Chapter 66 — Smear Campaign
The Curve of Time, Chapter 66 —— Smear Campaign, in which Saskia and Mica get some unexpected news about Zeno.
Followed by some musings on how we can expanding moments of show.
Listen to full episode :
— 66 —
Smear Campaign
“I agree. Zeno acquiesced too easily,” Saskia concurred with Mica while she absently fiddled with the aperture on the camera Mica had borrowed for their trip. “Shall I just set it to portrait mode when we’re taking pics of people?”
“Sure. I’m pretty sure that’s what my photographer does half the time anyway.”
“Sounds like I’ve got big shoes to fill.”
“I have absolute faith in you. Just don’t shoot them in front of a bright window.”
“You don’t like the witness protection look? For images accompanying your text.”
Mica smiled, but her mind had switched back to Zeno. The question was: “Why? . . . Why would he capitulate so easily?” For Mica, investigative journalism redounded to motives, and she was attuned to digging for them.
Saskia shrugged. “They say first impressions are lasting ones.” A cheeky grin crept across her face. “And I did predict what was probably the worst catastrophe of his working life.”
“Yes. Yes, you did.”
Mica and Saskia were sitting in their rental car in the parking lot across the road from the heliport at Houma-Terrebonne Airport. Waiting to be picked up. Through the barbed wire fence that surrounded the lot they could see a fleet of yellow transport helicopters. The guy Zeno had put Saskia in touch with said they’d be flying a Sikorsky S76 out to the rig. The black slashing stripe across the yellow paintwork curiously reminded Saskia of a tiger. She guessed their ride was one of the streak of tigers resting on the tarmac. They looked like they were resting on their haunches.
They had been scheduled to be picked up in half an hour when Mica’s phone rang. It was Dalton, a colleague of hers. “You know that oil exec you were talking to? The one you’re about to smear.”
“I’m not smearing anyone.”
“He’s dead.”
Mica sat bolt upright. “What do you mean dead? How do you know?”
Dalton explained that his contact in the LAPD, the one he’d earlier asked if they had anything on Zeno Williams, had just called him. It had only hit their system a few minutes ago, which meant it had happened in the last couple of hours.
Mica elided over the fact that Saskia had spoken with Zeno not four hours ago. “Does your guy know what happened?” she asked.
“A young woman. His yoga instructor, I think. She was the one who called it in. Sounds like he had some sort of fit. Jumped about spastically, then clutched his chest and keeled over. They’re guessing heart attack.”
“Where was he?”
“Not sure. Sounds like he stopped in town on his way back home. He was up at some meditation retreat in Santa Cruz over the weekend. You owe me for this.”
“Thanks, D. I won’t forget it.” Mica hung up and turned to Saskia.
“Zeno’s dead?”
Mica nodded. “Which means our ticket to the wellhead is expiring.” It didn’t take a drilling supervisor to see that if knowledge of Zeno’s death got out, his orders to escort Saskia to the bottom of the ocean would, in short order, be rescinded.
Across the car park a man was walking towards them. He waved his meaty right hand at them as he caught their eyes.
Saskia put the camera back in her bag and the two women got out of their car.
“Are you two the journalists Mr. Williams has foisted on me?” The man offered his hand in greeting. “Gregory.” His tone was jocular, but this clearly wasn’t his idea of a good plan.
Mica shook Gregory’s hand. “I’m Mica. I’m text. Saskia is images.”
“Hope you ladies didn’t have too much for breakfast. It’s forty minutes in the Sikorsky. And it’s not always a smooth flight.” He lifted his hand to surreptitiously shade his lips from the helicopters. “Ronald doesn’t have that many hours under his belt yet.”
“Our pilot?” Mica asked.
“Just kidding. Which one of you is diving?”
“That’d be me.” Saskia held up her hand and then extended it to round out the introductions. “Saskia.”
“Unless I hear otherwise, we should have you in the water by”——he checked his watch——“let’s say two. Jeremy, who’ll be leading the dive, is prepping everything as we speak. You are ADS certified, correct?”
“Trained with DIT,” Saskia said, referring to the Divers Institute of Technology, one of the better known commercial diving schools for ADS certification.
“Wonderful. We use DIT too.” Gregory clapped his hands together. “Right, the sooner we get in that helicopter, the sooner I can bring you back.”
Mica and Saskia were only too aware of their ticking clock, and both appreciated Gregory for his brusqueness. Expediting everything appealed to them, and they quickly fell in line as he headed for the car park exit.
Well, that was chapter 66, Friends, I hope you enjoyed it!
Reading it reminds me of the ways in which we slip in time in our ordinary lives. The way we extend some moments and try to hurry others along. Sometimes our experiences feel at odds with how we’d structure our perception of time, had we our druthers. For instance, pain is something that would obviously be preferable to elide over. Though even Saskia doesn’t have that ability, what with pain being an internal property of our experience of time.
Similarly prolonging physical pleasure is fraught with problems too; there’s only so much chocolate mousse one can eat before your taste buds and stomach object.
On the other hand, there are certain external experiences that would be worth extending or curtailing. In fact, I noticed one that I already do in some very real sense.
That is, I’ve noticed that on days that the stock market is rising positively I check my portfolio more frequently. Indeed the market itself need not be rising, just the stocks I own, and my behavior might be even more pronounced on such days. Conversely, on days that the market is plummeting I limit my reviews. In this instance time travel is kind of a subconscious gaming of my dopamine hits one way or another.
My friend Terry did a similar thing before his wedding. Specifically, he set aside lump sum of money that he and his wife budgeted for the event, thereby absorbing, in one hit, the emotional toll of the outgoing funds, rather than experiencing the death by a thousand cuts that sweating every line item would otherwise have inflicted with its daily drip-drip-drip.
In any event, The Curve of Time is for me another of the joyful extensions of this theory. For, not only is producing the podcast content a wonderful extension of my writing process, it extends my engagement with you readers and listeners, from a short intense blip to a longer more nuanced discussion. One unexpected consequence has been a small writers group that I’ve formed with a couple of my literary friends; something I’ve been looking for, and I’m thoroughly enjoying.
So today’s advice: look out for ways to extend time on the activities that bring you joy. Saskia’s version of slipping in time might be impossible, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other possibilities.
Until next week, be kind to someone and keep an eye out for the ripples of joy you’ve seeded.
Cheerio
Rufus
PS. If you think of someone who might enjoy joining us on this experiment, please forward them this email. And if you are one of those someone’s and you’d like to read more
