Spadina Literary Review  —  edition 21 page 16

fiction

Objective Truth

by Darren Lester

It was an objective truth that no-one really cared about Jean-Marc Dupont. This was not, as many psychiatrists had tried to convince him, just his perception. This was not him feeling depressed and searching for some kind of deeper meaning. It was an objective truth with which he lived every day.

It had been around a month since he had made that discovery. Not a single email he had sent, no email which required any kind of action or reply, had been acknowledged. Not a single request that he had made had been acted upon. Three weeks ago, he had sent the exact same email to the exact same twelve people at the exact same time every morning.

By close of play that day, he had received not a single email from the twelve people he had written to, but he did receive a snotty email from the defence, sent by one Ms Renard, asking him where the information was.

So he sent the email again on Tuesday.

And on Wednesday.

And Thursday.

And Friday.

At 4 p.m. on Friday, when Jean-Marc was gathering up his coat, he was summoned into the Director’s office. The usual red face of M. DuLac was the colour of merlot, a deeper red than Jean-Marc had ever seen it, and he all but spat as he hurled abuse in Jean-Marc’s direction.

“How dare you miss their deadline!” he barked, waving a handful of printed emails in Jean-Marc’s direction. “What are we paying you for if you can’t even complete the most simple of tasks?”

Jean-Marc opened his mouth to speak, but every time he did M. DuLac hurled yet more abuse over top of him. Jean-Marc slinked back in his chair, pushing himself against the hard black backrest, willing himself to become a part of the fabric.

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