Frank was clicking mournfully on all the folders on his computer screen like the victim of a house fire, sifting through the smoldering debris of their burned-out home, searching for something, however small, they might salvage from the charcoal ruins.
Penny for your thoughts, Frank, I could have asked him, but remained silent as I knew Frank's thoughts were not worth that much. Indeed, had Frank actually experienced a house fire you might suspect he'd set it himself to collect the insurance money, only to discover afterwards that he'd forgotten to renew his policy. That's how Frank's world turns, juddering and creaking, revolving around a black hole instead of the sun.
I've often thought there should be a special Zodiac created just for Frank. A horoscope all for himself where he was born under the bad sign of Pyro, the Arsonist. If you gazed into the night sky, Pyro would be constellation raging haphazardly across the cosmos as if lost, crashing dangerously into other stars and flickering on and off at random intervals. The music of the spheres played too fast on an out of tune ukulele.
After several minutes of desultory clicking, Frank shoved his keyboard and mouse aside with a great deal of irritation, turning his back on his entire computer, evidently having failed to exhume whatever crucial data he had hoped was buried in its memory banks. Frank looked, not for the first time, like a dim-witted deadbeat who had believed "my ass is covered" but suddenly found that ass publicly unveiled in all its guilty, quivering, pockmarked horror.
How, I wondered, would Frank try to explain away the important information he had lost yet again; the files he had apparently not backed-up or foolishly deleted by mistake yet again? This was surely an error too far, his final chance wasted, and Frank's manager was already practicing that "we'll have to let you go" speech. Frank was about to get fired and his career at our company reduced to ashes.
But no doubt the long-suffering phoenix of his job prospects would rise once more from the flames of another termination. Fortunately some kind-hearted but professionally irresponsible person would write him a good reference. And I've nearly finished the first draft.
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