Distant+Whispers

But Denmark saw no one. He was in his zone. He couldn’t see the nodding heads, the lips pressed
tight, the exchanged glances and smiles. Nor could he see the water growing at the edges of Petra’s
large eyes. Nor the growing grin on her face.
* * *
Manoj sat impatiently in Shanti’s office as she tinkered with their only printer.
“Wha’ wrong wit it?” Manoj asked impatiently.
“Me eh know! De ting mash up. Eh don’ copy a ting,” Shanti responded, shrugging her shoulders,
“Can yuh fix it?”
“Manoj! Ah a secretary! Call de printer man.”
“Eh-eh! Raj needs these copies quick!”
“Okay, den! Ah go rush to Frederick Street to make copies.”
“Frederick Street! There none closer?”
“No! But ah go run! Tell Raj ah gone.” Shanti bounded out of the office carrying the only other
copy of Raj’s doctored reports.
Twenty minutes into Denmark’s presentation Raj became captivated by the shifting graphs, multicolored
bar charts and animated line graphs of Denmark’s PowerPoint presentation. There on the
screen, the climbing lines, and peaking bars and segmented pie charts were telling their story—his
story – the birth, nurturing and growth of TnTClaims! Raj finally took his eyes off the operation floor
door, turned in his seat and gave Denmark his full attention. Even when Manoj entered the conference
room and hunched his shoulders towards Raj, he simply gestured towards an empty seat and motioned
for Manoj to sit down.
Midway through the presentation the last of the Blue Cross representatives stopped their
scribbling and note-taking, put away their pens, filled their glasses from the sweating pitchers of ice
water and orange juice on the dark mahogany table and, reclining easily, enjoyed the show being
rolling itself before them. The crusty drill sergeant turned and gauged her team’s reactions. She caught
their eyes, one by one, smiled and nodded slowly.
Petra’s hands were hidden underneath the broad table, her fingers tightly crossed. She decided to
cross her ankles as an added measure. Tammi had called her very late the previous night. Initially she
was irritated and was ready to end the call quickly. But Tammi had simply called to say that she was
going to pray for the company. Pray Tammi, Petra said softly. Pray!
Denmark was calm. He pressed the button on his remote control and the small screen sprouted
more graphs. Each graph brought to mind small tidbits of information from the files sent to him by
SunSquared. He was confident of the story they told. His voice boomed throughout the conference
room as he gave his assessment of the raw figures on the screen and what it indicated of TnTClaim’s
strength or weakness. He watched himself from outside of himself. He was in control.
* * *
Shanti, seated at one of the concrete tables in the Brian Lara Promenade in Independence Square,
tilted a paper cup to her mouth and tapped the bottom, causing the sweet mango flavored crushed ice