Two

Further down the road, in a newly tarted-up building that used to be the local cinema, the news team are having their morning review. Another John, who calls himself Jack, is sitting with his colleagues struggling with that uncomfortable feeling you get when you are suffering from strong déjà vu.

“Hold on”, he says, “We covered that yesterday, didn’t we?”

“Here we go again!” the news editor, a young and very sharply dressed woman spits out through clenched teeth, “No, we have not covered this before. It is hot off the line and this is the third item today you have done this, too. Yesterday and the day before that it was only one item you had déjà vu over! What’s got into you, Jack? Do you need a holiday or something? Not banging enough bimbos lately?”

“Sorry, it’s just, well it feels like we did this yesterday. Let me guess, there were eight people killed and four injured and the head of the information department claims it was the Muslim’s again but there is emerging proof that it was actually a pro-government faction that was to blame.”

“OK, so its not a unique story. It’s happening every day, so you can guess the bones of the story easily. However, the facts are, we have five dead and seven injured and the minister was not available for comment!”

Just then a young lad comes in and drops a sheet of paper in front of the editor.

“Shit, Jack, did you read this before we started the conference? Hold on, the time on the email makes that impossible. OK, so you guessed accurately yet again. Now can we get back to the priorities for the day, please?”

She passes the paper to her right and the assistant editor whistles as he reads the updated report – emailed twenty minutes after the start of the meeting it revises the body count and gives updates as described by Jack. Score three to Jack’s déjà vu this morning. He smiles to himself and thinks, “Maybe we should forget about subscribing to the big news agencies and just get Jack to write the stories before they break”.

Jack bites his tongue two other times before the end of the conference. This is getting too close to having premonitions. He did not want to make the news or even foresee it, he just wanted to read it and keep climbing up that slippery pole towards a real anchor job on prime time TV. The whole thing was giving him another bad headache.