The Speechwriter by Martin McKenzie-Murray (latest books to read .TXT) 📗

the privilege of travelling with — one of whom gave birth to fucking triplets in zero gravity — has dismissed space exploration as ‘colonialism’ and ignored it in favour of detailing his Monster addiction.

Call me cynical, but maybe there’s another reason. Maybe Mr. Luscious calculated that the attention he’d receive by refusing to catalogue the experience would be greater than the acclaim he’d receive for writing about it.

I’ve read his work, and he’d be right to think so.

Now, not only have you sent Mr. Luscious into space, you’ve also rewarded him for ignoring the experience.

Instead of giving a speech tonight, I thought a more powerful statement could be made by unfurling a mat, kneeling before you, and committing seppuku. But my wife made me promise not to commit ritual suicide. I can assure you, though, that splitting my belly like a grape, and watching my bowels spool out into a wet heap before me, would be less awful than reading those essays again.

Thank you and goodnight.

DROP MIC AND/OR SURPRISE THEM BY ACTUALLY DISEMBOWELLING YOURSELF

I emailed the speech directly to Stanley. John didn’t need to see this — not that he was talking to me anyway. He’d stuck a calendar on his wall and was ostentatiously crossing out the dates until my departure. After half an hour, Stanley called me.

‘Do you have any boundaries?’

‘I’m not sure anymore.’

‘You know this is unusable?’

‘I suspected.’

‘All of it.’

‘I’d like to think that some parts might be salvaged.’

‘I want something short and orthodox. In an hour.’

‘Fine.’

‘An hour, Toby.’

So I wrote some pabulum about the writer’s courage, and the judges’ discernment, and blah, blah, fucking blah, and then I went to the toilet to purge myself again.

The second nightmare was my farewell morning tea.

We all feared it. We all lived in its shadow. The morning tea was a guaranteed event of uncertain timing — like a starving panther coming down from the mountain to feast upon the villagers. You knew it would happen, but you rarely knew when.

They had a profound effect upon us. Otherwise comfortable, the formality of the tea inspired paralysing self-consciousness. For my tea, each of us stood, mute and rigid, staring intensely at the mud cake, Tim Tams, and the sweating block of cheddar. Someone mumbled an inanity about the pleasure of cake, but instead of closing the abyss it only served to remind us of it — a pebble dropped from the top of a great gorge.

‘Well, I’ll start,’ I bravely offered, stepping to the table and reaching for a biscuit. I was the vanguard, and the others, grateful for the opened door, shuffled silently towards the food.

At any office morning tea, a universal process is observed. It’s a process that many believe can make them invisible, or at least give the impression of their obliviousness to the social vortex threatening to swallow the room. The Process is as follows:

1. Once someone has become the first to approach the food, amble over with glacial speed — one function of The Process is the consumption of time.

2. Always pick up a plate, even if it seems unnecessary for eating a mere flake of cheese. Getting a plate eats up a little more time, and, more importantly, it employs your hands and declares your civility. You’re a team player.

3. Your inspection of the food should be agonised, as if you’re selecting a child’s coffin.

4. Having chosen your food, when stepping away from the table assume that where you stand in the ring of people is a matter of great delicacy and importance.

5. The food should enrapture you. Not its flavour, but its appearance. Don’t eat much of it, as the food loses its tactical benefit if it’s consumed (though, if you’re brave enough, you can go back for seconds). Instead, stare at your biscuit like Pollock stared at his canvas, or like Bach stared at his keys (probably). The aim is to generate an air of intense preoccupation.

6. When appropriate, this intensity should be transferred, seamlessly, to the person designated to give the small, platitudinous speech in honour of the staff member whose birthday it is, or the one who will soon depart (almost always gratefully). An air of polite solemnity should form, regardless of your contempt or indifference for the person.

7. The speech finished, politely finish your morsel of food (you’re no longer spellbound by its appearance) and, making eye contact with no-one, gently place your plate upon the table and return to your desk, grateful that another panther attack has been survived.

My tea was additionally complicated. As director, John would normally have served as master of ceremonies. Overwhelmed with hatred for me, John had refused to leave his office, and was flamboyantly mashing his keyboard to suggest some vital absorption. That left Archibald to mark my departure, but the chance of a profane eruption only intensified the awkwardness. As I examined the layers of my Tim Tam like an enthralled geologist, Archibald began: ‘I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that you leave us too soon, Toby,’ he said. ‘But in the short time you’ve been here, you’ve impressed us with your wit and energy, and it’s no surprise that you’ve caught the eye of the Prime Minister. We wish you well.’

I nodded gratefully. There was a ripple of applause, barely discernible, followed by a silence of unprecedented horror. My heart rate increased, and I began to wonder if silence could blind a person. As the subject of this ceremony, I couldn’t be the first to leave. But why weren’t the others leaving? Jesus, the silence. I’d seen some bad shit at these morning teas, but this silence was the worst I’d ever experienced. No one could breathe.

‘Archibald?’ I said, flailing madly at the beast.

‘Yes?’

‘I have a mission for you.’

‘Okay, Toby.’

‘I want you to go back in time and kill Aaron Sorkin.’*

[* Garry’s angrily said that there were no Tim Tams in any job he ever had, but I’ve pointed out that his job was robbing convenience stores so he