One Man, One Goal, One Mission

Vanessa stared into the half-full glass of mediocre white wine. Her mind slipped unnoticed to a place that might have been a million miles away, it seemed so far.

Not far enough she had mused a moment earlier.

Her posture – gracefully poised and somewhat regal, a gift fromher mother – effectively disguised the lack of attention Vanessa had actually been paying to the post-dinner speeches. Had she been paying attention, she would have noticed they were strange to say the least.  A weirdly evangelical statement finally caught her attention, as a school-marmish woman warbled extra-loudly:

“ONE MAN, ONE GOAL, ONE MISSION. ONE HEART, ONE SOUL, ONE SOLUTION!”

This, it seemed, was meant to herald the arrival of someone called The Chairman. Vanessa gave a half-hearted clap as the next city slicker hit the podium. Lord, what a tedious event! She was having trouble focusing and blinked a few times. Despite having drunk only one and a half glasses of wine she was feeling distinctly hammered and couldn’t imagine why.

Vanessa could not possibly have realised that the rather bland risotto was laced with fly agaric toadstool skin, for who could have imagined such a thing occurring at a hellishly dull conference?

The Chairman was a funny colour and, now Vanessa came to think of it, there was a lot more about him besides that didn’t seem right. She gazed at the seductively large goblet and used her last remaining sober brain cells to summon up a bit of will power. I mustn’t drink any more now, have to pace myself.

Squinting back up at the podium, she tried but failed to focus her thoughts. A worrying notion then struck her:

Was it later in the day than she’d realised?

“Excuse me,” she whispered to the man sitting to her left. From his badge she had already noticed he was Jeff Lloyd, worldwide human resources director for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Vanessa was very beautiful and Jeff immediately leaned towards her, his excitement palpable.

“Do you have the time?”