⚒️ Friends From Far Away

by Joel Glover

“Hello, Children of Earth!”

She paused. 

“Charlotte, are you serious?”

To call the Head of Marketing statuesque would be a statement of dubious accuracy. True, she was tall—strikingly so—overtopping most men in any room she stalked into. Also true, her skin had the barely off-white colour of exorbitantly expensive Italian marble. With that being said, she was more womanly than most sculptors would feel comfortable capturing in stone, for fear of being derided as tawdry. 

“I knew you wouldn’t read the scripts.”

Her accent had a trans-atlantic flatness to it, the results of international schooling and trans-continental employment. You could easily imagine she was from Minnesota, or Ontario, or even Cape Town at a push. 

“I’ve been busy.”

Amma was always busy. 

“You’re always busy.”

“Yes. And whose fault is that?”

All she wanted to be was Dr Amma, evolutionary biologist, scientist, indifferent karaoke participant. Now she was also Dr Amma, de-facto spokesperson for interstellar communication, corporate PR, children’s entertainer.

“Hello, Children of Earth?”

“It tested well with the focus groups.”

Amma felt her eyes attempting to roll in her head.

“You’re rolling your eyes again, aren’t you.” Since The Announcement Amma and Charlotte had been joined at the hip. This meant Charlotte didn’t have to see her face to guess how it looked. “People are afraid. The world is changing faster than any time in history. New technologies, new opportunities. And they are looking to people they trust to help explain the changes to them. You are “the people” they trust.”

Amma didn’t know what to say to that.

“Also, aren’t you a Professor? This is science education! It should be right up your alley.” Her audience remained unconvinced. “Bit of help here.” Out of compelling arguments, Charlotte looked into the control booth where Aurore, the sound engineer, was waiting, patiently. She started her career dealing with divas and podcast hosts, so she was finding a lack of ego to be a refreshing reason for delay.

“She’s not wrong.”

“Merci cherie.”

“Fine... sorry Aurore, I’m being a diva.” Amma had the grace to look chastened.

“Do it with vigour, eh? Right, first time!” Aurore instructed Amma from the booth.

Duly cheered on, Amma looked back at the script hanging cheerily on her teleprompter. 

“Hello, Children of Earth! I’m Dr. Amma, welcoming you to the very first episode of ‘Friends From Far Away’ where we all learn together...”

They celebrated the first day of recording at their hotel. 

The coffee was good; Amma sipped hers appreciatively, searching for the apricot and toffee notes amongst the bitterness. As a child, when coffee had been an everyday luxury, her mother had taken her to a cheap coffee chain and let her share the steaming, chocolate laced milky drink she ordered. Those chains had long since vanished and coffee had ascended back into the rarified space it once occupied hundreds of years previously. The waiter in the hotel was thrilled to have the Dr. Amma at their table, and had given her the same gushing treatment they obviously stored up for the single blend Ethiopian bean that had been roasted and ground before serving.

“Do you not find it all a little... creepy?”

Charlotte took a sip of her mint tea.

“Marketing? You’d hope not, wouldn’t you?”

“No, I mean...” Amma thought about it for a moment. “I guess it’s the what of what we are marketing, not the marketing itself. When you started at Cavendish you were selling a vision, a dream, a space programme. Science, discovery, charity. Now what are we doing?”

“I’m still doing the same thing darling.” Charlotte told her. “We have made discoveries. We are doing science. The science turns into products, which changes lives. I could have stayed where I was, lobbying governments for financial service firms. But I knew Cavendish was going to change the world for the better.”

“I hope so...”

“New energy sources, cleaner water, new jobs.”

What wasn’t to like.

Amma hoped Charlotte was right.