The express desk loomed before me like a sudden plateau. I jumped into the chair behind it. Spun around several times. Put my feet up on top of the desk and wiggled my feet vigorously back and forth. "Nobody's gonna be asleep on their feet around here!" I roared at everyone in the room. Then I grabbed a sheaf of papers, furiously holding them up to my face to discard one by one with enraged expletives: "This one is crap!" "Hogwash!" "Stuff and nonsense!"
The phone rang; it was the President of the United States. He wanted reassurances. "Damn the reassurances -- full speed ahead!" I growled at him, then hung up.
A cringing editor, his knees knocking, came up to me with a mock up of the albino edition, due on the streets in half an hour. "There's no lead story, sir" he quavered. "Take this down" I barked at him: "'Putin to send Ukrainian P.O.W's to secret camp on the Moon.'" The editor backed away, kowtowing. "And get Johnny Diaz to fill in the rest -- he knows what I like!" I yelled at the retreating editor.
A delegation of baggage smashers barged in to demand I let up on their mascara cartel. I sent them scampering with a flea in their ear. When half the staff collapsed from ptomaine poisoning my willpower alone cured them instantly -- they rose from the floor to dance a jig and then go out to raise Cain. By the end of the day the express desk looked like a pockmarked war zone. I handed out the next day's conniption fits and jogged home for fig spring rolls and a quart of emerald water. I threw my bed out the window and slept on the floor. Tomorrow I would conquer Mars.
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