Day 175 – Generating Electric Tension

…

The Static of Solitude: Generating Electricity from the Void

In the quiet corners of our lives, we often look for grand catalysts to spark change. We wait for lightning, for a massive surge, for the dramatic shift that flips the switch from darkness to light. But as Paul Auster masterfully demonstrates in his haunting novella Ghosts, the most persistent electric tension doesn’t come from a thunderstorm. It is generated by the friction of almost nothing at all.

In Ghosts, Blue is hired by White to watch Black. He sits in a room in Brooklyn, staring out a window, day after day, waiting for something to happen. Nothing happens. And yet, the tension in the book is palpable—it is a live wire humming with a lethal, invisible current.

How does Auster generate such high-voltage suspense out of such absolute emptiness? The answer is a lesson in the physics of the human psyche: Voltage is measured by the gap, not the density.

1. The Power of the Potential Difference

In electrical engineering, voltage is the difference in potential energy between two points. If two points are identical, there is no flow. If they are vastly contrasted but held in proximity, the potential for a spark becomes infinite.

Auster creates this “potential difference” by placing Blue in a state of sensory deprivation and forced observation. By stripping away the noise of the world—the plot, the dialogue, the movement—he creates a vacuum. When you remove everything, the smallest stimulus starts to vibrate with impossible weight. A man across the street shifting his chair; the color of a notebook; the act of writing a report that says nothing. In a void, these tiny inputs act like high-frequency waves. We are conditioned to look for meaning, and when the narrative denies us that meaning, our brains begin to arc across the terminals of the story, creating heat, pressure, and electric tension.

2. The Loop of Infinite Reflection

Ghosts is a hall of mirrors. Blue watches Black, but Blue is also being watched by White (or is he?). The act of observation becomes a closed circuit.

When you generate energy from “very little,” you must create a feedback loop. In the novella, there is no external power source. The energy comes from the loop itself—the circularity of the characters’ existences. Because the characters cannot escape their roles, the tension builds internally. It is a kinetic process: the harder you try to resolve the nothingness, the more tension you generate. Auster shows us that the most exhausting, high-voltage way to live is to remain trapped in a state of unresolved surveillance.

3. The Art of the Static

Think of the static electricity you feel on a dry winter day. It’s barely visible—a tiny prick against your skin—but it is the result of a massive buildup of separated charges.

Auster writes with “static” in mind. He keeps his prose sparse, almost clinical. He doesn’t give us the “lightning strike” of a dramatic climax. Instead, he maintains a steady, low-humming current of uncertainty. By withholding information, he forces the reader to provide the energy. We are the ones who supply the voltage; we are the ones who worry, who speculate, and who feel the jump-scare of a simple sentence like, “Black is reading a book.”

Generating Your Own Spark

If you have ever felt the crushing weight of a quiet Sunday, or the agonising tension of waiting for a message that never comes, you understand the physics of Ghosts. We don’t need grand events to feel the thrill of the “electric.” We only need:

• A Vacuum: Remove the distractions that act as insulators.
• A Gap: Set up a situation where you are observing something you cannot influence.
• The Loop: Allow yourself to ruminate on the point of contact.

In the end, Auster teaches us that “very, very little” is actually a massive reservoir of power. You don’t need a hurricane to light up the room. Sometimes, all you need is a single, solitary figure in a room, waiting for the silence to speak.

The tension isn’t in the event. The tension is in the waiting. And that, as it turns out, is enough to power an entire world.

…

Day 174 – Writing Exercise

I saw the motion to be quiet, but it was not the time nor place.

…

In a company where promotions came slowly and were hard earned, the ‘lecture’ from the head of Human Resources was the highlight.

The company was built on tradition.  Its executives were quiet, unassuming men who took the time to consider all aspects before making decisions.

Being brash and openly enthusiastic at Executive meetings was frowned upon.  There was an agenda, there was required reading, sometimes a lot of pages, and matters were dealt with calmly and dispassionately.

From the purchasing of stationery to a multi-million-dollar overhaul of the production line.

Or as it happened, the decision to close the doors and make every one of the three thousand employees, nationwide, and particularly in my town, redundant.

A situation that would be utterly devastating.

…

As I walked out of the head of HR’S office, my first question was, why me?  There were at least two far more viable candidates in terms of age and experience ahead of me.

It was a question I candidly tossed out at the morning tea table where half a dozen of us want-to-be managers sat lamenting our lack of opportunity.

“Why me?”

Lorraine, perhaps the brightest of us, said, “They’re looking for a sacrificial lamb,” with the sort of candour that was scary as well as plausible.

Walter, the sort of person who could be in plain sight but completely invisible, laughed, but it was not a pleasant or amiable one.

It was like Frankenstein’s monster had sat in his seat and had been watching us all like prey.

“Nothing like a beheading at sunrise.”

Perpetually nervous Larry shrank back in his seat.  Experience told him bad news was coming. He asked, softly, “What do you know that we don’t?”

Larry looked at Bill.  Bill shrugged.  “They called off critical repairs to the machine shop.  Without those repairs, we’re on borrowed time.”

It had been a topic of conversation for the last four weeks.  Delays, funding approvals being revised, rumoured order cancellations, and a shipment lost in transit due to an unfortunate accident.

Information that was known only to us six and, of course, management.  They had not informed anyone of the situation, the consequences of which were far-reaching.

People knew something was wrong.  Production lines were being systematically closed for a day, sometimes two, under the guise of maintenance.

That excuse had been disposed of by Jaime when she had inadvertently walked into one of the shut-down areas and found it in complete darkness, with no activity, repairs or otherwise.

And all the while, the General Manager was down at City Hall waxing lyrical to the Mayor about how the company was working hand in hand with the County to keep things going, and the future was bright.

Jaime’s mother’s friend had a travel agency, and she just happened to mention that bookings overseas were up a few hundred per cent, and that things must be great at the company because the management and Directors were all off overseas in the next month. 

Not all at the same time, so it didn’t look suspicious.  In fact, it might not be, just our imaginations working overtime.

‘So, what do we do?”

Bill shifted in his chair.  He was the more senior and the one to be promoted.  He hadn’t seemed upset when it was me instead, two years his junior.

“You’re in management now, Harry, you have to keep your ears and eyes wide open.  You’ll know if anything is off. People who try to hide something always have a tell.  A nervous twitch, a tendency to silence, short, sharp answers, and defensive when answering pertinent questions.  There’s a meeting tomorrow.”

“They have to invite me.”

Something I learned about junior management, it was by invitation only, and I went to one soon after the appointment, the only one where I was introduced to ‘the team’.  It was the only one so far.

“They will.”

It was all he said, and I think I knew why.  It was prep before the walls fell in on me

….

The board room was also the managerial meeting room, a large room on the top floor adjacent to the Executive dining room.

It was where management held informal meetings and drinks after hours, a perk of the office they held.  There was another for the managers, the next level down.

I was not, as junior management, privy to either.

Except today.

Bill was right.  It was time to prime the fall guy, and they were going to dazzle me with the whole charade so I’d be distracted.

It was the spiel Bill gave me an hour ago.  He seemed very knowledgeable about managerial practices.  Jaime had managed to get some figures together, raw stock, production figures, per item costs, current wages, coatings versus profits, which were not good, and some estimates of various aspects of the production line that were shut down or limited.

Where she got them was anyone’s guess, but she was an accounting genius, and maybe they were he own assessments based on what was left lying around.  I didn’t ask, and she didn’t volunteer.  I just had to shred them after reading them.

I climbed the stairs slowly and then outside, Mrs Gatly, the Executive Secretary, was outside, expecting me.

I had met her the day I was promoted, and she had taken me through management procedures.  She was very serious and ensured I was aware of the obligations of office.  The most important.  What I heard stayed in the room.

Confidentiality was everything.

I could understand that.  She reminded me when she ushered me into the room.  My position was at the end of the table. I was to speak when spoken to, and I was not to offer opinions, only facts.

I was not mingling before the meeting.

So, I went in, got a few glances from people I knew but rarely spoke to, and waited for the rest.  None seemed inclined to talk to me.

I sat there for fifteen minutes while the others arrived, all having a convivial chat like nothing was wrong; in fact, some were comparing holiday destinations until the meeting started.

The General Manager sat at the other end of the table, and the twelve other managers sat down in order of importance.  My manager was number three.

He opened the proceedings with, “I trust it is all good news and full steam ahead.”  He looked around the table with the ease of a man who was fully in charge.  He did glance at me, but only briefly.  I’m not sure he wanted me there.

My manager spoke first.  It started hesitantly, “We have just received the reports from Sanderson Engineering about the plant, and they say that we will be able to delay the maintenance cycle for another year, perhaps two if we don’t push too hard.  Good news.”

The Financial Manager added, “That will release funds for the update to employee wages and benefits that were promised two years ago.  They have been patient.”

The General Manager beamed, “Of course.”

The Shipping Manager was next, the man responsible for internal and external shipping via the fleet.  One of the important aspects of the business was having our delivery venues being seen everywhere, advertising, the marketing department said money couldn’t buy.

A fleet of aging vehicles we couldn’t afford but persisted with. The new owners tried to get rid of them, but a petition from within and from a hundred thousand customers scotched it.

Maintaining that fleet was one of the deadweights slowly sinking the business.  The same could be said for both Executive and Management perks.

“Delivery times are improving, and we are almost back to normal after a few problems with the vehicles and drivers.  Plans are in the advanced stage to begin the vehicle renewal program.  We are considering an offer from Argosy Fleet Management.”

Again, the General Manager beamed.  “Excellent.”

If all of this was to be believed, the ship wasn’t sinking. 

Except….

Argosy Fleet Management was owned by the General Manager’s brother-in-law, a little-known fact to any of those sitting in that room.  I’d discovered it quite by chance when I had been researching Fleet replacement options.

Ideally, we should just use someone like FedEx.  I found that would cut a considerable amount from the cost structure, but it would make quite a few redundant.

Other reports were equally upbeat, though those who delivered them were hesitant and nervous, as if they had to learn their lines from a script.  Four of them used the same turn of phrase.

That told me I was there to hear what they wanted me to hear and pass it on, because none of what they said had any confidentiality about it.

At the end, my manager came down to say a few words and ushered me out.  None of the others left.  The real meeting was about to start.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall.

…

The thing is, I took Mrs Gatly seriously and didn’t tell anyone what I heard, just the shadow team, and not in the office.

We went to a diner management, and the executives wouldn’t be caught dead in, knowing that whatever I said would not be heard by the wrong people.  Few people took us seriously anyway, even when we gathered at the local bar. 

Lorraine started with, “So, how did they treat their sacrificial lamb, Sam?”

As if they were going to spell it out, with chuckles all round.

“Business as usual.  The GM has a habit of saying good, well done, excellent, and business as usual.  If anyone were to listen in, they would assume that everything is going according yo plan.

“Just we don’t know what plan they’re working on,” Lorraine said.

The waitress with the name tag, Dora, deposited and trauma of drinks and handed them out exactly as ordered.  The ladies in the company cafeteria got it right.

“Did they sit you in purgatory?”  Bill had predicted I would be isolated and land away from the main group.  He called the seat at the end of the table purgatory.

He was right.

“Yes.  No one looked at me, no one came over to greet me, welcome me, most didn’t acknowledge I was there.  My boss came over at the end and tossed me out.  No one else left.”

Harry muttered, “Of course.  That’s when the real business is discussed.  They’re probably hoping you’ll pass on the good news.”

“Is there any good news?” Lorraine asked.

“Some engineering consultants reckon the plant can go two more years before heavy maintenance.”

“Bought and paid for,” Harry said.  “When it does break down, they have a fallback.”

“The money saved is supposedly being channelled to deferred employee raises.”

“Read money being channelled to the directors and management retirement funds,” Harry had a different answer for each talking point.

“They’re going ahead with the upgrading of the delivery trucks.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.  On the surface, it seems they are doing everything they said they would, but the numbers don’t add up.”  Jaime had been listening and waiting.

The food arrived.  Lorraine said it was time to forget about work and talk about other things.  She was going to join the growing trend at the company, and planned to take an overseas holiday.

…

There are many interesting facts about living in a company town. 

Not only did the town depend upon the company for its survival, but it was the major employer, where the sons, the fathers and the fathers before them worked in some capacity over the years.

I was fourth generation.  My father always told me that if I looked after the company, the company would look after me.

I believed him.  I ignored a growing trend of people my age deciding there was a bigger world out there and went to more distant colleges and the bigger cities for better opportunities.

Maybe they had seen that figurative writing on the wall.

Another interesting fact was that in a town like ours, everyone knew everyone else.  Families were united over time, and those relationships carried from outside work into work, where a close friendship was beneficial on the job.

Especially down in the so-called engine room, that group of lower-level workers who were the ones who made it all work, despite management’s attempts to interfere.

The managers didn’t make the machinery hum; it was a dedicated group of men and women who did not have that all-important engineering degree, just the 30-odd years of service and experience.

They never bought advanc3nent just the satisfaction of another day on the job, all problems fixed and ready for the next day.  They knew the current state of the machinery and whether or not it needed an overhaul.  Not engineering outside engineering reviews and ‘planned’ maintenance.

They were the people I had nurtured on my way up, and worked with, supported, and spent the long nights and agonising days with, something the upper management never did, nor asked for their input. 

The people who actually knew the truth.

And, over the next month, the people I spent most time with.  I needed to know if the plant was going to die, whether the reality of deferring the heavy maintenance was going to be the death of the company.

And if the General Manager had the right attitude, he should have too.

He didn’t.

Apparently, he had no time for the ‘wrenchmen’, what he called the indigent factory hands.

Louis Bayer was sixty-seven years old, always in oil-stained overalls, a wrench in his back pocket and hands with ingrained grease stains.  Like his crew, varying from 57 down to the new lads just replacing their fathers at 25, they were the operating manuals for the machinery.

I went down into the power generation plant where he was supervising the overhaul of one of three spare diesel generators.  We could power the whole town in an emergency.

He saw me coming and jumped up out of the pit.  Truth be told, he was fitter than I was.

He’d called me, concerned.

“The boss has that Mulligan character snooping around.”

Mulligan was one of the engineers who did the assessment that led to holding over the maintenance.  His job was done.

“Did he give you a reason?”

“GM wanted a follow-up review.  Thing is, he’s been poking in places he shouldn’t.  My guess, they’re going to sabotage the plant.”

“How?”

“There’s a vulnerability.  No one knows about it, and you can’t tell it’s there, not unless you were born in this building.  Someone told him, because he was caught in the very place.”

“Can you stop it?”

“Not if no one is here.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“Not before it causes just enough damage, so the bosses can call it.”

There was something she wasn’t telling me.  I knew the plant needed nursing, and the crew would keep it going.  But I hadn’t heard about any vulnerabilities.  Not serious vulnerabilities

“We need security then?”

He laughed.  “We need a miracle.  Just thought you’d like to know.”

He went back to the pit.

I watched the machinery that had held together longer than my father or I had been alive.  It wasn’t going to break down; they were going to break it.

…

In a perfect world, I would have asked Jaime out for coffee, more than likely in the company cafeteria, a place that had been the background for a great many romantic relationships and marriages

More than the pier at the park, in a more romantic setting for asking the girl of your dreams to marry you.

Jaime had many bottles and then men asking her for dates.  Some she went on, many she didn’t and was still single.

I figured she was not interested in daylight, a guy from work.  It was bad enough, she once said jokingly, that you would see him all day, but then all night too.

So when we were together, I just had to set those feelings aside and wonder what might have been.

Sitting opposite my desk, the door closed, we were able to speak of confidential matters.

Not that I was price to them, and not that it was earth-shattering, or perhaps I was underpaying the value of it.

“The General Manager just filed his vacation requirements.  6 weeks starting next Monday.  Oddly enough, there are six directors and top-level managers taking various periods of vacation.”

“Hardly a revelation for the time of year.”

It was the pre-annual meeting period where everyone else stayed at work to produce the reports for the directors to mull over.

“Timing, given what we know about the current state of things.”

“You think he doesn’t want to be here if they decide to close the plant?”

“Or it crashes, and they have to.”

I had told her about my meeting with Bayer when I ran into her at the cafe.  She was sitting alone at the back, reading a book and sipping a large black coffee.  It was a romance novel, which I thought out of character.

“Whereupon I would be asked for answers.”

“Since your boss is also running away.  The sacrificial lamb.”

“Want to go on a vacation with me?”

She gave me a sideways look.  “Tempting as that offer sounds, we can’t.  No one involved with the reporting can have time off, unless they are dead.  I was told that was the only excuse.”

She didn’t say no, so I decided to push my luck.  “Does that mean when this is over you might?”

“Die?”

“Go on vacation with me?”

The look she gave me said she would prefer to be an alien abductee.  Or not.

“It’s taken you six years.  You’re lucky I’m a very patient woman.  Ask me again when this nonsense is done with.  Now, you have to go see Eleanor.”

Six years ago, we were in high school together.  I had wanted to ask her to the prom, but didn’t have the courage.  I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

…

Eleanor was the hotshot reporter who was that kind of person who could get under your skin.  She was persistent and annoying.

It was what made her a good reporter.  She ran the school paper, and after graduation, got a job at the newspaper, combining college with reporting.

Recently, she was added to the local TV station reporting on news from our town and the surrounding area.  She was also vitally interested in our company and the persistent rumours that it was in financial distress.

We had a brief thing after graduation, but the fact that I was not important enough broke us up.  I’d always suspected her relationships were based on breaking stories or advancing her career.

I was never going to do either.

But..

Now I had a story, but it was a matter of how I sold it, because it would not do to have her and her crew knocking down the door

Her involvement was purely to throw a cat amongst the pigeons, something she could do just by turning up.

Jaime and I had talked about it.  How to light a hundred-foot slow-burning fuse so that we could be a hundred miles away when the bomb went off.

I was thinking about that when Eleanor took the stool next to me at the bar.

The bartender was waiting for her order.

“He’s paying for your best champagne.”

I did say, when I called her, the drinks were on me.  It might have been a little brash.

“Don’t make me regret this.  I’ve got people to hang out to dry.”

“Do you ever look for good news?”

I glanced sideways and took a breath.  That girl never got less stunning, perhaps the reason she was so successful. 

“Frankly, no.  Who wants good news, really?  People thrive on disaster and mayhem.  In this town, it’s the company.  They’re up to something.  You work for the company.  Are you here to tell me what it is?”

“How do you know anything is wrong?”

“You’re here.  That tone of yours.  You were always a lousy poker player, Sam.  Why am I here?”

“To put the wind up management, specifically the General Manager.  He’s going away on Monday.  I’d like you to harass him at the airport.”

“With what?”

“Put two and two together.  I’m sure you’ve been watching the company. The share price is dropping, the earnings are lacklustre, we’ve suffered shipping problems, and maintenance has been deferred.”

“Cash flow problems?”

“Not if six executives can afford long overseas vacations, just before the Annual General Meeting.  Including a GM who should be here guiding the ship through the storm.”

“Rats deserting a possible sinking ship.”

Her champagne arrived, and the bartender poured two glasses.  A salute and a drink. 

I shrugged.  “Someone has the answers.  You just need to find the right questions.”

“Monday?”

“I’m sure someone down at the travel agency will help you with your travel requirements.  Ask for Anna.”

She smiled.  “A question for you.  When are you going to ask Jamie on a date?”

…

That old saying, ‘I love it when a plan comes together’, is rarely applicable in any circumstances.

Plans made are always fraught with danger.

We didn’t have a plan as such; just a group of like-minded people with suspicious minds making conjecture out of a series of seemingly unrelated events.

The drip selling of blocks of shares in the company is a trend that no one would see if they weren’t looking for it.

A number of realty opportunities that, if you didn’t look closer at the ownership, you would simply dismiss as the market working as it should.

The carefully worded press releases from a company going through what anyone, and particularly the General Manager, would call business as usual.

Reports to the staff advising certain decisions to be ratified at the Annual General Meeting, such as wage increases, fleet upgrades and distribution streamlining, and the delay to scheduled maintenance to allow for all of the above.

No one knew about the cask flow problems that were caused by the loss of a shipment that insurance was refusing to pay, or the large bonuses being paid to the board and executive members for ‘a job well done’ and particularly that to the General Manager.

Or the fact that in an oddly screwed-up piece of paper that landed on my desk, when smoothed out was the draft resignation letter of the General Manager, one week after his departure on vacation.

It was clear that he was not coming back.

Sunday night, the day before our General Manager departed for what he called a well-earned rest before the AGM, the group of suspicious minds had gathered in the power plant building, all ready for the night shift.  Curiously and unknown to most, the Sheriff in plain clothes was watching proceedings.

He had heard a rumour, one that sounded awfully like a criminal act was about to be perpetrated.

Louis Bayer and I were standing on a makeshift stage, looking out over a sea of faces, about a hundred in all, there because we suspected that the plant would be sabotaged.

We just didn’t know where.

Louis deployed the troops with one instruction.  Whoever they were, they were not to leave the site, and they were to use any and all means necessary.

This place was their livelihood. Despite management, they were going to do whatever it took to save it.  Or di the best they could.

There were other problems, but the plant and its machinery were not going to be the cause of the company’s demise. 

It was like the troops were going to war.

…

Thus, it was 10 am on Monday.

The executives filed into the board room for the meeting, the Assistant General Manager in charge, and me, taking my manager’s place at the right end of the table.

I was there to take responsibility for anything that might happen while my manager was away.

A message had appeared on my phone from Eleanor telling me she had the General Manager in her sights, with a camera crew and a live cross waiting.

Another followed to say my manager had just appeared.

Five minutes past ten, the warning siren went off in the production line five building.  It signified a problem.  It could go either of two ways.  Problem identified and resolved, or evacuation.

No one in the boardroom seemed agitated.  The AG Manager simply asked me to find out what was going on.

I called Louis

“It’s done.”

I looked up at him.  “Investigation underway.  We’ll know soon enough.”

I looked around at the faces.  Three of them looked nervous, the others, not so much.  I wondered if they had met before to work on their strategy.  The three who were nervous were the last three to offload their stick holdings.

I paced nervously.  From the windows overlooking the outside picnic area used by the employees to eat their lunches and just rest, I could see the Number Five building.  It seemed like nothing was happening.

Until smoke started billowing, and the siren changed to evacuation, and people started filing out.  A very orderly and unpanicked evacuation.

I pressed send on my phone.

It rang.  I answered.  “You know the drill.”

“Thanks.”

I looked at the executives.  “Catastrophic breakdown.  The maintenance crew are being deployed.”

“It wasn’t supposed to break down.  We had a team of experts go over the whole plant.”

“Initial report is that it was in an entirely unexpected area, one we’ve never had a problem with, and was never expected to fail.  It happens.”

“Then I guess we’d better start working on a plane.  I assume it means everything has to be shut down.”

“Given it’s the one place that we just didn’t need to fail, and the hardest and most complex to repair, yes.”

“Then give the order.”

Just then, Mrs Gatly came running into the room and flicked on the TV.  It was the news, with Eleanor blocking the General Manager, asking, “Do you realise that a serious act of sabotage has been perpetrated at the plant?”

“No.  What are you talking about?  My flight has been called, and we need to get to the gate.”

“Are you running away from the problems?  Did you cause the problems?  How do you explain a letter of resignation dated one week from today?”

“What?”

Caught like a deer in headlights.  And suddenly flanked by two deputies.  We just caught sight of my manager being held by more deputies.

Cut to the sheriff outside his office, saying, “We currently have two suspects under arrest for the attempted sabotage of the number five plant room at the Bentham factory site.”

There was also a ruckus outside the boardroom, followed by the Sheriff.  What was on the TV was pre-recorded, because the two suspects had been quietly handed over soon after they were apprehended, so they could not damage the plant.

Louis had correctly assumed what they would go for.  There was nothing else that could do the necessary damage, and it was the most vulnerable point in the machinery chain.

Mrs Gatly had a file in her hand, and she gave it to the Sheriff.  “It’s all in there.”

She glared at the executives.  “Shame on the lot of you.”  To me, she nodded and left the room.

“Sit down, the lot of you.  It’s going to be a long morning.”  The Sheriff wasn’t a happy man.

Outside, I heard a roar.  People cheering.

My phone rang.

“Generally, I hate Mondays, but I’ll make an exception for today.  The fire truck brought cakes, so don’t wait too long.”

I turned back to the executives.  “Problem solved.  The plant will be back online in half an hour.”

“Are you telling me you orchestrated this whole charade?” The AG manager said.

“No.  We caught the two saboteurs you sent in to wreck the production line.  They confessed.  You were expecting a disaster, so we gave you one.  Why you wanted one, well, that’s for the authorities to find out.”

“This factory is done, now or in a year, there’s nowhere in this current market it can be economic.”

“Not for those seeking to make themselves rich, no.  But for ordinary people who simply want a comfortable life, it can be done.  But there’s no point talking about that with you.  You don’t think you’re ordinary people, but then you’ll have time in prison to wonder how that happened.”

And as I left, I wondered briefly about that comfortable life I thought I had.  Perhaps when I saw Jaime, it would all become clear.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Day 174 – Writing Exercise

I saw the motion to be quiet, but it was neither the time nor the place.

…

In a company where promotions came slowly and were hard earned, the ‘lecture’ from the head of Human Resources was the highlight.

The company was built on tradition.  Its executives were quiet, unassuming men who took the time to consider all aspects before making decisions.

Being brash and openly enthusiastic at Executive meetings was frowned upon.  There was an agenda, required reading (sometimes a lot of pages), and matters were dealt with calmly and dispassionately.

From the purchasing of stationery to a multi-million-dollar overhaul of the production line.

Or as it happened, the decision to close the doors and make every one of the three thousand employees, nationwide, and particularly in my town, redundant.

A situation that would be utterly devastating.

…

As I walked out of the head of HR’s office, my first question was, “Why me?”  There were at least two far more viable candidates in terms of age and experience ahead of me.

It was a question I candidly tossed out at the morning tea table where half a dozen of us want-to-be managers sat lamenting our lack of opportunity.

“Why me?”

Lorraine, perhaps the brightest of us, said, “They’re looking for a sacrificial lamb,” with the sort of candour that was scary as well as plausible.

Walter, the sort of person who could be in plain sight but completely invisible, laughed, but it was not a pleasant or amiable one.

It was like Frankenstein’s monster had sat in his seat and had been watching us all like prey.

“Nothing like a beheading at sunrise.”

Perpetually nervous Larry shrank back in his seat.  Experience told him bad news was coming. He asked, softly, “What do you know that we don’t?”

Larry looked at Bill.  Bill shrugged.  “They called off critical repairs to the machine shop.  Without those repairs, we’re on borrowed time.”

It had been a topic of conversation for the last four weeks.  Delays, funding approvals being revised, rumoured order cancellations, and a shipment lost in transit due to an unfortunate accident.

Information that was known only to us six and, of course, management.  They had not informed anyone of the situation, the consequences of which were far-reaching.

People knew something was wrong.  Production lines were being systematically closed for a day, sometimes two, under the guise of maintenance.

That excuse had been disposed of by Jaime when she had inadvertently walked into one of the shut-down areas and found it in complete darkness, with no activity, repairs or otherwise.

And all the while, the General Manager was down at City Hall waxing lyrical to the Mayor about how the company was working hand in hand with the County to keep things going, and the future was bright.

Jaime’s mother’s friend had a travel agency, and she just happened to mention that bookings overseas were up a few hundred per cent, and that things must be great at the company because the management and Directors were all off overseas in the next month. 

Not all at the same time, so it didn’t look suspicious.  In fact, it might not be, just our imaginations working overtime.

‘So, what do we do?”

Bill shifted in his chair.  He was the more senior and the one to be promoted.  He hadn’t seemed upset when it was me instead, two years his junior.

“You’re in management now, Harry, you have to keep your ears and eyes wide open.  You’ll know if anything is off. People who try to hide something always have a tell.  A nervous twitch, a tendency to silence, short, sharp answers, and defensive when answering pertinent questions.  There’s a meeting tomorrow.”

“They have to invite me.”

Something I learned about junior management, it was by invitation only, and I went to one soon after the appointment, the only one where I was introduced to ‘the team’.  It was the only one so far.

“They will.”

It was all he said, and I think I knew why.  It was prep before the walls fell in on me

….

The board room was also the managerial meeting room, a large room on the top floor adjacent to the Executive dining room.

It was where management held informal meetings and drinks after hours, a perk of the office they held.  There was another for the managers, the next level down.

I was not, as junior management, privy to either.

Except today.

Bill was right.  It was time to prime the fall guy, and they were going to dazzle me with the whole charade so I’d be distracted.

It was the spiel Bill gave me an hour ago.  He seemed very knowledgeable about managerial practices.  Jaime had managed to get some figures together, raw stock, production figures, per item costs, current wages, coatings versus profits, which were not good, and some estimates of various aspects of the production line that were shut down or limited.

Where she got them was anyone’s guess, but she was an accounting genius, and maybe they were he own assessments based on what was left lying around.  I didn’t ask, and she didn’t volunteer.  I just had to shred them after reading them.

I climbed the stairs slowly and then outside, Mrs Gatly, the Executive Secretary, was outside, expecting me.

I had met her the day I was promoted, and she had taken me through management procedures.  She was very serious and ensured I was aware of the obligations of office.  The most important.  What I heard stayed in the room.

Confidentiality was everything.

I could understand that.  She reminded me when she ushered me into the room.  My position was at the end of the table. I was to speak when spoken to, and I was not to offer opinions, only facts.

I was not mingling before the meeting.

So, I went in, got a few glances from people I knew but rarely spoke to, and waited for the rest.  None seemed inclined to talk to me.

I sat there for fifteen minutes while the others arrived, all having a convivial chat like nothing was wrong; in fact, some were comparing holiday destinations until the meeting started.

The General Manager sat at the other end of the table, and the twelve other managers sat down in order of importance.  My manager was number three.

He opened the proceedings with, “I trust it is all good news and full steam ahead.”  He looked around the table with the ease of a man who was fully in charge.  He did glance at me, but only briefly.  I’m not sure he wanted me there.

My manager spoke first.  It started hesitantly, “We have just received the reports from Sanderson Engineering about the plant, and they say that we will be able to delay the maintenance cycle for another year, perhaps two if we don’t push too hard.  Good news.”

The Financial Manager added, “That will release funds for the update to employee wages and benefits that were promised two years ago.  They have been patient.”

The General Manager beamed, “Of course.”

The Shipping Manager was next, the man responsible for internal and external shipping via the fleet.  One of the important aspects of the business was having our delivery venues being seen everywhere, advertising, the marketing department said money couldn’t buy.

A fleet of aging vehicles we couldn’t afford but persisted with. The new owners tried to get rid of them, but a petition from within and from a hundred thousand customers scotched it.

Maintaining that fleet was one of the deadweights slowly sinking the business.  The same could be said for both Executive and Management perks.

“Delivery times are improving, and we are almost back to normal after a few problems with the vehicles and drivers.  Plans are in the advanced stage to begin the vehicle renewal program.  We are considering an offer from Argosy Fleet Management.”

Again, the General Manager beamed.  “Excellent.”

If all of this was to be believed, the ship wasn’t sinking. 

Except….

Argosy Fleet Management was owned by the General Manager’s brother-in-law, a little-known fact to any of those sitting in that room.  I’d discovered it quite by chance when I had been researching Fleet replacement options.

Ideally, we should just use someone like FedEx.  I found that would cut a considerable amount from the cost structure, but it would make quite a few redundant.

Other reports were equally upbeat, though those who delivered them were hesitant and nervous, as if they had to learn their lines from a script.  Four of them used the same turn of phrase.

That told me I was there to hear what they wanted me to hear and pass it on, because none of what they said had any confidentiality about it.

At the end, my manager came down to say a few words and ushered me out.  None of the others left.  The real meeting was about to start.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall.

…

The thing is, I took Mrs Gatly seriously and didn’t tell anyone what I heard, just the shadow team, and not in the office.

We went to a diner management, and the executives wouldn’t be caught dead in, knowing that whatever I said would not be heard by the wrong people.  Few people took us seriously anyway, even when we gathered at the local bar. 

Lorraine started with, “So, how did they treat their sacrificial lamb, Sam?”

As if they were going to spell it out, with chuckles all round.

“Business as usual.  The GM has a habit of saying good, well done, excellent, and business as usual.  If anyone were to listen in, they would assume that everything is going according yo plan.

“Just we don’t know what plan they’re working on,” Lorraine said.

The waitress with the name tag, Dora, deposited and trauma of drinks and handed them out exactly as ordered.  The ladies in the company cafeteria got it right.

“Did they sit you in purgatory?”  Bill had predicted I would be isolated and land away from the main group.  He called the seat at the end of the table purgatory.

He was right.

“Yes.  No one looked at me, no one came over to greet me, welcome me, most didn’t acknowledge I was there.  My boss came over at the end and tossed me out.  No one else left.”

Harry muttered, “Of course.  That’s when the real business is discussed.  They’re probably hoping you’ll pass on the good news.”

“Is there any good news?” Lorraine asked.

“Some engineering consultants reckon the plant can go two more years before heavy maintenance.”

“Bought and paid for,” Harry said.  “When it does break down, they have a fallback.”

“The money saved is supposedly being channelled to deferred employee raises.”

“Read money being channelled to the directors and management retirement funds,” Harry had a different answer for each talking point.

“They’re going ahead with the upgrading of the delivery trucks.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.  On the surface, it seems they are doing everything they said they would, but the numbers don’t add up.”  Jaime had been listening and waiting.

The food arrived.  Lorraine said it was time to forget about work and talk about other things.  She was going to join the growing trend at the company, and planned to take an overseas holiday.

…

There are many interesting facts about living in a company town. 

Not only did the town depend upon the company for its survival, but it was the major employer, where the sons, the fathers and the fathers before them worked in some capacity over the years.

I was fourth generation.  My father always told me that if I looked after the company, the company would look after me.

I believed him.  I ignored a growing trend of people my age deciding there was a bigger world out there and went to more distant colleges and the bigger cities for better opportunities.

Maybe they had seen that figurative writing on the wall.

Another interesting fact was that in a town like ours, everyone knew everyone else.  Families were united over time, and those relationships carried from outside work into work, where a close friendship was beneficial on the job.

Especially down in the so-called engine room, that group of lower-level workers who were the ones who made it all work, despite management’s attempts to interfere.

The managers didn’t make the machinery hum; it was a dedicated group of men and women who did not have that all-important engineering degree, just the 30-odd years of service and experience.

They never bought advanc3nent just the satisfaction of another day on the job, all problems fixed and ready for the next day.  They knew the current state of the machinery and whether or not it needed an overhaul.  Not engineering outside engineering reviews and ‘planned’ maintenance.

They were the people I had nurtured on my way up, and worked with, supported, and spent the long nights and agonising days with, something the upper management never did, nor asked for their input. 

The people who actually knew the truth.

And, over the next month, the people I spent most time with.  I needed to know if the plant was going to die, whether the reality of deferring the heavy maintenance was going to be the death of the company.

And if the General Manager had the right attitude, he should have too.

He didn’t.

Apparently, he had no time for the ‘wrenchmen’, what he called the indigent factory hands.

Louis Bayer was sixty-seven years old, always in oil-stained overalls, a wrench in his back pocket and hands with ingrained grease stains.  Like his crew, varying from 57 down to the new lads just replacing their fathers at 25, they were the operating manuals for the machinery.

I went down into the power generation plant where he was supervising the overhaul of one of three spare diesel generators.  We could power the whole town in an emergency.

He saw me coming and jumped up out of the pit.  Truth be told, he was fitter than I was.

He’d called me, concerned.

“The boss has that Mulligan character snooping around.”

Mulligan was one of the engineers who did the assessment that led to holding over the maintenance.  His job was done.

“Did he give you a reason?”

“GM wanted a follow-up review.  Thing is, he’s been poking in places he shouldn’t.  My guess, they’re going to sabotage the plant.”

“How?”

“There’s a vulnerability.  No one knows about it, and you can’t tell it’s there, not unless you were born in this building.  Someone told him, because he was caught in the very place.”

“Can you stop it?”

“Not if no one is here.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“Not before it causes just enough damage, so the bosses can call it.”

There was something she wasn’t telling me.  I knew the plant needed nursing, and the crew would keep it going.  But I hadn’t heard about any vulnerabilities.  Not serious vulnerabilities

“We need security then?”

He laughed.  “We need a miracle.  Just thought you’d like to know.”

He went back to the pit.

I watched the machinery that had held together longer than my father or I had been alive.  It wasn’t going to break down; they were going to break it.

…

In a perfect world, I would have asked Jaime out for coffee, more than likely in the company cafeteria, a place that had been the background for a great many romantic relationships and marriages

More than the pier at the park, in a more romantic setting for asking the girl of your dreams to marry you.

Jaime had many bottles and then men asking her for dates.  Some she went on, many she didn’t and was still single.

I figured she was not interested in daylight, a guy from work.  It was bad enough, she once said jokingly, that you would see him all day, but then all night too.

So when we were together, I just had to set those feelings aside and wonder what might have been.

Sitting opposite my desk, the door closed, we were able to speak of confidential matters.

Not that I was price to them, and not that it was earth-shattering, or perhaps I was underpaying the value of it.

“The General Manager just filed his vacation requirements.  6 weeks starting next Monday.  Oddly enough, there are six directors and top-level managers taking various periods of vacation.”

“Hardly a revelation for the time of year.”

It was the pre-annual meeting period where everyone else stayed at work to produce the reports for the directors to mull over.

“Timing, given what we know about the current state of things.”

“You think he doesn’t want to be here if they decide to close the plant?”

“Or it crashes, and they have to.”

I had told her about my meeting with Bayer when I ran into her at the cafe.  She was sitting alone at the back, reading a book and sipping a large black coffee.  It was a romance novel, which I thought out of character.

“Whereupon I would be asked for answers.”

“Since your boss is also running away.  The sacrificial lamb.”

“Want to go on a vacation with me?”

She gave me a sideways look.  “Tempting as that offer sounds, we can’t.  No one involved with the reporting can have time off, unless they are dead.  I was told that was the only excuse.”

She didn’t say no, so I decided to push my luck.  “Does that mean when this is over you might?”

“Die?”

“Go on vacation with me?”

The look she gave me said she would prefer to be an alien abductee.  Or not.

“It’s taken you six years.  You’re lucky I’m a very patient woman.  Ask me again when this nonsense is done with.  Now, you have to go see Eleanor.”

Six years ago, we were in high school together.  I had wanted to ask her to the prom, but didn’t have the courage.  I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

…

Eleanor was the hotshot reporter who was that kind of person who could get under your skin.  She was persistent and annoying.

It was what made her a good reporter.  She ran the school paper, and after graduation, got a job at the newspaper, combining college with reporting.

Recently, she was added to the local TV station reporting on news from our town and the surrounding area.  She was also vitally interested in our company and the persistent rumours that it was in financial distress.

We had a brief thing after graduation, but the fact that I was not important enough broke us up.  I’d always suspected her relationships were based on breaking stories or advancing her career.

I was never going to do either.

But..

Now I had a story, but it was a matter of how I sold it, because it would not do to have her and her crew knocking down the door

Her involvement was purely to throw a cat amongst the pigeons, something she could do just by turning up.

Jaime and I had talked about it.  How to light a hundred-foot slow-burning fuse so that we could be a hundred miles away when the bomb went off.

I was thinking about that when Eleanor took the stool next to me at the bar.

The bartender was waiting for her order.

“He’s paying for your best champagne.”

I did say, when I called her, the drinks were on me.  It might have been a little brash.

“Don’t make me regret this.  I’ve got people to hang out to dry.”

“Do you ever look for good news?”

I glanced sideways and took a breath.  That girl never got less stunning, perhaps the reason she was so successful. 

“Frankly, no.  Who wants good news, really?  People thrive on disaster and mayhem.  In this town, it’s the company.  They’re up to something.  You work for the company.  Are you here to tell me what it is?”

“How do you know anything is wrong?”

“You’re here.  That tone of yours.  You were always a lousy poker player, Sam.  Why am I here?”

“To put the wind up management, specifically the General Manager.  He’s going away on Monday.  I’d like you to harass him at the airport.”

“With what?”

“Put two and two together.  I’m sure you’ve been watching the company. The share price is dropping, the earnings are lacklustre, we’ve suffered shipping problems, and maintenance has been deferred.”

“Cash flow problems?”

“Not if six executives can afford long overseas vacations, just before the Annual General Meeting.  Including a GM who should be here guiding the ship through the storm.”

“Rats deserting a possible sinking ship.”

Her champagne arrived, and the bartender poured two glasses.  A salute and a drink. 

I shrugged.  “Someone has the answers.  You just need to find the right questions.”

“Monday?”

“I’m sure someone down at the travel agency will help you with your travel requirements.  Ask for Anna.”

She smiled.  “A question for you.  When are you going to ask Jamie on a date?”

…

That old saying, ‘I love it when a plan comes together’, is rarely applicable in any circumstances.

Plans made are always fraught with danger.

We didn’t have a plan as such; just a group of like-minded people with suspicious minds making conjecture out of a series of seemingly unrelated events.

The drip selling of blocks of shares in the company is a trend that no one would see if they weren’t looking for it.

A number of realty opportunities that, if you didn’t look closer at the ownership, you would simply dismiss as the market working as it should.

The carefully worded press releases from a company going through what anyone, and particularly the General Manager, would call business as usual.

Reports to the staff advising certain decisions to be ratified at the Annual General Meeting, such as wage increases, fleet upgrades and distribution streamlining, and the delay to scheduled maintenance to allow for all of the above.

No one knew about the cask flow problems that were caused by the loss of a shipment that insurance was refusing to pay, or the large bonuses being paid to the board and executive members for ‘a job well done’ and particularly that to the General Manager.

Or the fact that in an oddly screwed-up piece of paper that landed on my desk, when smoothed out was the draft resignation letter of the General Manager, one week after his departure on vacation.

It was clear that he was not coming back.

Sunday night, the day before our General Manager departed for what he called a well-earned rest before the AGM, the group of suspicious minds had gathered in the power plant building, all ready for the night shift.  Curiously and unknown to most, the Sheriff in plain clothes was watching proceedings.

He had heard a rumour, one that sounded awfully like a criminal act was about to be perpetrated.

Louis Bayer and I were standing on a makeshift stage, looking out over a sea of faces, about a hundred in all, there because we suspected that the plant would be sabotaged.

We just didn’t know where.

Louis deployed the troops with one instruction.  Whoever they were, they were not to leave the site, and they were to use any and all means necessary.

This place was their livelihood. Despite management, they were going to do whatever it took to save it.  Or di the best they could.

There were other problems, but the plant and its machinery were not going to be the cause of the company’s demise. 

It was like the troops were going to war.

…

Thus, it was 10 am on Monday.

The executives filed into the board room for the meeting, the Assistant General Manager in charge, and me, taking my manager’s place at the right end of the table.

I was there to take responsibility for anything that might happen while my manager was away.

A message had appeared on my phone from Eleanor telling me she had the General Manager in her sights, with a camera crew and a live cross waiting.

Another followed to say my manager had just appeared.

Five minutes past ten, the warning siren went off in the production line five building.  It signified a problem.  It could go either of two ways.  Problem identified and resolved, or evacuation.

No one in the boardroom seemed agitated.  The AG Manager simply asked me to find out what was going on.

I called Louis

“It’s done.”

I looked up at him.  “Investigation underway.  We’ll know soon enough.”

I looked around at the faces.  Three of them looked nervous, the others, not so much.  I wondered if they had met before to work on their strategy.  The three who were nervous were the last three to offload their stick holdings.

I paced nervously.  From the windows overlooking the outside picnic area used by the employees to eat their lunches and just rest, I could see the Number Five building.  It seemed like nothing was happening.

Until smoke started billowing, and the siren changed to evacuation, and people started filing out.  A very orderly and unpanicked evacuation.

I pressed send on my phone.

It rang.  I answered.  “You know the drill.”

“Thanks.”

I looked at the executives.  “Catastrophic breakdown.  The maintenance crew are being deployed.”

“It wasn’t supposed to break down.  We had a team of experts go over the whole plant.”

“Initial report is that it was in an entirely unexpected area, one we’ve never had a problem with, and was never expected to fail.  It happens.”

“Then I guess we’d better start working on a plane.  I assume it means everything has to be shut down.”

“Given it’s the one place that we just didn’t need to fail, and the hardest and most complex to repair, yes.”

“Then give the order.”

Just then, Mrs Gatly came running into the room and flicked on the TV.  It was the news, with Eleanor blocking the General Manager, asking, “Do you realise that a serious act of sabotage has been perpetrated at the plant?”

“No.  What are you talking about?  My flight has been called, and we need to get to the gate.”

“Are you running away from the problems?  Did you cause the problems?  How do you explain a letter of resignation dated one week from today?”

“What?”

Caught like a deer in headlights.  And suddenly flanked by two deputies.  We just caught sight of my manager being held by more deputies.

Cut to the sheriff outside his office, saying, “We currently have two suspects under arrest for the attempted sabotage of the number five plant room at the Bentham factory site.”

There was also a ruckus outside the boardroom, followed by the Sheriff.  What was on the TV was pre-recorded, because the two suspects had been quietly handed over soon after they were apprehended, so they could not damage the plant.

Louis had correctly assumed what they would go for.  There was nothing else that could do the necessary damage, and it was the most vulnerable point in the machinery chain.

Mrs Gatly had a file in her hand, and she gave it to the Sheriff.  “It’s all in there.”

She glared at the executives.  “Shame on the lot of you.”  To me, she nodded and left the room.

“Sit down, the lot of you.  It’s going to be a long morning.”  The Sheriff wasn’t a happy man.

Outside, I heard a roar.  People cheering.

My phone rang.

“Generally, I hate Mondays, but I’ll make an exception for today.  The fire truck brought cakes, so don’t wait too long.”

I turned back to the executives.  “Problem solved.  The plant will be back online in half an hour.”

“Are you telling me you orchestrated this whole charade?” The AG manager said.

“No.  We caught the two saboteurs you sent in to wreck the production line.  They confessed.  You were expecting a disaster, so we gave you one.  Why you wanted one, well, that’s for the authorities to find out.”

“This factory is done, now or in a year, there’s nowhere in this current market it can be economic.”

“Not for those seeking to make themselves rich, no.  But for ordinary people who simply want a comfortable life, it can be done.  But there’s no point talking about that with you.  You don’t think you’re ordinary people, but then you’ll have time in prison to wonder how that happened.”

And as I left, I wondered briefly about that comfortable life I thought I had.  Perhaps when I saw Jaime, it would all become clear.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026