As Michael left the meeting there was fury streaming from his eyes. The fools! What business did they have, making decisions at all! They should all become candidates for radical brain therapy.
He glared his way through the office, leaving his secretary with a worrisome question on her face. Then past the doors, through the foyer, and into the glorious sun of Santa Cruz.
Yet what could he perceive of sun or glory. His knuckles had grown white beneath pale skin, and the furrows in his brow ran deep. He utterly ignored the blue-jay watching him from the cyprus, or the dazzling summer-white of the sun above.
“Damn fools! Damn fools!” The car keys fumbled in his hand and he become even more furious. He lifted them up to throw at the car, yet squinting fiercely, lowered his hand. Perhaps he couldn’t find a spot worthy of his rage and the costs that must come afterwards.
His vehicle was a sport’s car of the priciest breed: blue as a thoughtful or a pensive sky, curvaceous as a women ready for her man. And costly enough to buy five others, not quite so blue nor as ready.
He unlocked the door and opened it. There was a quiet “whoosh”, as though an airlock had opened on a warcraft. The subtle ticking of the door-open bell began, as all of the warcraft began to awaken from slumber.
He stepped in, oblivious of this; oblivious of the refinement, the privilege; perfectly unaware of the Andean leather, the Sequoia heart-wood, the tritium gas illumination – the look and feel of money, wealth, affluence.
His temples were flushed, and a fierce irritability overcame his senses. He even managed to lose his temper with the engine’s starter, which fired, as always, with smooth perfection.