Yerl Gleason

Yerl stopped going to the Zoom calls. He went for walks instead, after making up the excuse that his doctor told him he needed to move about more to reduce his stress. It sounded plausible enough, as his assumption was that they would ask why he was no longer participating. He could hear Dominic draw out the word, the way he did, and felt very much like the way his eight-year-old talked about attending virtual school.

The streets were trimmed with dirty snow as Yerl navigated the slushy sidewalks, piles of icy snow at each intersection. His wife hated winter, the cold, the snow, the short amount of sunshine. He wondered why she wouldn't just move. She never even bothered to ask him if he would do it, go somewhere warm. He wasn't sure if he would say yes, but each year the fun of winter, which was clearly in his genetic history, lost a little hold.

The winter sun was deceiving: bright but there was little heat. Yerl wore sunglasses that felt like not enough and watched the steam from each exhale. The park was quiet, only a few squirrels ran around the trees. There were no birds, no children, no dogs. Just Yerl on a bench near the stone bridge over the dried up creek. He was cold, but it felt good to feel alive. He was waiting for his contact to show, but was not sure how this could make good cover. He started to wonder if this was not really a meeting but a sacrifice; his sacrifice.

He looked through the people in the virtual meeting out of boredom. There were faces with interest and faces with distraction, mostly appearing engaged in other things on another screen. There were one or two with children on their laps, even a screaming baby. The best face, hands down, was Antony, who was calculating something, or so his face suggested. The interesting part was that it was during the sales report. There, on the screen, face turned up slightly to the ceiling, eyes half closed, muscles tightened, lips just barely moving, it didn't seem like anything else could be happening.

"What happens if we move that?" Yerl asked.

Dominic stared at Yerl, jaw slightly askew.

"I mean the profile."

"Yeah." Dominic sucked on his teeth, thinking. He scratched his beard and rubbed his chin.

Yerl was excited and talked quickly. "It just seems like it's in the wrong place now."

"It's going to be a fair amount of work." He adjusted his glasses. "And is it worth it?"

"I don't know. I just don't know. Who ever knows until you start down the road."

"You can obviously fix all the things during your cool down week."

"Week?"

"Yeah, cool down week."

"We were told two weeks," Yerl said over Zoom.

"It's a week now," Nicole said, and grinned.

"So you've shortened the timelines, asked for more changes, and taken away our chance to catch up." It was not a question. Yerl was furious and holding back completely.

"One more thing since I've got you alone," she started. Then paused.

He waited. She waited. They tested each other.

Finally, she spoke, "We think you're doing a great job."

"Thanks. I really appreciate that."

"I've got another meeting," she said and closed the Zoom call.