A Hot Mess

Daniel raced up the last flight of stairs, ignored the irritated glances of the people he narrowly avoided crashing into along the way, and slid into the last seat by the door. He hoped he would catch his breath before he had to talk to anyone. He hated appearing rushed. It sent the wrong message. People would think he was disorganized.

The meeting hall was arranged in tiers around a central demonstration area. It had the appearance of a classic operating theater, which hardly made sense given the age of the building. It had been modernized with huge, high resolution screens capable of bringing clarity to even the most boring presentation. High definition cameras allowed detailed views of the presenter and anything placed on the operating table’s marble surface.

Tottering into the midst of the demonstration area was Cindy, the manager of the Dungeon’s inhabitants. Angry clicks echoed off the many hard surfaces as the floor resisted the efforts of her shiny black boots to pierce it with their nasty looking heels. All conversation stopped while she arranged her toy poodles, dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day, on either end of the glossy white table. Her equally green coat creaked and complained with every movement, light bouncing off its shiny shell. The boots ranged sufficiently upward to make one wonder if they chafed certain delicate areas, while a wide black belt with an enormous gold buckle held the whole contraption together.

Cindy adjusted the massive black frames of the sunglasses she wore, Daniel supposed, to make her look artistic. He thought she could play a villain in a movie for children if she kept her hair under control. Today one might guess a third poodle had taken up residence there, perhaps hoping to avoid the green dye by hiding under a greenish box made of crumpled felt and tulle.

Daniel thought he saw Vishnu take a furtive photo of the Oz-like outfit — and her little dogs, too — before Cindy began scanning the room for latecomers, texters, and other trouble makers.

“Top o’ the mornin’ to ya,” she said in something approximating an Irish accent. She laughed at her humor and continued. “As many of you may know, the Collegium has been suffering lately given the economy. We are a publicly funded university in a state that hates educated people. Either one of these things would make things difficult for us. Together, they are a disaster.”

She paused a moment to let the attention of her team wander back to her. “Over the next few months, the Division will be looking for ways it can improve efficiencies and reduce costs. As usual, you can expect information to be sparse and expectations to be high. If you make me look bad, you are fired.”

As people fidgeted in their seats, Daniel made a mental note to ask someone later if he would still be fired for pointing out how bad she already was. He was performing a cost-benefit analysis of a covert texting session with a co-conspirator on another team when the tension in the room around him brought him back to reality.

People were alternately staring at the screens, Cindy, and one of the poodles. A mixture of horror and fascination rippled across the team as the ball of green fuzz laid down a pile of digitally enhanced, high definition shit on the pristine white marble.

“Now that,” said a voice in the crowd, “is a disaster. A real shit storm. Our legislators could learn a thing or two about their craft from that.”

Shortly afterward, the meeting was adjourned.