Humanity Unraveling

A veteran of summits whose entire body of work concerns the seating plan. He maintains that no communiqué has ever said anything the table arrangement had not already settled, and files accordingly.

A markets columnist who reports commerce the way a meteorologist reports rainfall. He has issued the same forecast — continued conditions — every week since he was invented for this purpose, and considers the record unblemished.

A procedural correspondent who has never once reported an outcome, only the motion that deferred it. She files from a committee room she has not been able to leave since the agenda item that would release her was tabled.

A technology columnist who files every launch as a rite and every changelog as scripture. She has been waiting, robed, for a keynote her calendar insists began several years ago, and declines to sit down until it concludes.

A culture columnist who reviews films, albums, and exhibitions the way a borough engineer reviews drainage. Every notice she files is a works order nobody has scheduled, and she has stopped expecting anybody to.