Madame Chairperson had busied herself all morning with the Rolodex on the massive mahogany desk in her new office, just after she tired of fingering her brass nameplate. She’d pulled it closer, the better to spin the wheel thingummie and watch all the cards flutter. And because it turned both ways (a discovery that delighted her to no end), she had experimented with it, observing how centrifugal force yanked the cards around awkwardly when she paused to reverse direction mid-spin, and now and then comically selected a specific one to stand at attention. She did not read the small print on the cards, found it bothersome and wondered why it was there to begin with.

A quiet tapping came at the door, but she could not be sure it meant anything and so she ignored it and kept spinning the contraption.

Now it was unmistakable: Rat-a-tat-tat!

COME! she crackled, her breath expelling a hint of garlic that lingered in the immediate air space a beat too long.

Mr. Lemming opened the door just enough to squeak past, and then quietly closed it behind him. He stepped nearer Madame Chairperson’s desk and clumsily, nervously, tidied the corners of a large bundle of papers in his arms, Exhibit A.

Well, what is it. You have exactly two minutes to state your business. Madame Chairperson whapped a timer at her left elbow, which began ticking seconds audibly. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

M-Madame, Lemming began, still fiddling with his papers, The Cadre have concluded the flow isn’t…flowing.

What? Stop mumbling. Speak up.

Lemming cleared his throat and now added measured volume to his speech.

The Cadre have concluded the flow isn’t flowing.

Madame Chairperson peered at him over the top of her glasses, down her impossibly thin nose, and repeated herself. WHAT? What do you mean the flow? Did I not specifically ask you to implement the flowy-er flow on The Cadre?

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Y-yes, Madame, and I did implement it. The flowy-er one. It isn’t flowing. Still…isn’t. Flowing.

Madame Chairperson considered this dilemma. She set her chairperson chair in motion, spinning around and around in it, and then paused and turned her head a full 90 degrees to the right.

Lemming watched her closely. Was she…sniffing…the chair? It appeared she was indeed, and now began caressing it lewdly with clawlike fingers. Lemming briefly imagined her fully unclothed in this position but dismissed the unfortunate thought in the same instant.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Now Madame Chairperson snapped out of her reverie and stood and straightened her skirt. In her stiletto heels she loomed two heads over Lemming, whose eyes followed her, taking in her full stature. For a moment he forgot the pile of papers he was holding and they slipped out of his arms. Exhibit A was now hopelessly out of order and strewn across the rug. He scrambled to shuffle the papers back into a pile, beads of sweat emerging on his brow and sotto voce apologies falling from his lips.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Who let you in here, you horrible little man, and what do you want, demanded Madame Chairperson.

Lemming’s the name, Madame, and we were just talking of the flowy-er flow and how it…isn’t flowing. Still. Isn’t.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. PING!

Well, then, OBVIOUSLY, implement the flowy-est flow! Now GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!

Lemming turned on his heel and sailed through the door, leaving bits and pieces of the painstakingly wrought Exhibit A in his wake, an exercise in futility after all, and imagining how he’d break the news of a newer new paradigm to The Cadre.