Newsroom fiction: Clueless I see Excitable Jill striding purposefully toward me and my heart sinks. Mostly, every time she directs her small pointed nose my way it ruins my day. Considering it was early in the morning--barely 8am--there is a lot of the day left to be ruined. Jill usually--no, make that ALWAYS--asks for photos that are next to impossible to get. The more difficulty I have finding them, the more adamant she gets about having them. She, as her nick name suggests, is a very excitable woman. She walks with short, quick stride, always on the verge of breaking into sprint. Her body leans forward, her pony tail waves nervously, her eyes dart around constrained only by the narrow black frame of her glasses. She moves even when she stands still, hands fidgeting, eyes twitching, feet shuffling. Someone once said that she is actually very attractive with her dark brown hair, pale eyes and round face. I find it impossible to penetrate the outer layer of nervous ticks to find the attraction. Today she comes to a halt at my desk, leaning her elbows on the half-separation around it. "I need a picture of a wolf puppy chasing cars in Alberta," she says, staring at me expectantly. Her fingers pull on the fabric of her sleeves, her eyes dart between my face and my two computer screens. "OK, any more information you can give?" I ask. "It's all over the web," she replies. As if I should've seen them without her pointing out. "Send me the link, please," I ask. She rolls her eyes and pivots on her heel racing to her desk. Really, wolf puppy chasing cars? Is that the best breaking news we can do? Moments later an email pings. The pictures are, as expected, atrocious. Cell phone snaps of a blurry grey fur ball by the side of the road. You need to read the caption to realize it's a wolf. And even then, it's not quite clear. Jill is leaning on the separation again. She must have raced with her email, started running over the moment she pressed "send". She's rocking on her elbows, making the things cluttering my desk jiggle like in a tiny earthquake. "I don't think they are good enough, Jill. It's not worth the hassle." Her wandering gaze sets on me. "What do you mean it's not worth it?" she's incredulous. "I mean the quality is not good enough. You can't even tell it's an animal, looks more like a tennis ball," I try humor. Jill doesn't do funny. Her gaze is steady. "Why don't you just try and get me the pictures, I'll worry about the quality," she says acidly. "The thing is, the picture quality is a photo editors' job. MY job!" "And editing online content--including pictures--is M-Y J-O-B," she emphasizes every sound. "So, you do yours, and let me do mine, OK?" She's rushing away before I could reply. My eyes send a few daggers and an imaginary rocket into her back. I've been in the business at least twice as long as Jill. To add to it, I'm about a decade older, if not more. Where did the respect disappear? The silent awe my generation had toward accomplished colleagues? The desire to learn from people who knew better and had more experience? Kids like Jill roll out from schools where the knowledge was replaced with self-appreciation. I try to see it as a cute, self-preserving new skill in the cutthroat news business, but I just can't. Coming out with open mind, untroubled by pre-conceptions is one thing; coming out empty-headed and believing to know everything is different. Every time my well-meaning advice is so dismissed, I can't help but feel defiled. And angry. To vent the anger I walk--very slowly--to the washroom, where I spend some time examining my teeth. When the pulse slowed close to normal, I walk back to my desk and start looking for the furball pictures. I find them on competitor's web site, and nowhere else. I explain it to Jill in a quick email. A minute later her reply pings in. "Can you ask them for the contact info for the photographer?" it reads. I have to re-read it several times, to make sure I'm not misunderstanding. Nope, it says what I think it does. I count from ten backwards as I walk toward Jill's desk. "Do you know what you're asking?" I say. Probably not a great conversation starter, but I'm already annoyed beyond repair. "Just ask them for the photographer's phone number," she said without taking eyes off the screen. "Let me put it this way," I say through the teeth--"would you give our sources' info to the Tribune?" The Tribune is our direct competitor, another daily newspaper in town. We're both bleeding readership lately and every little leverage we can gain over each other is used to hurt the opponent. Jill thinks for a moment. Or, she reads her screen, pretending to think. Then she turns her gaze on me. "It's worth a try..." she smiles a viper smile, her lips baring her teeth in a snarl. "I'm not doing it," I say, walking back to my desk. "Why? What's there to lose?" she says to my back. I stop. "Reputation," I say without turning--"I can't pretend to be so clueless." "Helpful as always," she singsongs sarcastically. I know the wise thing would be to shut up and go back to work, but my mouth speaks before I could stop myself: "You call them, you've got nothing to worry about." The clacking of the keyboard stops all around us. I hear Jill's gasp and the tension burns the skin on my back, but I don't break the stride. The problem is--I may have won this one, but she's surrounded by reporters of her generation. They don't see what just transpired as a lesson to learn, they see it as attack on Jill and therefore on all of them. Part of me smiles inwardly at the blow I've given, while the rest recoils from the generations war I just started.

On This Day In Distant Future She woke up with a start. It happened often lately. And just as often, she felt confused and alone. Fear crept under her night gown, rushed along her spine, bathed her in cold sweat. She reached for a comforting hand next to her, but it wasn't there! She was alone in bed! The dream--was it really a dream?--came back vivid and real. She dreamt that she lost him. Again. How many times can her heart break from the same ache? Why are the dreams torturing her so, confusing her, mixing into reality? She clambered off the bed slowly, painfully. Every joint of her body shot a pang of protest as she willed her limbs to move. Her toes found the slippers, neatly arranged beside the bed--when did she do that?--and she shuffled to the bathroom on stiff legs. There she leaned on the counter and looked at the huge mirror stretching the whole length of the wall. An old woman stared back at her with eyes bewildered in fright. Pain was etched in the dark circles around her eyes, her lips squeezed into a thin pale ribbon. Sweat glued the gray strands of hair to her forehead. She wiped it with a shaky hand. She tried to steady her ragged breathing with a deep breath, but it felt like the air was swallowed by the hole in her heart. Her worst nightmare kept coming back to haunt her, her terror of being alone. So many times they've talked about it, so many times he explained how the pain dulls with time, but he lied. The pain in her heart could never dull, the hole where her love kept him could never fill in, never scar, never heal. A tear stole away from the corner of her eye, sliding on its rocky voyage over many lines the years marked her with. The years of laughing at his silly jokes, of his constant childishness, which lasted deep into the age when wisdom should have taken over. What would he say if he saw her standing like this, a crying old woman stooped from age and sorrow? Would he still see in her the girl he fell in love with, as he always claimed? Would he... "Hey, I didn't know you'll be up so early!" he said, startling her. He wore his favorite red sweater and jeans, and smelled of coffee and fresh air. His arms were folded behind his back. He stepped behind her and smiled at their reflection in the mirror. She seemed so small next to him, she always had. She leaned backward, expecting to find him gone, yet another cruel trick of her pained imagination. Her head touched his chest and she blinked in surprise. He was real! His smile vanished when he saw her tears. "What's wrong?" he asked, concern deepening his voice. She smiled through the tears. "I dreamt that you were gone," she told the mirror. "Again. It seemed so real. It hurt so much." He grinned. "Ah no, you will not get rid of me so easily." He wrapped his arms around her and pressed to her chest a single red rose he was hiding behind his back. A memory of another red rose filled her eyes with more tears: another rose and another hug, on this day many decades ago . She hugged him back fiercely. "Happy Woman's Day, my old girl," he said gently.

Dear Opussers, happy World Book Day! May the words flow from your mind to your screens!

Who never cried to a song, never learned to love. (M

Words and Love I could live on words alone for years. But at the end, without Love even words dry out.