No, he had not wondered.

“Sir…” he began.

“Decreased productivity,” said the Director. “Mass depression. Increased suicides. You are familiar with the mortality statistics, Kevin.”

“Yes, I…”

“Should people die because of your failures, Kevin?”

“It’s Kyle, sir. No, no one should die…”

“Of course it is,” said the Director. “Kyle. Scottish. Meaning narrow, straight or channel. Bodies of water. Perhaps you welcome this cloud.”

“No, sir,” said Kyle, with all the appropriate, and heartfelt, dread the question and answer demanded. The Director stepped from the shadows until he stood before his office windows, spanning 270 degrees and bubbling like a fishbowl from the specially devised turret. The southern California sun sifted gloriously across the office, spraying the colorless interior smoggy golds and auburns. It hovered majestic. It had not yet met the cloud.

“Perhaps,” continued the Director, “you would like to see it rain. Water in the streets. Flooding on the sidewalks. Bodies of water obstructing progress, creating dangerous conditions, causing accidents. Narrow. Straight. Channel.” Kyle did not answer. He could not. The Director turned, then, and looked at Kyle for the first time. He had a long face. Everything about it stretched up, towards the top of his turret bubble, or down, to his elongated shoes. The chin, thought Kyle, in that small part of his brain that still managed to function, despite impending career doom, was the worst offender of all, sweeping down and then turning up. The Director cocked his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe you would.”

“No,” said Kyle. “No. No. Absolutely not.”

“Tell me what you plan to do,” said the Director.

“What I plan to do?” said Kyle. “What I plan to do?”

“Do not repeat yourself,” said the Director. “I may decide you are too slow for my office. By my office, I really mean, this building. You follow.”

“I follow,” said Kyle. “It’s just…the thing is…I am in diagnostics. A little forecasting. I am very, no, extremely unfamiliar with clean up practice, or even post-sighting procedure. I don’t even know where their offices are, I mean, the offices of the people who do that sort of thing.”

“Now I begin to think you are unprofessional,” said the Director. He cast his jaundiced face downwards, and looked a little sad. He reached for his phone, and the mass of buttons on its surface.

“No, wait,” said Kyle. “Just wait. Of course I know what to do. Of course I have a plan.”

“A movie shoot is being disrupted, even as we engage in this infantile conversation,” said the Director.

“I’m on it,” said Kyle. And fled.