Welcome to the News

“Morning Yasukawa san.” I called out to the figure lumbering through a forest of cameras and cords toward the news desk. Seeing him, someone from make-up tried to alight on his arm, foundation brush fluttering, and was promptly swatted off as he made the three steps up the dais.

As the world roused itself, the plash and murmur of updates and statistics packages, audio channels and streaming media feeds that ran through my thoughts were beginning to babble and froth, swelling with the local link-ups and national broadcasts only now coming on-line.

‘Transmission in 10.’

Yasukawa’s chair squealed plaintively as he slumped into it beside me, self-consciously wiping at streaks of greasy hair with fingers thick and fat as sausages. In my ear, and no doubt in his, the director was a frantic buzz of urgency.

‘Transmission in 5, 4, 3…’

The sour odor of urine and stale tobacco that hung around Yasukawa was tinged today with sweat.

“Good morning, I’m your host Koizumi Akiko, Tokyo’s first artificial anchorwoman.”

“ – And I’m Yasukawa Junichi.”

“Welcome to the news.”