It was with heavy heart, and a throbbing hang over, that I attended the semi-regular-not-quite-coherent-olilolo-related board meeting today. Fifteen minutes earlier I had woken up on the couch in my office, still dressed in my clothes from the day before… minus my pants.

I sat myself up and instantly wished I hadn’t. The butterflies in my stomach from the night before had turned into an angry plague of killer moths and they were all trying to get out, and wreak havoc upon the unsuspecting world. I stuffed my mouth with of the last of a kebab I found on the floor to try and settle the situation. It helped.

I stumbled out of my office, still pantsless, to find the place deserted. There was only a few busty ‘assistants’ in the lunch room comforting each other and mumbling something about Disco Stu’s ‘one-on-one’ personal approach to bonuses. Nothing new there but the lack of my fellow olilolo’ians was new, and I liked it.

I chuckled to myself while stumbling towards the board room. There was a selection of fine wines and scotch used to entertain potential investors within and today there was no one to stop me. I clumsily reached for the door handle and missed, falling against and then through the door.

I lay dazed upon the floor, groaning to myself for what felt like a lifetime.

I opened my eyes and could see feet in front of me. In the distance I could hear hushed whispers.

“…who told him?….”

“…he wasn’t meant to…”

“…the amount we gave him he should have been out for…”

“…he always does this, last time…”

Suddenly I was rising. I lifted my head and found Bruce picking me up off the floor. He tried to give me a reassuring smile but it was obvious he was worried.

As I found my feet, I leant back against the wall and looked around. My fellow board members were all sitting around the table staring at me. Their faces ranged from disgust, to brotherly concern, to downright amusement. I looked over to Stu at the head of the table. He seemed to be chairing the meeting and his face was black with rage. I assumed he failed to get himself any again.

I collapsed into one of the spare chairs.

“So what’s going on bitches?”

The silence was deafening.

“Can I get a whoop-whoop?”

Finally Bruce won the internal battle he looked to be fighting and spoke up. “Uh… well we’re having a board meeting”.

I stopped picking at the spew encrusted on my jacket and spun my head to face Stu. “What? Why wasn’t I told?”

Stu was about to speak but Bruce quickly jumped in. “Well… uh… obviously your assistant didn’t give you the message we left.”

I settled back down in my chair. That was possible. I had chased my assistant off nearly a week ago with my ‘hilarious’ fart jokes. The girl couldn’t seem to handle the smell. I chuckled to myself again but this seemed to just bring worry to the faces around me.

Stu finally spoke up. “What difference would it have made anyway? You’re never here, and when you are it’s only to sleep it off on the dirty council-clean up couch of yours. Security still can’t figure how you’re even getting in at night.”

I shrugged. “Buggered if I know. I like to think of it as my very own little self preservation auto pilot.” Grinning I lit a cigarette.

Peter, who up until then had been rather quiet, suddenly found his voice. “Aaron you don’t smoke.”

“I know” I said casually, flicking the cigarette at Stu’s hair.

Stu, ready for attack at all times, batted it away without even blinking an eye.

“Shit ay?” I was impressed. “So what have I missed? What’s the word on the olilolo street?”

Stu shuddered with anger but turned his gaze from me. “Right. Where were we? Ah yes Bruce was about to give us a presentation on the increased site traffic.”

“Uh.” Bruce got up and turned on the projector. “Well as you can see, site traffic is up by about one third since the start of the year.”

“That’s great news,” Stu said loudly. Everyone else just nodded uncomfortably.

“Yes. Also visitors are logging in from more countries than ever before. Great Britain. Thailand. Canada. Saudi Arabia. Spain. Latvia.”

“Ha!” I laughed. “Latvia? How many Latvians came through our doors?”

“Well there was only one but he was welcome all the same. Now, the key search terms were: Drew Peacock, good article Doyle.” I smirked at Stu. “Also killdozer marvin was a top one thanks to Stu.” He held his head a little higher but refused to look my way.

“‘What goes into the making of devon meat’ was an expected rising star.” There was forced laughter around the table. “Deputy Aaron Doyle was another hot one”.

“Yes! Another to me” I yelled.

Stu erupted. “Another to you? People making an innocent mistake between you and some policeman?”

“Without me they wouldn’t have come”.

Bruce tried to get on top the situation quickly. “Also beautiful thighs was scraped in. Good work Pete with that one”.

Disco Stu jumped to his feet and glared at me. “The most important statistic I can see is that six of my articles made the top 25 most visited, where as only four of yours did.”

I looked up from my drink. “What? Oh. What’s your point?”

“My point is you’re not pulling your weight, and there’s a fucking lot of it to pull.”

“I believe in quality over quantity,” I said nonchalantly.

Stu’s mouth hung agape. “Qu… quality? You’ve got to be kidding me. One of your articles was on a chocolate bar.”

“Well, women love chocolate and I’ve noticed a significant male slant coming from this y-chromosome dominated website. I’m trying to redress the balance.”

“Another one of them was on Big Brother,” he spat back.

“Again, a popular show with women and the general populace as a whole. Gotta capture the now generation.”

“Now Generation? Gah!” Stu grabbed his head and started to rub his temples. “In another you rambled on about full time work, and then bananas, and then monkey related crime before claiming your love of Rogue Traders.”

“That was before their latest album… So what was the other article about?”

“Some shit I bet”.

“Actually,” Bruce looked down at the clip board in front of him, “it was about industrial relations reform”.

“Really?” I smiled in triumph, before my face melted into confusion. “Must have been on something that day.”

Stu collapsed back into a chair. “You’re a pathetic man.”

Bruce finally succumbed to the pressure and retook his seat as well.

Again silence filled the room.

“Well this was fun,” I said standing up. “We should do it again sometime.” I turned to walk out but the suddenness of standing threw my head into a spin. I could taste that kebab again. I tried to grab for the edge of the table but missed. None from two for the day. My body quickly headed for the floor again.

The last thing I saw was Peter and Bruce’s feet rush over towards me before I embraced the sickeningly-sweet grasp of the dark.

I shouldn’t have eaten that kebab.