Quailing Egg

Alacrity Johnson was a man that understood the world and his place in it. Specifically, he understood that overlooking the scurrying ants of Alderway from a 12th-storey office was decidedly more pleasant than being part of the colony. He gazed at the crowds absently, a stray thought wondering why anyone would choose labour and laughable wages over a successful career.

Lack of ambition and late toilet training, probably. 

“Earmark that for the new book will you, Egg?”

Mr Johnson’s assistant was Miss Caitlyn Gregg, distinguished magna cum laude graduate of Alderway’s most prestigious school. With a mind like whetted steel and a stare that could make continents sprint, one might expect her to find the chronic mispronunciation of her name as Quailing Egg to be offensive or demeaning. 

But she simply nodded her head with the kind of robotic sagacity that could only come from working with Alacrity Johnson. 

“Of course, sir. If you could just repeat that out loud?” 

Among her seemingly endless talents was the ability to pitch her voice with such demureness that her comments, laced with enough irony to fatally harm a bull elephant, entered Alacrity’s mind as meek apologies. 

“Early toilet training and its links to fiscal drive. For the new book! Do try to pay attention will you, Egg?” He glanced in her direction, taking in the fat binder stuffed with gridded paper. “Business isn’t about numbers and pushing paper, you know,” Alacrity said, in the tone of a fencing master patiently rotating the pointy end away from the student’s own chest. “It’s a matter of verve and tenacity and the anthrolexicography. You won’t find that in any of your books.” 

“Of course, sir,” she acquiesced. “What about the national bestseller, The Anthrolexicon: Foundational Theories for Proliferated Commerce by Alacrity Johnson, sir?”

His sigh was like a zeppelin deflating. “In books published before I unveiled the Anthrolexicon, Egg.” His brows furrowed. “You really should get out more, Egg. Get a few beers in you, talk to real people. You ever do that?”

“Absolutely sir. I’ve got some social interaction planned for later this very week to work on my,” here she paused, pretending to reference her notes, “ah, quarrelous tendencies and utter social ineptitude, sir.” 

“Very good, Egg, very good.” 

The conversation ended as Alacrity’s mind drifted away from the world of sound financial principles and hard work to the world of business — at least, business as it existed in Alacrity’s own mind. A world of winks and handshakes, charisma and followed hunches and never letting contrivances like Law and Order get in the way of a good thing. And certainly not those fraudsters at the tax office get a toenail inside the door — if you wanted money, you had to earn it, not just skim the cream off someone else’s hard work. 

Had these thoughts been ministered aloud, Miss Caitlyn Gregg might have pointed out the vested interest her boss had in several Alderway banks whose money, funded by its customers, had floated several of his own ventures. 

It is fortunate for the Alderway horticultural scene that the dialogue occurred safely inside Alacrity’s brain, since Miss Caitlyn’s observations had been known to turn flourishing rivers into arid, cracked depressions. 

Alacrity glanced at his watch. 

“So, what’s my morning looking like Egg?” 

[This is the first in a serialised story that I'm sure I'll write with remarkable inconsistency. It may end up being the only entry in the series. But as Alacrity Johnson might say... "Um, Egg, by any chance do you know what I would say in that scenario? Ah, well then. Nevermind."]