; buildings are exoskeletons, deceiving and mysterious. These days, perception is no longer everything.

My name is Natalya Senkova; I’m originally from the now closed city of Bratislava in Slovakia. I somehow managed to escape before the nanite invasion in 2056 with my freedom of thought intact. I can’t say the same for anyone else I knew from before. We can still text each other but nobody is allowed in or out since, and every transmission is monitored. Back at home I was pretty typical, in and out of college, working seasonal jobs mostly waitressing in the summer and then tech support over the frozen winters.

The invasion changed everything, and it was all due to insatiable greed.  When most of the world’s governments realized the potential for catastrophe and outlawed nanite self-replication, Slovakia never followed suit with actual enforcement.   All you had to do was pay the right people and you were free to do whatever you wanted, undetected.   All it took was one software bug and the infection started.  As a result, every border is guarded by white7 nanite… swarms until every single double-black viral nanite is found.  

Technology was starting to get dangerous and this was only one area of concern. There were massive advances in physics over the last two decades, and crude particle teleportation has become a reality, albeit quite expensive very inaccurate.  Since the lines between nano and bio are all but blurred together, there is a continuous threat to the spectrum.  Destructive particles travel via quantum entanglement into targeted atmospheres undetected; once your blood stream is infected it’s too late, or worse.

Here I work for the Bureau of Frequency Control. My job is to monitor, detect, and destroy threats to all frequencies on the spectrum.  The agency I’m with is small but we have some of the most powerful computers in the private sector doing our bidding. It’s exciting, and very easy to forget how dangerous things can be.

When I woke up this morning before the alarm, my kitty was out of food and on the case. He has this magic way of gently easing me from my slumber to inform me of his dire situation, too cute for words. The news ticker on my bathroom mirror dutifully reminded me of today’s rain and mapped my alternative route to work avoiding the crowds. My morning ritual is this: coffee and grapefruit while I read email, cat food for young Max, shower, dress, pray I properly parked my car on the charging port, and I’m off. Today would be very different, I didn’t know it when I left for work but nothing would ever be the same.