Staccato

A Staccato Rhythm

Our Great hall currently houses some of the finest people of America, sitting prim and proper around the round tables set elaborately down the hall, all facing the dais at the end.

And among these people, some belong to the top one percent of the country.

From the legal side are lawyers, some who are Brian Tyler's, some of them Paul Eliasson's, and then there are some who are my dad's. Also here are New York's senior litigator Robert Oleary, and New York attorney general Douglas Schultz.

There are people from the marketing section, people from the finance and accounting section, senior engineers from Aster...

And then there are the top-one-percenters - the board of directors of Astral Corp and Tyler Inc.

And the head honchos themselves - Paul Eliasson, my own father..

And Brian Tyler.

Three dark haired, middle aged men of roughly the same build; they look sharp and polished this evening in their dark suits. It's as if they were born to have their fates thus entwined.

When I see my dad in his professional mode, it's difficult to picture him as the man who, off his work hours and away from his colleagues and employees, talks and laughs and jokes with his family.

Perhaps Brian Tyler is the same, too. Because aside from the mean and calculating veneer that he dons outside, he is also a husband, a father. Maybe this coldness and this animosity between us is because we have only ever known him professionally, never personally.

Perhaps this fear is because you have only ever known him from afar, after that brief, initial coming together that piqued your interest and set your wishes aflame.

My eyes keep straying to the family of three.

He is cold as ever, and his son just as glacial, just as sharp. Pale skins under the dark materials of their suits; pale necks and pale cheeks devoid of colour, stark against their dark hair.

That moment when he happened to turn, and when our eyes met, that was the last time he locked eyes with me. The last time he looked at me. And then, it was cold impassiveness. As always, as always.

And this time, it begins to hurt.

For here he is, nine years late to his promised visit, back as a complete stranger.

Every intuition that I have regarding him begin to dissipate like smoke; I think it's better that I stop to tear and dissect and analyse the meaning of every rare, fleeting look he sends my way, because I'm starting to feel like a fucking fool now. This unfulfilled wish that remained unfulfilled in me, and festered, has gone on too far and for too long.

Maybe I don't need anyone to share my thoughts and fantasies and ideals with. Maybe it's better that I pursue my interests for the sole reason they make me grow, and not because they have some extended meaning attached to this cold distant dream, this smoke that I tried to hold in my hand nine years ago.

Linda Tyler, Efrim's mom, a very pretty lady, is wearing a beige dress, brown hair sleek and falling down in soft waves to her shoulders.

And the strangest thing is, instead of the pair of eyes that I wish would stray to mine like mine does to him, hers are the ones that keep seeking me, as she sits beside her son, and next to the Eliasson family (all four in number, and the ones that separate us from the Tylers at the table).

It's the first time that I'm seeing Mrs. Tyler in person. I haven't seen her anywhere at school, ever, for any function or meeting; I have never seen her with Efrim or with Brian except on pictures in newspapers that the shutterbugs clicked, with them either wearing shades, or pissed looks, as they try to avoid the cameras.