The Winner — part 3

(This is part 3. Click here for other parts: https://medium.com/nebulabyday)

It was the third day of Elijah’s winning streak and he was still killing it. In the blue room, Janice was calmly staring at all the monitors while everyone around her was either fully concentrated on the show’s progress or running around to control cameras, lights, and sound.

The pressure of a live show made everyone feel the urgency and importance of their daily tasks. All people in the blue room were selected based on their ability to handle huge amounts of stress. Some held it together because they were naturally calm during stressful moments. They thrived in environments like the hectic blue room. Others stayed calm because they got help outside of themselves. Usually, medicine to calm their nerves. Some used legal, prescribed medicine to calm the system. Others used less authorized medicine they got from personal connections with questionable sources.

To Janice, it didn’t matter what they needed or how they got it. As long as Janice’s team functioned as a winning machine, the team had Janice’s full support. Respect even. The blue room crew valued the respect they got from Janice more than they knew. Getting the smallest amount of respect from someone who looks distant and unreachable — as Janice towered over them like a queen — gave them more personal satisfaction than getting respect from someone who is already drawn and loving to them. Janice had the motherly loving look while her actions were stern and her words were few. People around Janice feared her without knowing what they feared most. Did they fear repercussions for not performing or did they fear not being able to get her respect they craved so much for? To the crew, it did not matter where the fear originated. It gave them the adrenaline needed to run the show. It gave them a feeling of meaning which was more important to them than their feeling of personal safety. It would make the most secure person question if they were driven by their feeling of belonging or their feeling of autonomy.

Janice felt a lot of responsibility for her crew. Their wellbeing was her concern but she was careful not to jump in and help at the first signs of trouble. She even watched them make mistakes they could easily avoid had Janice uttered just one word of caution — which she rarely did. She would even publicly make an example of you had you made a mistake by pointing out your flawed action. A flaw didn’t get you fired. Janice believed that firing people was too nice and nice was not what her universe was made of. Even worse than firing someone was keeping them engaged in the team with their flaws exposed and their egos bruised. A team of people who had something to prove could create more magic than a team of sturdy well-to-do individuals.

Janice looked at one of the monitors that showed the live camera footage focussed on Elijah. By now Elijah had made more money than he could imagine and was still in for a game. “Just a few questions more and I’m set for life”, he thought to himself. He got everything he expected from the game show: the money he desired, the audience’s respect, and his own personal gratification. Janice observed Elijah as if she was reading him. What she read was exactly what she expected at this exact point in Elijah’s journey in the game. She saw his straight posture with which he told himself he possessed the ability to make a lot of money. It meant he was capable and built for greatness. His arms were wide while his hands rested on the counter. This indicated he felt comfortable in the spotlight and he gained respect from his peers. The corners of his mouth, his slightly raised eyebrows, and his tilted-up chin betrayed he felt good inside his skin. The body communicates what the mind believes. Not what the mind ponders. The eyes, however — Janice knew — communicate where the mind is traveling to and what thoughts it entertains. She still saw the spark of hunger in his eyes but on this third day, she saw his eyes with a hint of relaxing contentment.

She knew what the eyes were saying but wasn’t worried that contentment would at some point overshadow hunger. It was exactly what she expected and she knew she had to push Elijah further. The show needed hunger. Not contentment. The show needed someone who was winning, not someone who had won and left. Elijah was winning but Janice was in charge. Elijah played the game. Janice owned the game. Elijah was the winner but Janice defined ‘winning’.

To Elijah, this third day was no different than the others. Only the numbers on the scoreboard changed and with that, the possibilities for new life experiences grew. Experiences he couldn’t wait to have once he left the show to his normal life. If there even was a trace of his normal life after all the money he received.

Even David got used to Elijah’s streak of success and the two almost felt like a team. David’s slight discomfort with Elijah’s success a few days earlier made David try harder to gain the crowd back. His efforts worked and David felt the control he used to have returned. Not only did he regain the position he had inside his own head, it even improved through this little trial he experienced inside himself. While Elijah was going through questions, David was going through his own challenges. He had Elijah to thank for his newfound vigor but would never admit it. Not in words. Not even in body language. It made him dislike Elijah even more but the slick David could hide his deepest musings better than anyone else. But by now David knew he needed Elijah to succeed because it kept David in the show too. David knew his performance too was being monitored. By Janice, who now looked over Luna’s shoulder to the screen that followed David.

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Read part 4 of the winner: https://medium.com/nebulabyday/the-winner-part-4-c30659f10630

You can read previous parts here: https://medium.com/nebulabyday

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