by Vile Orb
"Bob... Why don't you and I go for a walk?"
"Don't you think we need to stick to work until we come up with some ideas for this proposal? We've lost the bidding on the last two, and Mr. "What's Best for the Firm" isn't going to be happy if he hears we left the office."
"Well, that's the problem. We've been going around in circles for a week and what we have won't even compete with the competition's preliminary offer. We need inspiration, not sweat and coffee."
Bob and I stepped out onto the steamy street. It was unusually hot for early spring and I, again against normal practice, deliberately loosened my tie and unbuttoned the first button of my shirt. Bob watched this out of the corner of his eye and glanced over his shoulder. We walked down to the park by way of the fruit stand where I picked up a bag of assorted apples. Jonathans, winesaps, red delicious - all red and juicy.
At this time of day, the park transitioned between workers on a late lunch and public school students waiting for a bus or a ride. The requisite bronze horseman, covered in pigeons and their droppings, stood defiant at one end, parting the oncoming traffic with his sword. A haphazard network of the concrete paths divided the park into strange geometric shapes of grass, jonquils, maples, and ginkgoes. Some men in fluorescent orange coveralls used noisy, heavy equipment to extract an old Willow that had succeeded in sending its roots into a city water main.
Eating apples, we walked against the flow of power suits, along one of the walks, toward the center. Children ran indiscriminately over grass and concrete alike, too randomly to create new paths. Spotting an open grassy area, I suggested we sit down for a while. Bob hesitated but agreed, perhaps deciding that his suit was dark enough to hide grass stains. We stopped, turned, and walked out onto the grass. I took another apple out and bit into it, sucking up every drop of juice before it could drip down my chin.
Bob wanted to talk about the account but I ignored him. A couple of young lovers, drunk on love and afternoon champagne in the park, stumbled across our grassy mound, nearly falling down at the edge of the walk, bumped into the last of the Nike-wearing secretaries, and sat at a bench for some hushed discussion.
For a while, I ate apples and watched the children running around. They usually avoided trampling the flowers but several boys seemed intent on dismantling one of the park benches. Interesting, but still no flashes of insight.
I redirected my attention upwards. The city's pollution combined with the humidity to make the sky a sick gray-blue. No real clouds. The sun boiled through the haze brightly enough to glare painfully in my face. Even the birds had abandoned the sky to pick crankily at wadded and discarded lunch bags.
Speaking of bags, my apple bag, for lack of apples, fluttered away leaving me wishing I'd kept it in case the apples rejected my stomach. The stress headache I'd acquired in the office, reactivated by the glare, throbbed in a futile attempt to distract me from my abdominal turmoil. An over-enthusiastic crossing guard with a whistle assisted, but to no avail. I crawled over to a bush and gushed sour applesauce on an anthill. Manna from heaven?
Salvaging a napkin from the assorted refuse under the bush, I wiped my face and looked back at Bob. He had fallen sideways from his knee hugging posture and twitched slightly in sleep. His head had landed on my pyramid of cores.
"Life is a walk in the park," I muttered.
Looking around the park again, I noticed several bums with "Will Work for Food" signs spotted about. How long had they been there? They didn't look much different from Bob and I.
Strangely, I felt no fear or despair. It suddenly occurred to me that my wife hadn't seen her folks in over a year and would probably prefer a trip to Ohio over a vacation to the Bahamas. Her cousin Jimmy always had tickets to the Reds games.
"Bob. Wake up. Let's go back to the office. I need to call my wife."
He woke up slowly, wiping unconsciously at the apple crumbs stuck in his hair. "Any ideas?"
"Yeah, but not for our proposal. I'll tell everyone this was my idea. I'm sorry."
He stood slowly and looked at his watch. "If you can get together what we have and make it presentable, I think I can call in some favors and get a dinner meeting with some folks. I'll remind them of the quality and speed of our previous work, the smooth communications rapport our companies have developed, our agile response to midstream project alterations... I think they'll be willing to pay more for our work."
For a moment, I didn't respond. We began walking back toward the office.
"Sure, I guess I can stand some coffee and sweat work since you got the inspiration."
"No, all I got was a nap and a beeper page from an old colleague. If you do a good enough job on that proposal, I won't bring you the restaurant bill. Thanks for the apple. See you in the morning." He angled off toward the parking garage.
Once again aware of my surroundings, I see that a ginkgo sapling stands in place of the old willow, the park bench withstood the efforts of the schoolboys, and the lovers' drunkenness led to argument. Inspiration doesn't grow on trees you know.