You Shine So Bright

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. My daughter felt a pang of panic as she ran outside my son’s room. All of fourteen-years-old, Lesly Raynell still had a racing imagination and a bit of a fright about the events unfolding outside that window.

My nineteen-year-old son was with me at the office. It was a war room. We had laid out plans and strategized the best plans for the Initial Bank and Company. IBC had been hit hard by the rolling clouds of darkness. The ideas that prevailed remained to keep the transactions of funds and loans open for clients.

“That’s right. The amount of percentages based on the profits we’ve made last week will help us continue to provide financial services for our members,” Nevell Raynall, my son, declared.

“I mulled it over already. We’re not going to keep the bank open for the foreseeable future,” I explained.

“Dad, we can do this. We can certainly open up the trading routes and make it possible for everyone to get out of this on top. We don’t need to shut it down, though,” he said.

“Yes, we do.”

He looked at me incredulously. There seemed to be a painful stab in his demeanor. His face scrunched up like a ball of paper.

“Dad, we can definitely do this. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t––”

“Have you looked outside? That rolling gray fog has got the entire market revved up into a frenzy. And not a good one. We’re going to be hemorrhaging for a few quarters. There’s no telling what may transpire over the next few months. We’ve got to keep on the pathway of success by cutting our losses right now.”

Nevell stood up and fastened his suit jacket. “I hear you talking, Pop, but we’ve got investors to worry about, we’ve got our commercial bank to consider. All of that should be pumping life through the veins of the market. Once whatever the hell that thing is outside is doing, it should not hamper our operations.”

I looked at him for a long time. Then I gazed out the window and saw the gray cloud engulfing lower sections of the building. It was like a looming, gigantic puff of gray smoke snaking through the streets. I furrowed my brow and felt a weightiness on my shoulders like a general with the stars on his shoulders. I felt like I was sending in troops to fight and possibly die in battle. Nevell was my lieutenant general. A growing sense of dread made me want to shut down the city, the state, the country, the world. It felt like I had put on my own straitjacket. I worked, struggled, tussled with the ideas in the padded room that was my mahogany office. My son was my doctor.

“I say that we keep as many services open as we can. We may have to make up for this but what I think is most pertinent is the fact that we remain a bastion amongst a wasteland when it comes to being the top investment and commercial bank in Delaware.”

“That’s true.” I was turning. It wasn’t a sharp turn or an about face but I was slowly seeing what my boy was saying. In my mind, a tiny little weight had lifted. There were still a row of barbells that had to be brought up from the surface. I knew that I had to pivot or perish.

“So, if we just keep the transactions amongst accounts and loans open, we will still have a black balance sheet come the fourth quarter.”

“It’s only June.”

“Yes.”

“With whatever is going on outside and the markets as they are, we’ll see a profit by December?”

“That’s right, Dad. We’re going to be able to stake a claim in whatever may happen to us.”

I phoned Lesly and she was excited. In a good way. She had been able to fight her fears and had made herself a warrior against this vicious cloud. I made clear to her that whatever we were going to do to stop this invasive nebula, we were going to do it with tact and vim. I also phoned a few scientists I knew who reminded me that they could affect the weather with a machine.

Called Firmament, the company professed to be able to meet hot air and cold air and make a thunderstorm. IBC had bankrolled their startup period.

“You’re telling me that all we have to do is make the warm, wet air mix with the cold air and we’ll have a weather event.”

“Yes,” Doctor Silvis Bromfield replied.

“I’m just a lowly banker,” I said with a wry grin that transmitted over the videophone conversation.

“We’re going to treat this as an issue of the private sector engaging with the Department of Defense?”

“The DOD? What business do they have over this situation?” I asked.

“This is to be treated as a terrorist attack. We’re gearing up to use mobile stations to create clouds that will interact with the gray fog and hopefully cause a storm that will bring light and evaporate the clouds.”

“The man with an understanding,” I responded.

“Absolutely.”

Lesly, Nevell, and I took a trip to a field where the vehicles had been set up to test the machine, the wet, warm air of the white clouds met with cold gray clouds and lightning struck about a hundred feet in the sky. It rained. We were prepared in our coats and boots. Then something happened. The clouds parted after the rain and glorious sunshine illuminated the place in which we stood. Smiles plastered on faces like a birthday party. I felt more weights lift off of my mind and a giant in my mind woke up and got up and went back to his business of making money.

The clouds all traveled throughout the state and the country. We saw the culprits being shackled and brought into a van on our mobile devices.

Homegrown terrorists had become persona non grata as they awaited their punishment of the death penalty. In the cloud’s wake, four thousand people died and scores more were injured. It didn’t just potentially jeopardize the fate of a bank but also the possibility of an entire nation being brought down by a thick mist. Nevell and Lesly rejoiced together as we provided funds for the mobile units to issue the wonder we just witnessed.

“I think we’ve got it, Pop,” Nevell reminded me.

I think we’ve done it again. Just keep on, you’ll be CEO one day and Lesly will be CTO. Thank you for letting me see what it means to be a father and for you to be just as successful. No. More successful. I call you son/sun not just because you’re my offspring, but because you shine so bright.”

“I appreciate it, Dad. What we have here is a situation to learn from, to grow from. What we should be most concerned with is the idea that Initial is going to be the biggest bank on the eastern seaboard. The country and the world may even follow.”

“With this cloud machine in place we’ll be even more capable of providing optimum services for our members and clients.”

I kissed my daughter’s forehead and it felt like I was flying. I was lifting up into the sunny sky. I remembered those who had fallen and established a for-profit (of the soul) .org in the name of the victims. I thought it only right since their lives were important and it was in my own self interest to make the bank or more profitable place.