Thursday 1 July 2010

Ping Pong

Reality so real, you really won't notice the difference, because the difference isn't really real. Really. QT pondered the mind numbing meaningless of the tag line, rendered unforgivably, in comic sans, and appended with casual precision to the holographic corporate logo which comprised of the endlessly spinning infinity symbol – a sort of self-intersecting figure of eight – with an ant scurrying across its surface in a pointlessly perpetual journey to nowhere in particular. No doubt Escher inspired.

QT was here to commission a corporate show reel on behalf of “Unlikely Solutions Ltd” under whose employment he was specifically charged with the doing of things. These things mainly consisted of doing the things he was told to do and, one of those things, was to arrange a meeting to commission a corporate show reel on behalf of “Unlikely Solutions Ltd”. Arranging this meeting was by no means an easy affair, for, for as long as anyone cared to remember, the matter of ownership, and ultimate control of the infinity sign corporation, was a mute point of ongoing dispute, and an interminably, intermittently, hostile takeover.

I'm here to see, ahhh ... I have an appointment with, ahhh ..

The secretary's gaze skied down the implausibly long slope of his nasal jib before retuning to pin QT like the tail to the proverbial donkey in the absence of a blindfold.

If you must insist, please go in. I am sure you're not expecting them.

Ominous. QT sighed.

On a moose? the secretary replied.

Never mind.

The unfolding scene inside the executive office consisted of slight variations on a set theme. An ill-conceived soundtrack scoured by Michael Nyman based on the works of Steve Reich, if the simile smilingly takes your like. Two men sat opposite sides of an impracticably elongated conference table, each standing in turn to denounce the other and claim rhetorical victory for themselves.

Attribution of dialogue to dramatis personae would only amount to a futile exercise in futility. Expressions, gestures, lines, were all interchangeable in the ongoing exchange, which went something like this:

It was I, and I all along, who, in the guise of your puppet, created this virtual prison while all along pulling the strings of your string pulling.

Ah-ha! But no! It was I, and I all along, who, in the guise of your puppet, created this virtual prison while all along pulling the strings of your string pulling.

Et cetera.

Then, at the relevant dramatic juncture, they would each pause momentarily, reaching one arm above their heads, only to grab hold of the hair on their scalp and tug upwards in a sudden motion that pulled away the skin from their cranium, rather in the manner of a sock yanked from a foot. This action terminated in the apparently revelatory reveal of the visage of the opposing interlocutor. Followed by further accusations and denunciations.

It was a veritable who's who?

But to compound the confusion, neither party recalled who – if indeed there was an actual original “who” – they were supposed to be; they merely adopted identity as a temporary strategic advantage in the toing and froing of power play.

Russian Dolls playing Russian Doll Roulette.

It was clear to QT that, while he had arranged an appointment, there would never be a meeting.

The changing face of power is always a distraction.

How can you do the things you're supposed do if those things, supposedly, cannot be done?

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