| From: | Strago strago@***.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Seattlers: Part I "Last Day" |
| Date: | Mon, 14 Feb 2000 02:02:06 -0500 |
stories, similar to James Joyce's "Dubliners", which took place
independently in one place. I set a harder task for myself (since I
was writing about Shadowrun, I figured he'd want more of a challenge).
So what I did was write each of the four two-page stories in the style
of the four works we'd read (Dubliners, Portrait of an Artist as a
Young Man, Ulysses the first 17 chapters, and the 18th chapter of
Ulysses). While I was doing that, (a deconstruction of the role of the
narrator) I also lessened the "hope" of the characters (because the
first line of Dubliners ("There was no hope") I compared to the world
of Shadowrun (There is no hope). I think you'll like it, if you don't
want to shoot my brains out first.
The man took one look around the room, out the window, and fixated
upon the water cooler. For twenty five years he had seen people
wearing suits standing around that very same water cooler from the
inside of the room, his office. Now there were no people wearing
suits; they’d left yesterday. He was the only person left in the
building.
Behind him on his desk were boxes packed with his things. He walked
over to them and looked in at all of the mementos. At the top of the
two boxes were his most prized possessions in the world. The first, a
diploma in business administration from Cal Tech, signifying that he
had graduated with honors. The second, which he had just taken off of
his door, said “Bobby Jones” and underneath it “Chief Executive
Officer” and underneath that “Consignment, Incorporated”. They were
filled with the normal things people keep in offices, such as coffee
mugs and the random knickknacks one accumulates from twenty five years
building the best computerized toy robots in the business.
The door opened and another man walked into the office.
-You understand the terms of the buyout? The Japanese executive asked
him, Mitsuhama Computer Technologies is giving you a very generous
settlement. We are allowing you to remain above the ground. Do not
make us change your situation.
-Yes, I understand. I’m all packed. I’ll be leaving in ten minutes.
-Excellent. You have ten minutes and then you must be out. The
executive from MCT turned around and walked out of the office. Bobby
Jones looked out the window, and watched the MCT executive walk away,
talking on a cell phone. He walked back into the main office and
looked around. The younger executives had been hired by MCT, as had
his research and development staff. But the older personnel had not
been rehired, and their prospects were grim. So he sold everything he
owned to give them all generous severance packages and found a tiny
apartment to live in. He heard the sound of engines outside.
The crew who was coming to finish destroying his life’s work, the
company he’d worked ever since he’d graduated, had arrived. He
reminisced about how he got where he was. After graduation he started
working in a small toy company as an executive in charge of the
research and development unit. There he met Tom Kirnan, who
specialized in programming computerized toys like the Cutie Cuddly
which had been all the rage in the late 2030s. Together, they planned
to leave the company and form their own.
They did, founding Consignment, Incorporated in 2045. For the next
fifteen years they’d made computerized toys, and then specialized in
toy robots. They became known as the best in the business, attracting
megacorporate interest. They held out for the next six months, finally
asking MCT to come in as a “White Knight” to save them. Eventually
they found out that Mitsuhama wouldn’t leave them alone and wanted
their company. They held out for a while, until Tom was discovered
dead last month. Two days later three men showed up at his door and
told him they’d kill him if he didn’t sign the company over to
Mitsuhama. He told them to get out, but eventually he gave in. Last
week he was told to get out, that his company was finished. Today was
the last day Consignment, Incorporated would exist.
Mr. Jones walked back into his office, grabbed both boxes, and walked
out of the building. The sound of the wrecking ball hitting the
building resounded in the cold December air. He looked behind him and
saw the roof of his building knocked off.
He bowed his head, and began to sob. Crying, he went down to the
subway station and waited for his train. He couldn’t even pay for a
cab because most of his money was gone. He stooped down, picked up a
newspaper, and opened it to the classifieds. Maybe in the “Help
Wanted” section of the paper he’d find a new job. The subway arrived
and he boarded it for his home, in the Bellevue section of Seattle.
The train arrived and he got off, noticing with distaste the refuse
scattered around the subway station, the large amount of dirt covering
the walls, the burned out lights. He stepped over a man sleeping on
the ground in tattered rags and went up the steps. He reached the top,
and started to walk home through the dangerous neighborhood.
Mercifully, no one bothered him.
-Tomorrow, he said to himself, I’ll look for a job. It won’t be so
bad.
--
--Strago
In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror,
murder, bloodshed - they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and
the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly
love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they
produce? The cuckoo clock!
-Orson Welles
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