Week 13, Theme 3

Prompt: Free Theme

Hans’ alarm woke him at five. He searched for his Blackberry on the bedside table; Anders muttered something about going back to sleep. Phone in hand, Hans brought it to this face. There was an email from Christian. “Subject: ARTIKEL.” Finally. Hans opened the attachment. Sinapur ist die schrecklichste Stadt…

Oh God. Hans started at the email for a bit longer. He realized that his alarm was still ringing. He hit it absentmindedly, knocking it off the table in the process. It broke, but that was of no matter to Hans, who was already at the dark closet fumbling for clothes. In place of a shower he applied a quick spritz of cologne. Cursing the Welt am Sonntag, he gave Anders a peck on the forehead, wished him a happy anniversary, and hurried to his car.

Hans wasn’t surprised to see the Autobahn empty at this hour. For a capital of world finance, Frankfurt-am-Main was a surprisingly empty place. There were the bankers, the people serving the bankers, and that was mostly it. The glass towers of the city’s core had sprung up from a place with no history, replicating the urban canyons of New York or Tokyo but without any of the meaning. There were no Pulitzers for a journalist like Hans to win here. The Welt had assigned him here to oversee “human-interest stories related to finance,” the inane scope from which the Singapore assignment for Christian had had its inception.

Half of an hour later, in front of his laptop in his office, Hans sat back in his chair. Christian’s was a gutsy and well-written piece, certainly of more merit than what he would have produced had he followed the assignment. Against his better judgment, Hans decided to publish it. There was only the matter of wiring the bribe money back to the Singapore Travel Bureau. Hans picked up his phone and waited for a moment. “Yes, hello, Mr. Daadi, this is Hans at the Welt am Sonntag. I’m sorry if it’s a little late over there, I just needed to call you. Listen, about the travel article your Bureau was expecting…”