[20/26] Time Moves Fast
This story is part of the A-Z challenge that I’m doing.
Steve was among those who took pride in being called busy. He was a salesman, single and smart. He was among those who wake up early in the morning, go to workout, go to work jumping from one meeting to another, come back home by dusk, spend time with the pet and go to sleep by nine o’clock.
He was in denial of his loneliness and somehow this had made him make extra efforts to look busy to the world. No matter what happens, no one must know Steve is lonely! Getting labeled busy is much better than getting labeled lonely, he thought.
Sometimes, he made special effort to look busy. One time, he had a sales meeting in the lobby of a five-star hotel at ten in the morning. The other person was there on time and called Steve several times to take an update on his arrival. Every time, Steve told him he would be there in next ten minutes. Steve wasn’t really running late. He could be found sitting in a nearby cafe sipping coffee and looking at his wrist watch. He was sitting there since half past nine. As soon as the clock struck half past ten, he got up, brushed his blazer and walked the two-minute long distance to the hotel’s lobby.
“Hi, Mr. Smith. Thank you for waiting. I got stuck in this other meeting. The team will take over that meeting and I am all yours for next one hour. Would you like to have something? Tea? Coffe? Water?”
Mr. Smith had never seen a guy who reaches late and shows such enthusiasm. Looking this enthusiasm in Steve gave Mr. Smith a sense that it wasn’t the first time he was late to a meeting. And who is regularly late to the meetings? Busy people. And who is busy? Important people. For Mr. Smith, Steve seemed to be an important person. He smiled and replied, “Water will do just fine, Steve.”
Steve’s trick had never failed. Being late to the meetings had helped Steve close more sales. He closed as many sales in a week as others did in the whole quarter. No one knew his trick. His compensation was appraised every three months and was promoted every six months. The more late he got to meetings, the more sales he closed. The more sales he closed, the more he got promoted. The more he got promoted, the busier he got.
Every once in awhile, when going to bed at night, he used to count how many sales he had closed in that month. It used to be a three digit number mostly. He then used to count how many friends he had, and that count never went past zero. Before he could contemplate anything of his situation, he would fall asleep, only to wake up the next day — busier.
On one such night, as his eyes were drooping, his phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Hi Steve,” a girl called out his name.
“Who’s this?”
“Stella.”
“Stella? S… t… e… l… l… a… Stella. STELLA! Hi, Stella. How have you been? Long time.”
“Yeah, ten years almost.”
“It had been ten years! Time moves fast.”
“It doesn’t. I miss you, friend.”
