The Suits

The Master, in recognition of the Squire’s rapid progress, gives him a final litmus test. It is a meaningless task of mind-numbing drudgery in the impossibly short deadline of 8:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. The Initiate, as expected and mete, must work all night.

Seated at his black, mobile, ergonomic kneeling task chair with curved mesh back, he is positioned at the altar of his workstation. A fresh pot of coffee, black and strong, is on the warmer nearby. A Samsung Galaxy is strapped to his side. The entire fourteenth floor is darkened. In lonely vigil, bathed only in the pallid green glow of the monitor, he kneels in obeisance and adoration to Laptop, the most powerful of officialdom deities.

Trepid and whelmed, he gathers statistics and the numbers are crunched. After several hours and two cups of coffee, he is ready for collation. Tables of data are filled and full color graphs–line, bar, and pie–are devised. His eyes, the only part of his head remaining, are bloodshot and gritty but he feels he is close now to the shining grail of full Suitdom as he stands up and stretches his fabric. He grabs the pot of coffee with his shirt cuff and pours himself another cup, held in the other white cuff. He puts the pot back on the warmer, takes a sip of the bitter, black elixir by pouring an ounce or two, in a steaming arc, into the oval opening of his shirt collar.