Nick Dowty huddled alone at his desk in the empty office surrounded by an army of ghosts. The clamour of unanswered phones bombarded his brain like shrapnel bouncing off a tin roof, constant reminders of the war of attrition he had been fighting for the last year. Below him the factory lay silent, no angry whine of machines tearing steel, no familiar judder from gantry cranes shifting ten ton blocks of solid metal onto the huge machining centres.

It was eleven o’ clock on a bright Tuesday morning in the middle of January but it felt like he’d been there all day. Time moves slowly – inexorably slowly – on Death Row. This was the seventeenth year he had ruled over his tiny empire from the safety of his familiar leather swivel chair. A long campaign, an abrupt defeat. Nick stared out with unseeing eyes over the snow-covered golf course. The bank manager was due at any moment.

Nick had spent the whole of the previous week trying to make sense of the December management accounts. Falling sales. High fixed costs. Rising raw material prices. Lack of working capital. There seemed to be no way out. They were in deep trouble and for the first time since he’d started the business he he’d been unable to conjure up a plausible strategy to keep the business alive.

The last strategic review they had conducted with the help of highly paid consultants had been implemented only two years previously. That solution – to lower prices and diversify from overdependence on one customer - hadn’t worked. Now the situation was even worse. The scale of the losses was such…their debts were so great… Things were so bad it was hard to think straight any more. All that was left was to throw himself upon the mercy of the bank. Nick closed his eyes. He was desperately tired but he hadn’t slept properly for weeks. There was no escape from the nightmare. He was like an ell skewered to a fishmonger’s slab. The more he squirmed and wriggled the more he tore himself apart. He felt like he was bleeding to death.
From below in reception he could hear the angry buzz from the steady stream of creditors demanding to be paid. Lorna was doing her best to placate them but Nick knew there was no cash to pay the debts. It was just a matter of time before they breached the company’s flimsy defences. Any minute now the electricity could be cut off and the building would grind to a complete halt. In the end even the phones would fall silent. Starved of cash, the oxygen of business, the company was dying. The bank was his last chance, he had nowhere else to turn. This meeting was going to provide the stage for the most important performance of his life. If the bank manager swallowed the flimsy story he was about to spin, his thin tale of distant hope and uncertain redemption, they still had a chance. Nick tried to shut out the noise of those bloody phones. The company didn’t have a job on the books, he’d fired half his staff, and yet still it was bedlam in here.

I hope you read every single line

I've read this novel before!

Novel and not a joke

Stale

As usual'

<yawns>

'tis not a joke but a bedtime story. . .

& dis is stl past 9 in d morning

Backoff hater

Efemena_xy:

<yawns>

'tis not a joke but a bedtime story. . .

its intent is to put derailers like u and studio to sleep.

too long to b a joke

Seconded!

sting_224:


its intent is to put derailers like u and studio to sleep.

awww c'mon sting - that's not fair!

such is life.

_{get used to it}

Not every idiots that speaks to ME - I speak back at especially when the stupid idiots are not on the same level with ME,

It was eleven o’ clock on a bright Tuesday morning in the middle of January but it felt like he’d been there all day. Time moves slowly – inexorably slowly – on Death Row. This was the seventeenth year he had ruled over his tiny empire from the safety of his familiar leather swivel chair. A long campaign, an abrupt defeat. Nick stared out with unseeing eyes over the snow-covered golf course. The bank manager was due at any moment.

Are u for real? This sounds so much like Derailed D1Kele. Abi Nick n D1 na the same person?

If the bank manager swallowed the flimsy story he was about to spin, his thin tale of distant hope and uncertain redemption, they still had a chance.

Gosh! bank manager forgot that Nick is a strayed derailed goat from oshodi. All he cares about is money!!

Nick lol

I don sholve am down your throat

D1KeleVra:

lol abeg oooo i no be Nick o! no spoil my name o!

u dey reject Nick but u accept goat. LOL

^^ I sha no be Nick!

ok Nick, i hear u but try see ya therapist.

^^ The bagga don go SA! the barawo, carry my money go lounge. . . i see him pot-belly for t.v. saturday afternoon

OMG! those ghosts don come ya office come feed u with lies.

I hate it when people wey live for face me i face dey use internet form wetin dem no be.

cover the guy unclothedness small na