Meeting of Various Officials

Chapter 5

The official sat in his office, sending out his thank you cards sent to him as an invitation from the other officials from the different sectors of the city and the other cities that were much too large in their own right to be added to the official’s own city. A meeting was held annually to discuss the methods used in keeping the sectors in order. It was a sharing of ideas and stories, of anecdotes and experiences, and above all, wisdom.

Something the official had very little of.

The meeting would be held on neutral ground where no official had more power than another. A gathering place was set up and camera crews prepared to have the event televised, as was the custom. The public loved watching the meeting, making a sport of it, because even though the officials met as equals, there would be a few that made themselves look smarter or wiser than the rest. Conversely there would be a few that made them selves look like idiots.

Something the official was all too familiar with.

There were around 100 officials coming to this meeting, all with different opinions on how to maintain a city, and sometimes arguments broke out. There were the peaceful officials who negotiated through discussion. There were the aggressive officials who were prone to violent outbursts. Then there were officials like the official, who did just enough to get by and was often at the mercy of the media.

The time arrived for the meeting to begin, and the official’s large scaly blue palms were sweating. He was nervous to say the least and did not like to think about last year’s meeting where he accidently spilled water on his lap, which was highly embarrassing.

One of the main items to be discussed on the agenda was the lengthening of the time frame for work before a cadet became eligible for retirement. The current time needed to be tenured and completely vested for a full pension for cadets is 2 minutes. The official from Sector 17, AKA Sector Cesspool, suggested the time be increased from 2 minutes to 5. An angry mob of future cadets aligned themselves around the perimeter of the official’s council. The cadets to be were bearing torches and armed with vials of cinnamon. After much argument, the official from Sector 17, upon noticing his likeness hanging in effigy, was forced to decline from his opinion of the time change, and instead the amount of time the cadets were on duty was changed from 2 minutes to 1 minute and 30 seconds to appease the fuming mob.

The next item of business was whether or not the gold subway tokens should be replaced with bronze ones. The diminutive elderly official from Sector 10 with a grey beard and an olive green tuxedo was opposed to it, saying that a city’s worth is only as good as its golden subway tokens.

A female official in her twenties with long straight neon orange hair and a royal blue cloak disagreed, saying that the gold tokens could be exchanged in for money which could then be distributed to the citizens.

“Nonsense!” the grey-bearded official shouted. He then turned to the official for his opinion.

The official sat there staring at the elderly official from across the gigantic round table. He noticed the cameras also turned towards him, awaiting his opinion. He gave them a dazed look.

The awkward moment turned to minutes and then to hours, finally the official said, “I have an idea about the subway dilemma, instead of people paying with two cans, why don’t we let them pay with one?” The silence was deafening then the elderly official from Sector 10 retorted, “Have you been sitting there with your head in the clouds? We are talking about TOKENS not TWO CANS.” The official slumped in his chair, then in an instant exclaimed, “ Why should the people pay with exotic birds, no wonder no one rides the subway, toucans are hard to come by!” The elderly official spoke up, “Perhaps we should have this official removed, it’s like he was born without a brain. Evidently he doesn’t have the intelligence to participate in these proceedings.”

The female official with the orange hair interrupted, “Wait, I feel all opinions are of great value to our discussion and want the official to stay; besides, he is kind of cute.”

The official blushed; no other official had ever called him cute before. Actually no official ever called him anything nice. Wanting to impress her he came up with what he thought to be a brilliant plan;

“We’ll hatch thousands of toucans, so the citizens can pass them around like currency!” He boasted.

The elderly official from Sector 10 put his head in his hands and just stared down at the table. There was just silence after that comment; even the orange-haired female official looked annoyed at this point. The official started to sweat. He had already drunk his glass of water but was still thirsty.

He looked over at the mechanical official sitting beside him, who was wearing a cloak which seemed to be made out of metallic purple fabric. The mechanical official’s head looked very similar to an old cassette tape, except being several times larger. He didn’t seem to have a mouth as far as the official could make out.

“He doesn’t need his glass of water! He’s a robot without a mouth!” The official thought to himself “I will simply take it for myself!” He reached over and began to grasp the glass.

“That is not your water.” the mechanical official said with a monotone electronic voice synthesizer.

“Too bad, buddy! I need this more than you!” The official took the glass a chugged the water with one mighty gulp.

The mechanical official sat still for a moment, and then the sound of beeps and buzzes emanated from his body. He swayed back and forth for about a minute and then fell face first into the table, startling the official.

The medics rushed in and slowly lifted the mechanical official onto a stretcher. “What’s wrong?” the official meekly asked.

“Looks like dehydration to me.” The medic replied “That’s strange; every official is to drink their glass of water to prevent this from happening.”

“Aw shut up!” the official replied with an angered look. But the expression soon changed to panic as the official began to gag and cough. “What’s going on?!” he spoke. The other officials soon started laughing as they realized why the official was experiencing this trauma.

After the official from Sector 10 had his fair share of laughing, he said, “You’re such an idiot. Don’t you know that the mechanical official’s glass of water contained high doses of electrodes?” The hysterical laughter began to rise again after this comment was said, but all the official did was fall over, clenching his stomach and moaning.

A retired medic happened to be nearby and rushed to the official’s side. “There is only one antidote for electrode overdose, we must act quickly!” The medic announced. “What is it?” inquired a fellow official. “Large doses of cinnamon.” responded the medic.

The meeting continued smoothly after the official’s accident.

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