Lord Rokeby’s Repast – 01

Ms Ophelia Tempanura (forty-something, but still petit and, she felt, eminenently manhandleable) returned from lunch to find everyone in the office murdered. Notwithstanding the inevitable sense of deja-vu (didn’t something similar happen to Robert Redford once?) and allowing for the fact that they were all journalists, and journalists have an uncomfortable habit of getting close to the truth once in a while, which can make a certain type of person nervous, she took it in her stride and, stepping over the still-warm corpses of her erstwhile ex-colleagues (sad to see Woody, the ever-so-capable intern who, being dyslexic, never made much headway in the typesetting department but had large hands and made a wonderful cup of coffee, lying there among them) she settled down at an internet terminal to check her e-mails and log into one of several social networking sites which she hoped might revolutionise her life while she ate her sandwiches, one of which included salmon, dill and mayonaisse, quite fattening but very, very tasty and therefore worth it on the occasional random special occasion on which she chose to buy it…

At this point the earnest reader might rightfully point out a certain “lack of vigour” in Ms Tempanura’s journalistic intent and bewail the apparently absolute absence of any investigative curiosity whatsoever but, truth be told, Ophelia was never a particularly talented or capable scribe or hack, it was simply something she had “drifted into” over time, and liking the hours and generous expense allowances she had filed copy, on time and on demand, when required. However, right now she was on her lunch hour, and lunch is sacred.

For some time she sat there, catching up on random newsfeeds and update notifications for some of the many websites she liked to keep track of, munching her sandwiches, and, briefly, considering (with a quite uncharacteristic degree of concentration) whether or not to update her online status to read “Everybody in the office dead. Am only survivor.” She decided against it eventually. Her readers didn’t like negativity (not what one expects from one’s favourite lifestyle commentator) and it made her sound like a right moany cow. Besides, she could always change it later via smartphone from the comfort zone of Alyn’s Gourmet Wine and Bistro Bar and the chance afforded by a Margherita or three and a nice bowl of pistacchio nuts to reflect upon things.

A sudden sound jolted her out of her reverie. Familiar, yet out of place. Memories of matching moves with cartoon lycra and generously mis-proportioned digital Jane Fondas hula dancing on a non-existent tropical beach came crashing in, quickly followed by the attendent fear that one’s boyfriend (or at the very least companion de jour) might be filming the entire spectacle with the specific intention of uploading it to a popular video sharing network in the near-to-immediate future. And the source of this memory/unease appeared to be the Editor’s office.

Stepping over the prone (and frankly messy, let’s not beat around the bush here, some of them are literally oozing red stuff, not to mention the inconvenient positions in which they have chosen to fall, e.g. legs akimbo against the photocopier or water cooler) bullet-ridden forms of copy boys and office admins, Ophelia made her way towards the frosted glass door that for the majority of her professional life she had been happy to avoid.

The door stood ajar.

Ophelia pushed it open slightly.

TO BE CONTINUED…