A long distance, conference call meeting at work - two of The Directors are in Canada.
I gather the team and recommend a plan of action. We need to formulate our goals and cohere, slicing as one with a cobra's speed and venom - needlesharp fangs sinking deep. This is the end of a month long business trip - The Directors' energy is sapped, their morale is low. They are tired. Vulnerable. There has never been a better time to strike. We can claim all.
Roles are assigned. To Frank, the Good Cop - open and yielding, accommodating and apologetic. Tempting and teasing them; the carrot over the stick. He understands. Myself, the bad cop, unremitting and aggressive, unstoppable force ploughing an irrational demand. Everything a personal slight. A hint of violence in my voice.
To Bill, the existential nihilistic observer. Threading a commentary founded on a wry sense of amusement at the futility of the proceedings. Questioning why we question, why we demand justice for our own fictitious maxims. Reveling in the absurd. He probably has a drink problem.
The characters drape over us and fold into the crevices and creases of tired faces and weathered hands. A number is dialed. Distinctive, muffled purring curls itself out in harsh bursts from small plastic. I gather myself, coiled in with hooded eyes. Watching. Waiting. The purrs abruptly stop, and a woman's voice comes through, and I strike the first blow! Syllables sent to bond us to her are severed by my demands, my words overriding all else as they charge towards the prey. I wait for the others to play their parts, to complete the trinity we had devised. I wait. They allow a pregnant pause to spawn, where silence deigns to tread. It gets larger as I tense myself, perplexity running ahead of concern. It swells with the unconscious horror of a mistake, monumental in scope, drifting out of grasp. The pause, grossly distended, miscarries.
Realisation dawns.
I mumble apologies and peel off the bad cop who had bonded me so well. The meeting continues without me, words slipped around and above to willing ears unsullied by tactical epithets, ears who had realised it was all but a game.
The lesson learned? When calling your bosses cunts, the excuse "I was pretending to be a policeman" is not as adamantine as one might expect.