THE MEETING

Taking a quick glance at the men seated around him, the boss looked at them with a bit of disgust but his expression masked his real intent of the guests and acted as if everything was alright having them sit down on his favorite couch especially two of his appointed supervisors whom he knows to be among those of his employers who had a small-scale poultry farm erected close to their houses in order to support themselves and their families alongside the wages they received from him.

And there was William Aidan, the head of the supervisors, whom he had appointed to oversee his major assets while he was away and whose dogged caliber in carrying out his duties responsibly unlike most the other workers had compelled him to show him a unreal, good sign of true trust regardless of the fact that he prefer keeping the relationship which he had with the workers as a formal one rather than a personal but with William, it was very much different in such a way that he didn’t expect that he would actually display even an ounce of friendliness to the old fisherman despite his togetherness with the workers whom he deemed beneath him and unfit to step their foot inside his house.

He took one last glance at his gramophone situated on top of a cabinet at one end of the resplendent cubicle beside a television that remained switched off ever since he left town for the main city to finalize a deal which he believed would help sustain his firm and returned his gaze at a flower vase neatly kept on top of the glassy table in front of him especially at a red lily, noticing some of its petals withering away slowly and require immediate replacement with another one from his garden while the guest in the room were getting a bit impatient and confused with the sudden silence which had dawn upon them for more than an hour now and were apprehensive of his eyes roaming the entire cubicle as though he was entering into his own house for the first time since they were wondering inside of them if the meeting was not going to kickstart now that he has arrived as plan.

The two guards as well as Sean’s dad apart from the rest of the men, knew that he scanning the room with his eyes to see if everything had remained intact just the way he had left it and were even more tensed with his dead silence but they tried to remain calm as they could and watched him with an even more engrossment than the other men in the room.

After satisfying his eyes with the glamour of his house and with sudden expectation, he cleared his throat vehemently and sat upright on the couch with full attention on the guest instead of the lifeless objects that neatly arranged within the four corners of his home to suit his taste and beckoned on one of his henchmen still standing at the door behind him to turn on the gramophone which the guard did in a jiffy before he relaxed further to savor with his mind spinning inside of him along with rhythmic muse of the slow song sung by an opera female singer that graced his ears as well as the entire corners of the hall with her high pitched voice which seems to calm his weary nerves and seems to drive out the repugnant feeling of setting his eyes on the supervisors that he had felt ever since he came into the parlor.

Clearing his throat further, he peered at the expectant faces of the visitors waiting for him to say something that would kickstart the meeting which they had all being waiting for including that of Sean’s father and reluctantly muttered out some words which came out so sudden without prior warning even though he felt a lump of saliva irritating his throat.

“Now that...we are all here....”,

He stuttered trying hard to make his husky voice heard but his speech was luckily interrupted by one of the visitors which enabled him to swallow most of the saliva greasing his throat, and preventing him from making a perfect utterance.

“Welcome back, sir and sorry for saying it late”,

The voice intruded unexpectedly which almost infuriated him but he kept calm and directed his attention to the speaker who seemed less confident of his own words. He gleamed a false smile across his face and swallowed hard his anger for he hated being interrupted whenever he was at the point of saying something important but this time, he brushed aside his anger and waited for to see if the others felt the same like the others.

“We really didn’t expect you to be back so soon and we won’t know about your intending arrival if not for the message we received from you through William”,

Another man named Abraham retorted, avoiding eye contact with the boss and nudged a fellow sitting close to him who was quite unsure of what to say at that point and felt startled by the impromptu tap on his shoulder but he quickly composed himself to join in the conversation which got William and the other guards chuckling silently with laughter.

“Oh....Yes, Logan’s right, sir. The information really did come to us so late that we didn’t have enough time to prepare something for you”,

“Is that so?”,

“Absolutely, sir”,

“It’s nice of you all to have thought about my wellbeing even though there would have been no need for you to that for me”,

William cut in.

“We won’t mind at all if you had rejected the gift from the workers”,

“Enough of that, William. Let’s begin the meeting for time is far spent”,

“Alright, Sir Roland”,

Roland sniffed twice making sure that he would not choke once he began telling them the obvious reason why he had summoned only the supervisors of his enterprise and not the workers instead and took a glass of water which Marcus brought to him instantaneously. He began his speech as soon as he was done emptying the refreshing glass of cold water down his plaintive throat before handing the glass back to his henchmen

“Thank you, Marcus”,

“Just doing my duty”,

Marcus murmured and drew himself back to where he had been standing next to his comrade while Roland flinched and cleared his throat one more time before kickstarting the meeting with his speech.