June 7, 2017
Alethea Kendall reviewed her work one last time before hitting ‘send’ and submitting her story to the Times. Another day, another nail in the coffin of the global plutocracy. She closed her notebook and looked at her Fitbit. She had just enough time to shower and get to the Wiltern Building for the ceremony tonight, an event she was not looking forward to. While Alethea was a champion of the “common man,” she didn’t actually like people very much, especially in large groups. And this would be a group of her peers, the same pool juries are supposedly drawn from. Not a comforting thought.
As the hot water hit her back, Alethea thought of Diane and their final exchange. Diane had wanted a happily-ever-after relationship, but she had picked a one-day-at-a-time partner. The love was strong, but they were both too old to convince themselves that love was enough. And of course their relationship had been complicated by the fact that they were both in the industry and shared territory. Diane would be there tonight. As the President of the International Women's Media Foundation, she would be introducing Alethea and presenting the award.
Her heels echoed in the garage as she approached her Jeep Rubicon. She had bought the vehicle for its off road versatility, but the name had also excited her mind. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he had intentionally broken the rules of Rome, becoming an outlaw and taking his fate into his own hands. He defeated the conservative powers and built the Roman Empire with the love and support of the proletariat. He was a hero to the poor and powerless. Tonight Thea would receive the Courage in Journalism Award, given “to those who reported from areas of instability, oppression, and conflict to provide a window into critical global issues.” Alethea used to think that she too was a voice for the little guy, that she was changing the world. Caesar likely saw himself as a force for good before he was murdered by his friends. Lately she wondered what Caesar’s friends could see that he couldn’t.
Alethea was in the business of simplifying facts by concocting an easily digestible salmagundi, spiced with analysis and opinion. She summarized reality, selecting tasty bits to illustrate a key idea while removing all extraneous data points that didn’t fit the graph. Relationships were not so readily constructed. Perhaps the black and white of the print medium suited her intellectual style, but this format had failed her repeatedly in her personal life. People were filled with outlying data; their graph was a gray scatterplot of mystery to Alethea. Life was an ongoing quiz for an anthropology class she had never attended. There was no book. Not even a syllabus. And grades were posted publicly.
© 2017 Joan Cichon All Rights Reserved
Alethea Kendall reviewed her work one last time before hitting ‘send’ and submitting her story to the Times. Another day, another nail in the coffin of the global plutocracy. She closed her notebook and looked at her Fitbit. She had just enough time to shower and get to the Wiltern Building for the ceremony tonight, an event she was not looking forward to. While Alethea was a champion of the “common man,” she didn’t actually like people very much, especially in large groups. And this would be a group of her peers, the same pool juries are supposedly drawn from. Not a comforting thought.
As the hot water hit her back, Alethea thought of Diane and their final exchange. Diane had wanted a happily-ever-after relationship, but she had picked a one-day-at-a-time partner. The love was strong, but they were both too old to convince themselves that love was enough. And of course their relationship had been complicated by the fact that they were both in the industry and shared territory. Diane would be there tonight. As the President of the International Women's Media Foundation, she would be introducing Alethea and presenting the award.
Her heels echoed in the garage as she approached her Jeep Rubicon. She had bought the vehicle for its off road versatility, but the name had also excited her mind. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he had intentionally broken the rules of Rome, becoming an outlaw and taking his fate into his own hands. He defeated the conservative powers and built the Roman Empire with the love and support of the proletariat. He was a hero to the poor and powerless. Tonight Thea would receive the Courage in Journalism Award, given “to those who reported from areas of instability, oppression, and conflict to provide a window into critical global issues.” Alethea used to think that she too was a voice for the little guy, that she was changing the world. Caesar likely saw himself as a force for good before he was murdered by his friends. Lately she wondered what Caesar’s friends could see that he couldn’t.
Alethea was in the business of simplifying facts by concocting an easily digestible salmagundi, spiced with analysis and opinion. She summarized reality, selecting tasty bits to illustrate a key idea while removing all extraneous data points that didn’t fit the graph. Relationships were not so readily constructed. Perhaps the black and white of the print medium suited her intellectual style, but this format had failed her repeatedly in her personal life. People were filled with outlying data; their graph was a gray scatterplot of mystery to Alethea. Life was an ongoing quiz for an anthropology class she had never attended. There was no book. Not even a syllabus. And grades were posted publicly.
© 2017 Joan Cichon All Rights Reserved
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