{"id":614,"date":"2020-10-18T14:32:43","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T14:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=614"},"modified":"2020-10-18T14:32:47","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T14:32:47","slug":"the-big-picture-in-acedia-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/the-big-picture-in-acedia-row\/614\/","title":{"rendered":"The big picture in Acedia Row"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, dear God,\u201d Abe clasped his hands to his face as he looked at his emails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s up?\u201d Shoshana asked poking her head around the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have been invited,\u201d said Abe rolling his eyes, \u201cto another bloody Zoom cocktail party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFuck,\u201d Shoshana said, \u201cwho is it this time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy boss,\u201d Abe responded, he ran his hand through his thinning hair, \u201cwhich means we can\u2019t cry off, can\u2019t leave early, and definitely can\u2019t turn up in dressing gowns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cHang on a moment, sis,\u201d Shoshana pointed at the phone clamped to her ear. \u201cCan we talk about this later, honey?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abe nodded, printed the email out and walked slowly to the fridge to stick it under one of the magnets covering its facia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snippets of conversation drifted from the living room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbsolutely nothing to wear\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoshana was good at displacement, Abe was not. He liked the atmosphere in work; the watercooler chats about TV, the banter, the crap coffee, even his boss\u2019s grumpiness. It defined him. Now he was lost in a world of Facebook and eking out Netflix series, so they lasted the duration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there was the Goldstein account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something was up and he could not get to the bottom of it. He needed files from the old system and there was no way of accessing them remotely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to have to go into work,\u201d he said. Shoshana pointed furiously at her phone and offered her cheek. He kissed it and pulled on his coat, leaving the flat for the Tube Station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two hours later he was on his way back, a bundle of old-style ledgers under his arm: his night\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Auditing the account was exacting. He traced the flows of money across continents, offshore bank accounts, blind deposits, trusts and hidden investments. By midnight he had the big picture. It was magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He rang his boss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Abe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you have any idea what time it is,\u201d his boss said angrily?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dispensing with niceties he said, \u201cI\u2019ve just finished auditing the Goldstein account. I have the big picture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAh,\u201d said his boss, \u201cI wondered if you would get it. Can we meet in the office to talk about it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing to talk about,\u201d said Abe, \u201cIt\u2019s fraud. I\u2019m going to pass the files to the authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbe\u2026\u201d came a cry from the phone as the line went dead. He put his phone down on the table and started writing the email he knew would ruin the firm, but he also knew was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Fraud Squad detective was professional, and he complimented Abe on his audit suggesting there might be a place for him in forensic accounting now he was at a loose end. When he left the flat, Abe opened his laptop and downloaded his latest emails. There was one from his boss\u2019s wife. He wondered if she knew it was him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou are invited to a Zoom Wake,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOh, dear God,\u201d Abe clasped his hands to his face as he looked at his emails. \u201cWhat\u2019s up?\u201d Shoshana asked poking her head around the door. \u201cWe have been invited,\u201d said Abe rolling his eyes, \u201cto another bloody Zoom cocktail party.\u201d \u201cFuck,\u201d Shoshana said, \u201cwho is it this time?\u201d \u201cMy boss,\u201d Abe responded, he ran […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Another short story from SWANSEA WRITERS\n\"The big picture in Acedia Row\"\n#FLASHFICTION","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[121,313],"tags":[328,327,314,329],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-121","category-october-2020-lockdown","tag-audit","tag-fraud","tag-lockdown","tag-zoom-cocktail-party"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-9U","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}