RESURGENCE

Conrad's diary & CHAPTER 1

Gordon heard a knock on the office door and said, “Come in.”

“Mister Price,” said his secretary. “I’m here to remind you that you have a meeting in half an hour with Stuart and Nick. You also need to get some wine before you go home, and I picked up a card as you requested.” 

She placed the card on the desk.

“Thank you Meredith.”

“Can I help you with anything else?”

“No, I think that’s all I need. Thank you, see you in three weeks.” 

“Have a great vacation.”

“You, too.”

Gordon Price drove his three-year-old, dark-blue, four-door sedan at a brisk pace of seventy on the highway. The car’s A/C had stopped working a week ago and he had procrastinated getting it fixed. Within minutes of leaving his office, he felt lightheaded and dehydrated. The thought of having a beer calmed his nerves a little, but he resisted the idea of grabbing a cold one as he wishfully glanced at the six pack of pale Ale and a bottle of Chardonnay sitting in the passenger seat. I don’t need any air conditioning, it’s still spring, he said to amuse himself as he wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

Soon, to distract himself from the heat, he turned on the radio:

“Public spending has gone down drastically. People are holding on to what they have because they aren’t confident about the government’s grand recovery plan. The true perpetrators of the crime are roaming free. The big banks have been bailed out, and it’s the real people with real jobs who are suffering the most. All because a bunch of Wall Street crooks speculated with the hard-earned money of American people. We need to take back our power from the government. It’s become too corrupt and too powerful. We need to act and act now.”

“Thank you, Dan, for your views, now let’s hear what Shaun has to say”

“I sympathize with all the people who are finding it hard to make ends meet in this meltdown, but let me say that we are all in this together, and the hard times shall soon pass. I have full faith in our justice system and the government, and I know for a fact that there are ongoing federal investigations looking into the alleged role of banks and bankers in the meltdown. These things take time, you can’t expect it to be over this week and execute the guilty next week. The one thing about liberal viewpoint that irks me the most is that they blame everything on the government, and portray the government as a shady agency that is out to rip off the American people. The government has done everything in its power to protect the American people and will keep doing so.”   

Gordon turned the radio off as he neared his destination. An image of his brilliant eighteen-year-old nephew, Stuart Lincoln, flashed in his mind, and he felt a sense of pride in his chest. Nearly three years ago, Gordon’s sister, Linda, had been devastated by the untimely death of her husband, Stuart’s father. While she struggled to cope with life in rehab programs after plunging into the darkness of drug abuse, Gordon took care of her only son.

Adversity brings out the best in only the best of men, and it did so in Stuart’s case. Gordon soon found out that his nephew was gifted. The boy excelled in academics and spent most of his time following latest scientific advances. During his free time, Stuart learned to cook from Gordon’s wife, Bella, and within a few months was making gourmet dinners for the family. A month before his seventeenth birthday, Stuart achieved financial independence by inventing and patenting a bolt that he named Lincoln’s bolt. It was easy to manufacture, forty percent lighter than similar bolts, and went on to replace most bolts used in commercial aircrafts. For every Lincoln’s bolt that was manufactured by any company, Stuart received two cents. It made him fifteen million dollars before he turned eighteen.