S.O.B

since this will sound like a real story, let me use phoney person names. this way, after a point of time, i’ll be confused myself, who's who! and i am sure, you really don’t care, if i used phoney or real person names.. it’s all the same for you..

fictitiously, this goes back to approximately 7 years ago.

jack was glancing at some printouts, smiling, and listening to the ‘Nothing Else Matters’ song by Metallica..

Never cared for things they say

Never cared for games they play

i never cared for what they do

i never cared for what they know

and i know, yeah yeah yeah

tom and kate, hustled into the room. kate looked tense, but she was very methodical, and that’s how she apparently looked when preparing for an event. it was the ‘college – technical paper presentation’ event. tom was a flamboyant fellow and unreliable to the core. one moment, you could trust him with getting a business deal out of Bill Gates, and the next moment, wanting to watch a ‘Scooby-Doo’ cartoon, before the deal.

kate handed over some printouts to jack, and said, ‘who takes printouts of song lyrics.. and at this time’ rehearse your part now, we should sound contiguous in logic and flow.

jack replied, ‘this paper presentation is a mockery of the actual one.. all we do is steal content (or aggregate as it is called), compress it to get it to our understanding, and present it. we have no idea, what the technology really offers in depth. kate was getting annoyed, ‘don’t be a pioneer now. let’s just do it. in any case, it is a matter of who does the best stealing, compressing and pretentious but ignorant presentation.’ tom was playing with his new gadget phone..

they reached the presentation hall, where one of the other teams from another division, got a glimpse of them.. kate went, ‘oh no, not ben again.. the fellow is a thorn in the neck…’ tom said, ‘don’t worry, i’ll handle him.’ and kate snorted out laughing. jack was looking at the time, away from this. it was to be a 12 minute presentation, 3-3-6 minute per speaker, the closure coming from the lead speaker.

ben went, ‘oh no, not jack again.. that son of a bitch irritates me.. i hate his guts. son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch..’ ‘shhhhh.. ben, that is very inappropriate to say. hold your tongue.’ jule said. she knew ben was as good an orator, in all divisions, the best actually, but he could never stand jack for everything.

ben’s team finished the presentation and it was as good as one, the writers of the original paper, from which it was stolen, could have presented. ben was gifted. charismatic, concise and grasping, to add. ben had stolen the show, solo. kate’s team finished, and jack did a very neat closure, too. in the Q&A session, ben’s team fielded 4 out of 6 questions. kate’s team, had their first question and there was pin drop silence for a moment.. kate cracked her knuckles.. tom was deciding what to blabber. it looked like a lost cause.. jack replied.. and then answered to the next 5 questions, to get all 6. and they were good questions at that.. it seemed, the judges, themselved were actually working on that technology.. they had won on the Q&A basis.

kate, jack and tom were frantic. they had won the 64 team, technical paper presentation finals.

ben said to jule, ‘that’s why i hate the son of a bitch.. i knew this would happen.. that idiot just happens to be the center of such events.. i hate the..’ and some more neat words.. jule went, ‘i don’t understand how we lost on the Q&A’s alone.. anyways, don’t curse him.. you were better than him..’

‘no, that’s not true. you don’t know the thing with him.. i hate to even mention his..’ ‘then don’t’

kate wanted to congratulate ben’s team for the effort, but jack and tom were not there. ben’s team came over to congratulate kate and then, jack and tom popped in to congratulate ben’s team.

‘you were brilliant as usual, ben. you are very gifted. you’ll go places.’ jack left grabbing kate and tom. kate and tom ruffled jack’s hair. it was a very very sweet effort.

‘and that’s why, i hate the son of a bitch, more.’ said ben. jule said, ‘you are ridiculous!’