Two: The Memo (continued)

It's nothing to look at, the document itself; just forty loose pages, half hand-written, half word-processed, gathered in a manilla folder. The manuscript is illuminated only by its author's brilliance, which does not extend to the trivial matters of spelling and punctuation. There is no elegant copperplate for me, Napier's de facto sub-editor, to unravel, but instead the tiniest angular scribble, which resembles cuneiform, more than anything. Frequently, I am obliged to check words and sometimes whole sentences to ensure that I have grasped the meaning meant.

"'Young men of destiny, we find ourselves on the - something - of this march into oblivion.'"
"What does it look like?" Napier asks.
"It looks like 'flink'. Could be 'brink', or 'flank'. You then talk about the imminent techno-apocalypse and the marginalisation of men of vision, so I can't be sure one way or the other, contextually."
"Don't remember, but the whole thing sounds a little pompous. Perhaps we should cut it altogether."

And so the process continues, and every day The Memo becomes sleeker, tauter and more irresistible.