Day 2: First Articles

Dan gets a headstart on his job by reviewing some articles

approximately 1800 words

"La Patte de Desie" 
Day 2
The First Articles

Sunlight slanted through half-open blinds and warmed Dan’s eyelids. He opened them, stretched, and checked the time on his new digital watch.  Not quite ten.  A lanky brown cat snuggled next to him, chewing on one of its paws.  That would be Monsieur what-his-name.  Desie.  He scratched the cat’s chin, who accepted his ministrations for a few seconds before jumping off the bed and disappearing.

         So much for companionship. 

         He ran his fingertips over his new, silk pajamas and heaved a sigh.  Usually, he slept in the nude, but these had arrived yesterday afternoon along with the rest of his order from Nordstrom’s and he’d thought, why not try them out?  Mrs. Dalloway must have added them, along with the silk undergarments, since none of these would ever have occurred to him.  Quite the shift from his usual Walmart fruit-of-the-loom boxers and t-shirts.

         He slipped his feet into his new Prada mules.  Those he had picked out yesterday, on purpose, even though they’d been over a thousand bucks. He padded to the bathroom, the cat weaving between his steps and apparently trying to trip him.  That incredible toilet once again lit up to greet him.  Desi watched in fascination as he satsitied the gleaming bowl’s thirst.  Afterwards he paused to check himself out in the mirror. He ran his fingers over stubble and said, “What do you think, Desi?”

         The cat just peered at him.

         Dan muttered, “Yeah, I think it looks kind of sexy, too.  Even on me.”

         He ran his fingers through tangled hair and realized he could stand a haircut.  He’d have to see if Mrs. Dalloway could arrange something for him. Maybe tomorrow, since today was Sunday.  Meantime, what he really needed was coffee.

         He headed to the living room, Desi following after him.  Someone had slipped an 8x10 manila envelope under the door.  He frowned and opened it.  Inside he found a list of five websites and a note telling him this was tomorrow’s assignment, “in case he wanted to get a head start on his job.”  He glanced at the titles, shrugged, and tossed the envelope and its contents onto the sofa. He stepped back to door and pressed #9 on the keypad. 

         Mrs. Dalloway answered at once, “How can I serve you this morning, Mr. Black?”

         “Coffee. Does Starbucks deliver?”

         “Certainly, sir, but there’s an automatic espresso machine in your kitchen, complete with Jamaican Blue Mountain beans.  It would be quicker, fresher, and far better quality. Perhaps you’d like to try that, first?”

         “I guess.  Thanks. Maybe order me some donuts?”

         “I’d recommend Merrit’s, sir.  Their cannoli is especially well regarded.”

         Whatever that was, it sounded fancier than Dunkin’ Donuts. “Go for it.”

         “Will twenty minutes be satisfactory sir?”

         “Sure. Thanks.”

         “My pleasure, as always, Mr. Black.”

         Like she cared.  Dan headed to the kitchen. Sure enough there was an espresso machine.  He’d missed it before because it was a Miele built-in, like the ovens and the ice maker.  It looked pretty self-explanatory, though. 

         Desi had followed him to the kitchen, tail aloft. Now he stood in a corner of the room next to a bowl and meowed.  Dan frowned and started opening cabinets.  Something called Fancy Feast filled one shelf.  He opened a can and dumped the contents into the bowl.  Desi waited for a moment, then used a paw to lift some food from the bowl on the floor, where he snarfed it down.

         Cats.  Go figure.

         By then, the machine had finished brewing his latte.  It even steamed the milk for him. It didn’t produce the fancy crema art that a barrista would have provided, but he had to admit it was tasty.

         Back in the living room, he eyed the envelope but then picked up the remote for the TV.  The LED display gave choices like “Cable,” “Roku”, and “Spotify,” and “Search.” Sunday morning cable didn’t look promising.  He felt more like vegging out in front of a movie, so he pressed “search.”  The TV lit up and displayed a virtual keyboard.  He keyed in “rom com” and got a list of possibles. One of the choices was a Ryan Reyolds flick called The Voices that he didn’t recognize.  He decided to try that one.  Desi curled up on the sofa next to him, but only seemed interested in himself. Again, cats.

         He was working on his second latte when the doorbell chimed.  He paused the movie while he—and Desi—rose so see who was there.  He opened door just in time to see the elevator doors close.  A white sack was resting on the floor just outside his apartment. It must be his donuts.  He shrugged, retrieved the sack, and returned to his sofa and the movie.

         Cannolis turned out to be fluffy pastries, covered with chocolate icing, and filled with a golden cream concoction that threatened to rot his teeth.  Desi sniffed at them, but then ignored them.  Dan, on the other hand finished six of them over the next sixty minutes.

         The movie turned out not to be a rom com at all. Instead, it was about some psycho with talking pets. Of course, the dog was his good angel and the cat the devil.  No originality there. Dan fell asleep before it was over.

         He woke to silence. The TV was dark, and Desi had disappeared.  From the slant of sunshine, it must be mid-afternoon.  Too soon for dinner, and he didn’t feel like going out.  He fallen asleep on the envelope, and it was kind of crumpled.  He opened it and read the list of websites. He’d expected something coherent but boring. Like, say, articles about pork futures or maybe emerging trends technology.  But these!

         He’d read someplace that ninety percent of everything was crap, and that ninety-nine percent of everything on the internet was crap. He never expected the articles to be, like, interesting, but he thought they might at least have some kind of coherent pattern.  These, though, looked like a random selection from the crappiest of the crap.

         Take Homoousion or Homoiousion?  He read it three times before he noticed there were two different spellings of what he supposed was the same word, with one letter difference between them. What the fuck could that possibly mean and would any sane person care? Then there was Poems Drenched in Sorrow and Longing.  That was exactly the kind of title to grab your attention, at least if you wanted an insomnia cure.  At least The Shining Explained looked half-way interesting, even if the movie seemed perfectly clear to him without “explanation.” But there was no possible connection between any of them, except they pretty much all promised to be crap.

         Maybe that was point.  Who knew?

         He sighed and headed to the office. He may was well follow the links and see if these were as bad as they looked.

         Desi followed him to the office and immediately plopped down on top of the keyboard.  Cats.  Dan said, “Sorry, Mr. Desi, but you’ll have to go.”  He picked the animal up, deposited him in the hall, and closed the door to the office.

         Six hours later, he’d read all the articles.  He’d even followed embedded links in each article, to be sure they were as crappy as they looked. He’d then pulled up the database interface and drafted the required summaries.  He sat back to review his work, starting with the least crappy article.

         What if X Had Been Around During Tulipmania?

Summary.  This article starts with the true, but useless, historical fact that tulip prices exploded and subsequently collapsed in Holland in the 1600s.  The narrative speculates about how commenters on X might have reacted, in the improbable event that X and the internet existed in Holland at that time.  In addition to being in English and not Dutch, all of the proposed comments by these hypothetical Xers are stupid, so at least that much of the article is realistic.  This reviewer speculates that the author’s intends this to be amusing.  Unfortunately, it’s not.

         That had taken up a good two hours of following links and reading. At least he learned about economic bubbles, which would be useful if he wanted to be a day trader on Wall Street.  Which, of course, he’d poke his eyes out with a sharp stick before considering.  The next article was even worse and led to even more dead ends.

         Poems Drenched in Sorrow and Longing

Summary.  This article starts by informing the reader that, in 1873 when he was 18, some French dude named Rimbaud self-published a book of prose, Une Saison en Enfer (A Season In Hell ). That title could aptly describe time spent reading this article, which discusses in depth some of this dude’s poems. The author “laments” that Rimbaud ceased writing poetry by the time he turned twenty, but this appears to be in keeping with the article’s overall satirical tone, which includes quoted excerpts and discussion of the alleged poetry.  Indeed, the reader is left to inevitable conclusion that this dude stopped writing poetry precisely because he also couldn’t find a publisher for his depressing and self-absorbed verse, which, by the way, doesn’t even rhyme. The author fails to offer an explanation of why, exactly, the work of a frustrated teen-aged aristocrat in 1870s France is of interest today.

         A grim smile twisted Dan’s lip as he re-read this summary. He'd devoted some time and effort to this one. It would seem teenagers of any time and place were the same. “Drenched in sorrow and longing” was as good a description as any, and a “a season in hell” certainly described reading about it.  Bad as these two were, the next three articles really went downhill after this, and his reviews got shorter.

         Homoousion or Homoiousion?

Summary. A careful reading of the title reveals there is one letter difference in how this classical Greek word is spelled, kind of like “blond” or “blonde” today.  The article alleges this dispute over spelling led to massive controversies and excommunications in the Byzantine Empire.  As evidence, the article loosely connects something called the Nicene Creed to this spelling controversy. Lessons for today, if any, are left to the readers.

         The Shining Explained

Summary.  The explanation:  In 1969, Kubrick faked the moon landing for the government and subsequently revealed this super-secret “fact” in hidden clues buried in his 1980 movie adaptation of the Stephen King novel.  Dumbest conspiracy theory ever meets dumbest movie explanation ever.

         He’d saved the worst for last.

         Three Strangers: Twain, Camus, and Joel

Summary.  Mark Twain, Billie Joel, and some French dude named Camus all created stuff with the word “stranger” in the title.  The author uses words like weltzschmerz, anhedonia, desiderium, angst, Mal du Siècle, and ontological uncertainty in an attempt to make this observation seem profound.  It’s not.

         That was it. Six hours of his life he’d never get back.

         He decided to have Mrs. Dalloway order a pizza for him.