Bonus Episode: A Dog Day Afternoon

This is an episode from my From Under Dark Clouds story. It comes sometime before the unnamed protagonist, who is a disgraced British media celebrity, stands for public office. 

enjoy...

Someone once said that you can judge a nation by how they treat their animals. I used to have a cat. Woke up after a party one afternoon and some bastard had left me with a pair of kittens. What kind of person carries kittens around in their handbag. Well, we became good friends. She would sidle up to me when I was chilling out and we started to regularly share a spliff together. She would love to just sit on my lap and purr until she fell off and found a corner to pass out, like cats do. By the time I was chasing brown, we had a good thing going, but even she snubbed me the first few times. Cats have an inner wisdom. Brown has patience and it wasn’t long before she would bug the hell out of me until I cooked up. I think it could have been the reason I went from being a social user to a full blown addict. I said there were two kittens, didn’t I. I’m pretty sure the other one escaped down the rubbish chute disguised as a Vesta beef curry.

Here, they hate cats but they do love puppies. Cats are left to fend for themselves on the streets while Puppies are bought for vast sums of money and played with for hours. They are taken out to show friends and cosseted, but never trained. Then, they get bigger and more demanding. They need walks and cleaning up after so they get chained to a stake in the garden or left on the balcony to keep the neighbours awake at night. All too often they are taken to the village. ‘Taken to the village’ sounds kinda warm and rustic, doesn't it. What it actually means is taking it to the nearest rural area where the animal can be pushed out the car and the owners can drive away, safe in the knowledge that it had been safely returned to its natural habitat and back in the warm embrace of mother nature. Trouble is, I live in the village and it is now filled with packs of feral dogs.

So, I was riding me Vespa through the village when one of these packs ambushes me, nipping at the wheels and barking. I slowed down to a walking pace, there seems to be an optimum velocity at which their hunting instinct is piqued. If you drop below this, they will usually lose interest. This time was different. I stopped completely but instead of leaving to sniff each others butts until the next passerby, they encircled me with the alpha-male looking very business-like, hunched low, and snarling. I had the evolutionary advantage, only man with his immense intelligence will start a fight he can’t win. I alighted and stood defiantly staring down the drooling creature, the rest of the pack were awaiting instructions. I only needed to face off the boss and the others would follow suit. The Vespa was still popping away behind me and I kept it close, it was covering my south. I looked deep into the eyes of the beast and snarled, a deep bark brewed in my chest. I would exert my superiority in its own language, “WOOF!” the creature retreated in line with my stare. Its teeth still bared and lips quivering but a step back, I advanced aware that I needed to keep the putt-putting of the Vespa close, not to open a space for the rest of the pack to close the pincer behind me. My step was small but I leaned in. The sun was almost behind me so I aimed to caste my shadow over the mutt. “WOOF!” I took another small step.

“Vlaka!” I heard a woman’s voice from one of the houses. Who was she to call me an idiot? I was exerting my— .

“OW!” I swear my balls leaped two inches to the left. The dog had made its move. I stomped my foot in riposte to try to regain lost ground but it was leaning in. It had missed this time but its aim would improve.

I jumped back to the Vespa. The circle closed.

“Vlaka!” I heard the bitch again. I’m getting my balls gnarled by rabid dogs and I’m the wanker, really? Clunk. The Vespa in gear I raced away, 200cc of 1950s Italian engineering versus four legs.

My neighbour was coming out as I returned home. He asked me how I was doing, I asked him for the number of the council.

He laughed. “It’s Sunday you’ll be lucky to get anyone today. Why?”

My voice skipped an octave as I told him, “I just got bitten by a bloody dog!”

“Where?”

I pointed to my balls. He didn’t even try to hide his amusement. “Do you have the number of our councillor?” I was sure he had it. He’s the type who always has a direct line to best people to harass when he needed a favour doing. He said he didn’t.

I stormed up to my door where the wife was sitting on the veranda seeking asylum from the kids. I told her my story and told her to get the phone. She did so promptly but I didn’t know who to call. I called the police.

After I had given up all hope they arrived in a used car lot trade-in roughly livered in police stripes. They sympathised wholeheartedly but couldn’t do anything except waste my time telling me at length how they couldn’t do anything.

The next day I took my miserable story to the council who had much more power to do nothing due to the pressure of the animal lovers who would sue if they tried to. I told them that next time it could be a kid or an old lady. I figured protection of the weak and infirm would give the situation more gravitas but it seemed the dogs could not be trumped.

“What can we do. Put them down?” Came the incredulous reply.

“If it was a gun laying around on the street, would you pick it up?” I got no reply. “Don’t be fooled by the tail and floppy ears, this is a dangerous weapon that someone has left on the streets of my village.”

I called an animal sanctuary. They were very concerned about the situation. “Is the animal neutered?”

“How would I know, I was too busy trying to stop it neutering me!” Just the words made my voice leap an octave.

After a dead silence, “Do you have a paper from the hospital?”

“No, I have teeth marks!” Fuck, what is this with stamped sheets of paper. “I have photos, I can send them to you.”

“That won’t be necessary. We cannot collect the dog without a confirmation from a doctor.” She continued.

I called the councillor. I went to the council. I called the mayor. He was ever so sympathetic. He said I was one-hundred-percent right and he couldn’t agree more but his hands were tied by the zoophilic organisations who had issued no less than six pending writs for collecting strays without the proper paperwork. And all this with an election year coming. He assured me that if I were to vote for him he would definitely explore the possibility of the matter being considered for a reasonably high priority in his next term.

The wife had done some calling round and hit the same brick walls. I decided to get the press involved. I called a local TV station and explained the plight of our village to one of the dogged reporters who would be sure to use some pounding power chords in post production. Packs of wild dogs terrorise sleepy mountain village. Da da daa!

“Did you go to the hospital?”

Truth was it hadn’t really broken the skin, just a bit of a pinch mark. “No. I was waiting for the police to arrive and do jack shit.”

“Who do the dogs belong to?”

“I don’t know, they weren’t carrying their paperwork.”

“Hmm.. No… paperwo—” she noted.

“Listen, sweetheart. They should be chipped, eh?” All dogs must, by law, must have an identity chip. That much I had learned. “Wouldn’t be difficult to get some vet to scan the chip and take it to the people who dumped the dogs here in my village.”

She paused. “Have they attacked any children? Disfigured anyone. Facially, a pretty girl perhaps.”

“No, I don’t know. Would you like me to arrange it?”

“No, sir. That won’t be necessary.”

The wife was watching me, poised. I had one more card to play. I could trump these mutts. I could get a media circus down here with two words. “Listen, my girl. Do you know who I am? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”

The wife was only wearing slippers but the kick left a bruise I could show you today.

“He’s English,” she had the phone now. “He’s not used to these things.” She punched me with her free hand in the arm. “Yes, of course we’ll let you know of any developments. Thanks for your concern. Goodbye.”

FUCK! If I’d had half the support that these rabid animals were getting, I wouldn’t have given the better half of my money to a bunch of lawyers in London. I wouldn’t have the other half tied up to pay off the catholic church. I wouldn’t be in this Duelling-banjos of a country.

The wife didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

I googled it and found out who said that thing about the judging a nation by its animals. It was Mahatma Gandhi, some Indian guru in a nappy who took India away from the British. They worship cows and let them stray around the place. At least they get free-range burger and shake. Maybe I should think about opening a Chinese take-away.


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Episode 43: Everything is Under Control?

You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works. Then you didn't. I don't know why. You just stopped. Now, I have people who love me again. So much that they made me their mayor. This is my new story, From Under Dark Clouds.

I knew there was no one home but I still ran upstairs and downstairs yelling the wife and kids’ names hoping to be wrong. There was no sign but the brimming ashtray of the boys that Socrates had sent to take care of my family. I checked the basement, the place I had sent them to hide when we had been attacked by the tabloids but this was not the press. They shot personal moments, they did character assassination. The people who had crucified the Chinese peddler to my door did not. They had little understanding of nuance or subtlety. Some clothes and shoes were in neat piles on the beds. The wife had managed to start her packing ceremonies that were the precursor of every family trip. The ceremonies that had annoyed me so much. Looking around and finding my breath I could see no signs of violence, were Socrates’ heavies in on it?

Socrates! He would know.

He answered on the second ring. He seemed confused which made me panic more. He said he’d call the boys and get back to me. I checked my phone, I had an unanswered from the wife. I called her back but kept getting the same message, “The subscriber you have called probably has their phone switched off.”

Socrates called, “They’re ok. They are boarding the plane. We have someone in airport security who is making sure they are cared for.” I didn’t reply.

“Jude, give me your keys!”

“But the insurance is only for—” his protests continued all the way to the car but remained just protests.

Jude and Roni fastened their seat-belts. Roni even clipped her camera to it.

I knew which lights needed to be heeded and I ran them all. Roni kept asking me questions about what I was thinking only diverting her camera to show the red traffic lights pass at speed.

I answered her once and that seemed to suffice, “WHAT DO YOU THINK!”

We turned the last right onto the long straight to the terminal and I put it hard down. The departures building quickly came into sight but just outside the police building a patrol car sat with its blues on and an officer stood flagging me down. They had been stopping people here for months checking their state debts before they left the country. I changed lanes and flashed as I passed.

I left the car outside departures where others were kissing friends and loved ones goodbye. I ran in, the journos close behind. I heard shouts and whistles but I needed to get there more than anything.

Thessaloniki airport is little more than a bus terminus and I was soon at the first security gate. A tall man walked up and put his heavy hand on my shoulder. He was at least a head taller than me but his face was bright and childlike.

“They left safely, Sir.” He pointed through the windows to the Airbus taxiing onto the runway. “I could radio the plane. But, I think it would be safer not to draw attention to them.” I looked up at him. He squeezed my shoulder and smiled. “I have a girlfriend on the crew, she’s one of us. She’ll take care of them.”

I watched as the plane took position on the runway. Roni bumped into me closely followed by Jude and the police. Radios squawked and more descended from nowhere. Roni screamed PRESS!

A hand fell on my shoulder. ”Miister!”

The security guard boomed and I shook in my shoes but he was looking at the officer who had slid his hand down to my wrist behind my back. “Come here, you!” Chris, for that was the name on the badge that was pinned to his chest at my eye level, “You know who this is?”

Soon the officer had let me go and was on his radio. “Stand down!” a crumpled reply came and he repeated, “Stand down, I tell you! It’s the Englishman.”

I looked round at the journos and patted Chris on the chest, “They’re with me.” He made a sweeping motion to the officers and they disappeared apart from one who insisted on shaking my hand before he left.

“Sorry, Sir.” He offered in broken English. “You maked us worry. Too much!”

I turned to the windows but the plane was disappearing into the cloudless sky.

Chris was still looming as I turned to skulk off. I turned to thank him.

“Nothing, Sir. Don’t worry, some of those pigs have not chosen sides yet.” He changed to English, “Your family, they will be fine.” Then back to Greek, “Tell Mr. Socrates that Christos,” he tugged at his name badge. “Says everything is under control.”

“Under control?” I had never fucking doubted anything more in my life.

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Episode 42: GO HOME!

You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works. Then you didn't. I don't know why. You just stopped. Now, I have people who love me again. So much that they made me their mayor. This is my new story, From Under Dark Clouds.

It would have been so easy, a forth ticket. Go back to London. The tabloids would pick my bones cleaner than a bucket of bbq ribs. But if I could just lay low for a while, they would eventually tire of it, start picking on someone else. I could turn the whole experience into a show, start touring again. Maybe. I could go stay with some friends in the States. Do some tearful tea-time chat shows about my exploits at the hands of the cave-dwelling Europeans. Get a guest-star on a soap or some Netflix series. Fuck! If Piers Morgan could get a gig over there. Might have to stay away from the bible belt but that’d be no loss. It would all have been so easy. Relatively.

The message crucified to my office door was unambiguous, it said GO HOME! And the ink had made a sticky pool on the carpet. The messenger would not be missed by anyone who wasn’t already missing him thousands of miles away.

I was sitting on the steps sucking the calm out of another cigarette when Jude arrived, he touched my shoulder as he passed to Roni who showed him inside.

Socrates pulled up next, followed by the police. He started at me, I swung a thumb over my shoulder and told him to see for himself. As he passed I grabbed his sleeve.

“Have you got any…”

He looked down and grunted. “There’s a couple of bottles in the trunk.” He looked at his watch and walked away.

When he came back out he snatched the bottle from my mouth. “I need you sober!” I disagreed, no one needed me sober, much less me. I tried to take one last deep swig but the old bastard won, the strength to fight him was in that bottle.

“There’s a fucking slant nailed to your door!” I should have been offended by his racist slur but truth was the guy nailed to my office door did appear to be Chinese, Asian of some sort, but more importantly dead and beyond caring about any other word to describe him.

The police came out in a crackle of radio and started running yellow and black tape across the entrance.

I heard them snigger,”Yellows. Blacks. One less!”

They finally ejected Jude and Roni before sealing and went back to the squawking of their radios.

Someone told the officers to call an ambulance. “Too late! Chinese takeaway, send a fridge and the cleaners.”

Socrates was still holding the bottle and my mouth was arid for it.

The staff began to arrive but a police cordon sent them back home. None of them were too eager to argue but a crowd had begun to gather, many of them holding phones and cameras in the air. One of them I recognised as the ruddy-faced Englishman from the Town Hall towers riot. Bad news travels fast. My secretary broke through and ran to me, she was no athlete but she looked good when she ran.

She pulled the flight details from her bag and asked if I wanted her to call the wife. I did but I would have to do it. My hand fell to my cigarettes before my phone so I lit and sucked hard before tapping her face on the screen.

She didn’t know what was going on but she would before the flight. I had to be sure that she would leave. I told her I would call her mother to pick them up at the airport. Greek mothers are a force to be reckoned with. She made me promise to follow after. I promised, then repeated after. I couldn’t decide whether I was being brave or stupid. Fortunately the plain-clothes arrived and I didn’t have to choose.

We gave our statements in an unsullied end of the building, an English-speaking officer had been brought in for me, Roni and Jude. Their memory cards were taken after some protest. We were left with a uniform at the door.

Socrates had not been confined to the room, he’d arranged for a couple of the boys to go up and take care of the wife. I asked if we should get a police guard. He laughed, “I’ll send some boys up, they’ll be safer.”

Roni and Jude were being very supportive. They kept asking me how I felt and what I was planning to do and who I thought was responsible. I really needed to talk to Dr Alex but we had to keep a lid on this as long as we could. The less people knew, the better and I had Roni. She was quite the sounding board. The more I talked the better I felt. You know, it wasn’t me nailed to the door. The wife and the boys would be on a plane to London soon enough and the police would get them, after all this was a threat on a major political candidate. This could even swing the vote. In a few short months, I could be running this place. That would show them.

Jude yelled “Oh yes!” from the corner. I knew he was behind me.

I mused out loud over the idea while idly tapping through my facebook feed. The same last-night party pictures, inspirational memes and coffee cups. Roni ummed and ahhed and absolutely-ed. I liked and shared some of my campaign videos. Replied ‘thx’ to some kind comments. My phone continued to ping with interest. People were liking what I stood for. The fact that I’d rattled the fascists had to be a plus.

Jude leaped to the window and yelled, “Roni, camera!” I jerked up from my phone she didn’t have to ready her tool, it had been trained on me. How much had she filmed?

The stretcher coming out of the main doors of the town hall was covered with a white sheet that did little to obscure the gore of its load. The arms protruded from each side. The rectangular shape of his peddler’s tray lay flat on his chest. The same tray that had bore the message painted in his own blood, ‘Gamoto soy sou!’ I FUCK YOUR FAMILY! I could pick out every detail under the sheet, still seared in my eyes but the face had gone. All I could see now were my own features in place of his.

The legs of the stretcher folded as it entered the back of the blue van then dropped again as it was pulled back out. Some commotion began, arms waved. One of the crew walked away waving his palms in clear rejection. Jude sniggered and Roni echoed. A police officers stood forward and grabbed one of the arms as he thrust the stretcher hit the back of the van but the arm was now parallel with the body. He did the same with the other then thrust an open palm at the ambulance crew and walked off.

The man who had until recently been crucified to my office door was probably from China, well known in the low-rent neighbourhood for peddling smartphone cases and selfie sticks as well as cheap plastic toys that were popular with the kids. He would never be reported missing. Anyone who could have known or cared would be more interested in protecting their own safety. Anyone back home might notice the cheques stopping and never learn why. Just one of nearly 1.4 billion people who would quickly be replaced.

I had to get home, I had to see my kids. I had to see someone who cared if I lived or died. I ran out of the office to tell the officer that I would be leaving, with or without their sayso. The door swung open and bounced off the wall. The corridor was empty. Through the window I could see a lone squad car, the officers were nowhere to be seen. The ambulance had taken the peddler off to be forgotten, the crowds had dispersed.

We took Jude’s rental up the mountain. He was getting used to driving in Greece and no longer made a big show of stopping at amber lights but we arrived to an empty house.

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Episode 41: A message from beyond the grave

You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works. Then you didn't. I don't know why. You just stopped. Now, I have people who love me again. So much that they made me their mayor. This is my new story, From Under Dark Clouds.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my term of office as mayor, it’s that I have no idea what I’m doing. Fortunately, I’ve also learned that I’m not the only one. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the only ones who do are the ones who’ve never tried. As for running an entire nation? Just look at the people running yours.

I have, however, been trying to find out.

You pay your taxes and the collectors give your money to the suits and they build roads and schools and hospitals. It was a simple formula that had worked for centuries. But, there were so many varieties of this plan. You encouraged people to pay people to make stuff so they had money to buy stuff then you taxed everyone to make money to build the stuff that no one wanted to build, like schools and roads and hospitals. You could then lend people more money to buy more stuff so more people are needed to make stuff so they can buy much more stuff and they also have to pay people to keep check of the people who borrow the money. Then you can turn a blind eye to the taxes from the people who make it all happen and more will come and pay more people to make more stuff and sell it around the world. But, you still need to build schools and hospitals and roads. This was free market economics and many argued that it was a perfect meritocracy because only the best makers would sell stuff and only the best debt-collectors would have money to lend.

The trouble here was, that for ages now nobody was buying much of anything and so they didn’t need to pay anyone to make anything and the suits had nobody left to tax. But, they still had to pay back all the loans they’d taken to build the schools and roads and hospitals because they’d never quite got the hang of making people pay their taxes and when they did, they had shared it amongst themselves to buy shiny cars from the Germans. The answer was clear, they borrowed money to pay the loans and keep the suits in suits and shiny German engineering. I was sure it was much more complicated than that but I was fucked if I could see how.

Then there was another way. On top of all the stuff people didn’t want to make, you took over making the stuff they did, sold it and made all the profit. Then shared it with the people. This was called Marxism and a few places had tried it with varying levels of failure. But why? Surely if you can run an entire country, making some washing machines and self-assembly furniture would be a doddle, right?

Then I stumbled on this guy called Jacques Fresco who had a totally different angle on the whole game. He has a vision which had been his life’s work and now he was pretty old so he must have worked out many of the kinks. He called it “The Venus project” and I was sold. It was a no-brainer. Of course, he was having some trouble selling it to anyone with a country at their disposal but I couldn’t see the down-side.

Eventually I got hold of Karaletsos, he’s an arrogant prick but he lectures at LSE so he must know his beans if he’s teaching my people how to count them.

“Listen, if you called to explain your nurturing tax-man strategy, you are wasting your time— and mine. I’m a very busy man.” He may be but he was intrigued enough to answer my call.

“No, on the contrary, Mr. Karaletsos. I’m looking for counsel.” I knew that appealing to his vanity would pique his interest and It did. “Your New Democracy chap proposed a more-of-the-same strategy but what do you think is the way to turn this country round?”

“More austerity? Bullshit! There is not an economist who is not on the Eurozone payroll who subscribes to this. This will only serve to degrade economic sovereignty in the peripheral Eurozone economies, ultimately resulting in a federal Europe.” I wouldn’t tire you with the exact content of his diatribe, even if I could remember half of it but it sounded pretty grim.

“So what can we do?” I asked.

“Nothing!” He left a pause that I could only fill with oh dear! “The more-of-the-same policy, as you put it, is just kneeling to the inevitable!”

He launched into a history lesson. “Adam Smith thought of macro-economics as a machine. Each action having an equal yet opposite reaction. Marx was one of the first to understand the political aspect of the science. He just got the language wrong. You see, economics is a language with laws as the grammar and tax as the lexicon. Marx thought that people would appreciate the common purpose and work as a community.”

“But they didn’t?”

“They didn’t. You see, people don’t want equality, they want better, so the language gets lost. Communism has to shout, louder and louder to be heard. Capitalism whispers. It lets you keep your money and your freedom but you do as you are told.”

“So tax is the language?”

“If I want to reduce the healthcare budget, I can ask you to give up smoking, that it’s bad for you. You ignore me! I use the law to ban smoking in public places and increase tax on cigarettes, you listen. Those who don’t, bridge the gap in my budget. A dialogue.”

“So what happened in Greece?”

“Well, Greeks don’t listen to anyone, they are always looking for what they want to hear and so many different, private dialogues began which confused the communication.” He laughed. “Here in Britain, you listen, you comply. We do not!”

I tried to ask for a solution but he was already back on a roll.

“Free market economics, Milton Freidman. Let the market alone to find its equilibrium, unencumbered by governmental bureaucracy. Survival of the fittest.”

“And if we were to take money out of the equation?” I asked. “It strikes me that there are plenty of iPads and houses. There is no shortage of them. But money, that is a problem. What if we did away with money?”

He huffed, “Please don’t be so naive! You are talking about barter. Have you not listened to anything? A state would lose its lexicon, there would be no dialogue.”

“No.” I contested. “A resource-based economy.”

He groaned and hung up.

I was sure there was something I was missing but no one could tell me what it was. The idea kept me awake half the night and I promised myself to get to the bottom of it as soon as I got the the office in the morning.

I was first to arrive at the town hall with Roni in tow. There was no ambiguity in the lexicon of the note pinned to my door. Roni threw up on her shoe, still holding the camera up to the door. I slumped against the opposite wall and slid down it without taking my eyes off it. I said Roni’s name as a question, she answered to confirm that were both seeing it. The clock on the wall tocked then seized, a moment on the rack.

I pulled out my phone, scrolled down the contacts to the police, stopped and scrolled on to my secretary. I started down the hall then went back to pull Roni along with me. I tapped the contact. The police could wait.

My secretary answered, perky and willing.

“I want to fly— I want tickets for my family. Today for London. As soon as possible!”

“And you, Sir?”

I dropped the phone to my waist, gripping it in both hands. I turned my head to confirm the truth still nailed to my office door. Roni was pacing back and forth, her phone to her ear, her lips moving. All I heard was my pulse thumping at my eardrums.

“Sir?”

“No— not me, I’m staying.”

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Episode 40: A New Hope?

You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works. Then you didn't. I don't know why. You just stopped. Now, I have people who love me again. So much that they made me their mayor. This is my new story, From Under Dark Clouds.

She didn’t like it, not at all but I was unfamiliar with her approach. She didn’t shout and she limited her expletives to moderate and non-personal.

“I can’t have a camera in my face twenty-four-seven. I can’t do that again, not now, not with the boys.”

She was right, of course. This was about me and the campaign not her and the kids.

Jude and Roni were downstairs, I couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t recording this conversation. Maybe that explained my wife’s temperance. I went down to lay some ground rules to find Roni with her camera following the kids playing with their Lego.

“Stop!” My demand had immediate affect on the kids but not a twitch from the camerawoman. “Put the camera down, NOW!”

She did but looked up at me with bemused eyes.

It took more than an hour to come to an amicable agreement. She wanted access to me but negotiated like the girl with the golden ticket. Exposure was, is my business and she seemed to understand that like I couldn’t. She would get a couple of interviews with the wife, some shots of the boys, pixelated and with no interaction from her and I would have power of veto on interviews with anyone else. The last one was the hardest. She claimed the right to retain journalistic freedom. I gave her open access to me and the campaign. She agreed.

The narrative would be my fall from grace and subsequent rise.

“And whatever happens after that…” she added.

We wrote it all down and signed it with Jude and the wife as witnesses.

“Well, that’s that in order. What do we do today?” Jude enthused.

“Sit down!” the wife barked. “Same goes for you!”

We wrote out the same conditions, adapting some for copy journalism and signed. Roni relished her loopy signature planting a heavy full-stop at the end.

The local coverage of the attack waned a little until, maybe due to a dearth of real news, the channels all picked up on the foreign interest. The number of Youtube views of the English version of the campaign video was a prominant part of the story as well as one of Jude’s articles in The Cerberus. He beamed. The news was that our news was big news in their news. The attack, the campaign video and even the kid with the bouzouki went ballistic. Just as and when Mike had predicted. That reminded me. I needed to speak to him, he was getting weird… weirder.

My phone buzzed, not its usual ringtone, it just buzzed. I swiped and put it to my ear. Nothing. Looking at the screen, Mike’s avatar appeared. “Hey Boss! The Youtube videos are going viral worldwide but domestic stats are showing significant engagement with over eighty-four percent watching the whole clip. Ninety-six percent, excuse some rounding of figures, are watching more than seventy-five percent of the clips. I have planted a script on all GD and sympathiser sites that phishes all their data when they log in. I am in the process of analysing the emails and PMs as we speak. All online communication, forums, facebook, twitter etc that refer to you, or them, are automatically modified in our favour. Persistence invokes the phishing script.”

“Wow, good work, Mike.” I looked round. Jude and Roni we plainly eavesdropping.

“Oh! And Boss.”

“Yeah, Mike.”

“You have no need to worry about me. We are fine.” The image shrank to a dot and disappeared.

I turned to the journoes. “Wow what they can do, eh?” They stared at me. “You heard that, right?”

Jude looked at Roni. “Just heard like white noise.”

“Me too!” she replied.

I got Yiannis Galtides on the phone and told him to meet me at the town hall. He wriggled tried to schedule for the coming week. I needed to see him now, while I still had the ideas in my head but he was preparing for a tech startup conference in Sofia, Bulgaria. I told him that I was considering him for a consultant or even ministerial position but I need to find out if we were on the same page.

“One hour in the conference room.” I told him.

He agreed.

I grabbed the Vespa keys from their hook. “Get your stuff, you got some journalism to do!”

We stood round the scooter. I looked to Roni and Jude with their flight bags and back packs. “This is not going to work.” I stated the obvious.

Fortunately, they had rented a car but suggested following me on the Vespa. “Who’s that guy in South America somewhere with the VW?” Roni asked.

“Yeah, Uruguay, the president.” He squinted. “Jose Mujica. Drives an old original Beetle. You know he was offered a million for it?”

“Nah!” she regarded the Vespa and pulled out her camera. “Awesome narrative motif!”

It started on the forth kick, with a little choke.

Whether Yiannis and I were on the same page remained to be seen, but we were definitely not in the same time zone. He arrived nearly two hours later with a little girl in tow.

“I needed to see you alone.” I motioned to the child.

“She’ll be OK, she has her crayons.” He looked to her and she nodded. He turned to the journalists.

“They’re with me,” I assured.

Roni pulled out a piece of paper and told him to sign.

I picked up the phone. “Mike, I need a computer game for kids.”

“Language?”

Roni was filming Yiannis signing the paper.

“English,” I looked to the girl, Yiannis looked up and nodded.

“Gender?”

“Age?”

“About eight, nine?”

“I’m eight,” the girl confirmed.

“Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. Workstation three, secretary’s office.” Mike instructed.

I turned my back “Oh! And Mike. Keep an eye on her, please.”

“Face registered, surveillance activated. She’s safe, Boss.”

Yiannis took the girl to the door, raised his arm and directed her down the hall.

“What are your ideas for turning this economy round when we get into power?” I asked Yiannis.

“When?”

“When!” I repeated.

“Well, we need to rebuild the entrepreneurial infrastructure. Build a new generation-wide mindset through tech startups and cross-border commerce.” He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his hands together and smiled broadly.

I looked up at Roni who was flitting around the room with her lens trained on us. “Did you get that, sweetheart?” She smiled and gave a thumb-up. “Now, Yiannis. What do you think we can DO to turn this economy around?”

“We need to expand the Startup Shed ideology to encourage young neophyte ventures to grow into viable value propositions for the world market and encourage international investment.” He dug into his backpack and pulled out his laptop. “Look! I got a powerpoint which outlines the strategy we proposed to Socrates.” He connected a cable to the machine and searched behind the wall-mounted screen for somewhere to plug it in.

“Mike, how’s the little girl getting on?”

“Level three, two upgrades and a bonus. She drank juice.”

“Shut it down at the end of the next level and save all her progress, please.”

Who doesn’t love a good powerpoint? But I was sure he had a lot of preparation for Sofia tomorrow.

At the door, I asked him how many of our accelerator teams had received seed funding.

We had some interest from some major VCs.

“Interest enough to put capital on the table?”

He nodded heartily, “Not yet.”

I wished him a safe trip.

“And Yiannis. Look after that little girl.” She took his hand and lead him out.

I closed the door behind me and wandered down the hall into the secretary’s office. Her head sprung up. She asked me who the little girl was. The screen where she had been sitting was still flashing an animation of Kim Kardashian saying “You are a STAR!” I answered without thought, “A business partner.”

I asked her to arrange some coffee and sandwiches. And, some tea for the Brits. With milk!

Back in the conference room, Jude was tapping away and Roni was reviewing her footage.

“See, investment in the youth is the answer. A new generation of entrepreneurs to bring this country into the twenty-first century.” They each looked up and smiled agreement. “Can’t argue with powerpoint!” I added. They both swung their heads over their laptops.

When the refreshments arrived, Roni peeled back the bread and recoiled. “Anything without meat?”

I picked up the phone and called the secretary. She apologised and promised immediate rectification. I passed this on and she smiled, stirring a third teaspoon of sugar into a liquid milked to a pale ecru. “I need you to get someone on the line and patch them through to my mobile.

“Of course, Sir. Who?”

“Panayiotis Karaletsos.”

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