He turned the Globe Over.

He Turned the Globe Over

He turned the globe over, and then flipped it back again. It had been a much loved Christmas gift when he was a child. Steve still enjoyed watching the golden specks swirl around the black swan with the crown on its head. It was like some kind of magic winter scene, in some fairy world.   Now, as he watched the specks fall, with the swan emerging more and more clearly, until it stood alone, he felt differently. There was at this point just the emptiness of the water surrounding the swan. It made him think about how this little series of changes was very much the central pattern of his life. There had been golden specks surrounding him when he was younger, but they had all disappeared. He now stood and lived alone, with no brightness to fill the globe of his life. Like the swan he was left just with the emptiness. 

You could say that Steve was definitely a pessimist. For him, everything bright and shiny would fall and become nothing soon enough. It gave him no joy to successfully predict what could have been good for him turn to bad. He may wear an acceptance of darkness smile when the brightness seemingly inevitably crashed, but his face wore no happiness.

           Now, as he sat at his desk, watching the golden specks swirl in the globe around the black swan, there was a knock at his door. He knew that he had no appointments on this day, so he wondered who he could be.

           He said, “come in” with a tone that would be better suited to “go away and never come back”, but the door opened anyway. In walked a tall woman with dark clothes and long, very light coloured hair. She approached him with her right hand outstretched. Always polite,  he got up quickly, swung around his desk and clasped her hand firmly.

           Her first words were, “Hi, my name is Judy. I have an idea that I think that you will like.” The voice in his mind rapidly responded with “I think that I probably won’t.”  She continued speaking, saying “It could make your company a lot of money if you help me with it.” Again his inner voice spoke loudly. “It won’t. It will just be a waste of money, and we will not be foolish enough to help you by adding our losses to yours.”

           For once he was rather shocked by his quick fire, knee-jerk pessimism. What if she did have such a prosperous idea? The eagerness in her face showed that she truly believed that it had great potential. But there was no space in his imagination right now that could think that success was even a remote possibility.

           He spoke to her with a voice that contradicted what his inner voice was shouting at him.

“Sit down and let’s talk about your idea. We are always looking for new projects.” If his inner voice had the power to shake his head side to side, it certainly would. Or at least make an almost audible sound of disgust.

           Judy sat down and immediately the globe caught her eye. “I used to have one of those when I was a girl, only it  just had snow and a tiny house inside. I like this one better.”

           Then they got down to business. His company was an engineering and manufacturing firm, that put into practical design new ideas, most of them coming from the ‘thinkers’ that worked for the firm, the ‘think toilet’ Steve referred to them with his inner voice. He was on the approval and put-into-production side of things, a bad corporate choice given his long-established and firmly in place pessimistic attitude.

           He asked her if she wanted them to go to the Presentation Room, with all its fancy equipment. Surprisingly, she declined the offer, telling him that what she had to say only needed her words and his imagination. He kind of liked that. He really disliked power point presentations. The dull and boring wrapped up with a pretty technological bow, he thought.

           Time took wing as she talked intelligently and persuasively, with him asking appropriate questions, and not cynical ones. After about an hour of conversation, he said “I forgot to ask you if you want coffee.” Her response surprised him. She was full of surprises. “Why don’t we go to the coffee shop across the road? I love the crullers there.” Even his inner voice had no problems with that, but that might have been his stomach talking.

           Then he startled himself by the rapidity of his response of “yes, sure. Let’s do it” This was a first. The office staff were quite surprised when they saw the two of them walk past, heading for the outside door, even more so when they heard Steve say, “We are going to the coffee shop to discuss business, drink coffee and eat crullers.” They had never heard Steve say anything even remotely like a joke before. And he usually stayed in his office pretty much all day, except for the Presentation Room and the bathroom.

           They were at the coffee shop for well over an hour. A deal was struck between them. And it would soon prove to be profitable both for Judy and for Steve’s company. The world of dog collars and leashes would never be the same again No more fumbling with cold fingers to connect or disconnect the two in the freezing weather of winter walks.

           And the relationship between Judy and Steve would grow step by tentative step. That included those taken when the two of them walking her dog together (‘testing out the products’ was the official excuse). He had never owned or walked a dog before. Steve felt a strange confidence that things would go well with him and Judy’s labradoodle  Robbie. He would prove right in this optimistic view. His relationship with both dog and woman would grow like none had ever done in his adult life.

           The night when Steve proposed to Judy was a special one. As they sat together on the couch, his eyes focused on her, he looked at the reflection of the light in her hair. Was it just his imagination , or did golden specks sparkle back a