So Hard

The day after the accident, Roland's office was busier than usual. His board members all demanded explanations for his colossal mistake; the news agencies contacted him, hoping for some follow-up on the statement released; even his father phoned to check he was alright.

And that's all he had to deal with to clean up the previous day's mess. A new product had just launched, so he had many matters related to that he needed to handle. The initial launch clearly wasn't the only publicity event they had planned.

Tomorrow was Saturday, normally a day of rest, but Roland, along with many other employees, would need to work throughout the weekend.

Barov knocked on Roland's office door and quickly entered with a stack of papers, without waiting for Roland to call him in.

"You need to go through all of this. It's your itinerary for next week along with the planned speeches and other such documents," Barov hurriedly said. He'd barely finished saying that when he spun around and dashed out of the room. With Anna off work, Barov was having to cover for her as well.

'The man is a saint; I don't know what I'd do without him.'

Roland trusted Barov implicitly and relied on him more than anyone else; Barov was also Roland's first employee. Due to all of this, Roland saw Barov as a kind uncle or even a (much) older brother. Even in times of crisis like this, the two worked together like a well-oiled machine.

'I should reward him, but he's never wanted anything when I've asked before. I should ask some people for ideas.'

He looked at his watch; it was about eleven o'clock.

'A couple more hours and I'll grab some lunch. Maybe I should drag Barov out to that place he likes.'

Just as Roland thought such, his computer rang out 'ding!', alerting him to the new email in his inbox. His heart beat fast when he saw it was from Anna.

'Why's she emailing me? Is something wrong?'

He hurriedly opened the email and read the contents.

'Does it feel empty without me?'

It read like a standard email between coworkers, except for that line.

'Feel empty without her? Is she flirting via email?

'She's not fat, so it's not a fat joke. She's not a big, loud character in the office, so naturally, it doesn't actually feel empty. She's asking if I've noticed her absence, right?

'No, that can't be it; I must be reading it wrong. Anna isn't a girl like that; she's much more reserved.'

For an incredibly smart guy, that line truly stumped Roland.

'Why is it so hard for me to read a simple email from her?'

Roland shook his head.

'No, Barov was right; I do spend too much time thinking about her. I'll just ignore this email, get some work done, and deal with it at lunch.'

Needless to say, Roland's productivity plummeted after reading the email from her. He was clearly too distracted by trying to explain away the light flirting in the email.

Eventually, lunchtime arrived. Having wasted so much time, Roland was behind and didn't have time to take Barov out to lunch. This made him quite grumpy.

'Oh yeah, I said that I'd respond to her email at lunch. Damn that cursed email! It's all that email's fault.'

Angered that the email had led to his lack in productivity, Roland sent a less than friendly reply to her email.

Anna,

Don't concern yourself with work and rest.

Roland.

'Good,' he thought, 'that should stop her distracting me until she comes back.'

After venting slightly, pleased with his 'genius' solution to the problem, Roland cheerfully got back to work.