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His father was truly dead and gone.Terry sat on the grassy slope above the cemetery staring out at nothing. His father’s funeral was over. Believing everyone had left, he allowed himself some silent tears. A familiar voice called out, “Mind if I sit?” Turning, he saw Amy walking towards him. He waved her over, wiped his eyes and put on a brave face.
Amy had been at the funeral and was about to drive off when she spotted Terry. Alone. Ash, Terry’s business partner, hadn’t shown up at all, and she figured Terry needed the company.
They sat quietly for a while staring over the gravestones towards the setting sun. Terry spoke first. “You know… Ash called and apologized. He had a golf tournament with a potential investor and couldn’t cancel. He asked me to meet him later. ‘To cheer me up,’ he said!” The bitterness in Terry’s voice made it clear that he was disappointed with Ash’s cold comfort. Amy placed a sympathetic hand on his arm as he continued. “In almost 20 years, this is the first time I’ve questioned Ash’s friendship,” Terry said.
“We all see how similar the two of you are. It’s not surprising you’ve been friends this long,” Amy admitted. “You’re both ambitious. You love the thrill of building a business. We’ve never heard either of you speak about family, friends or a romantic relationship...”
Terry cut her off to explain how Ash and he had always believed in a stoic, practical approach to life. “I’ve made some terrible choices, Amy, but you know this better than anyone at the company. I chose work over time with him, and now he’s dead. I was too…” Terry choked over the last few words and broke down sobbing. Amy held him for as long as he needed.
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“You can’t be serious Terry,” Ash said.
Terry looked across the desk at his friend and long-time business partner, Ashwin Ramanathan. They’d met on the first day of college, right after Ash had moved from India to pursue a PhD at Stanford University in software engineering. Together, they co-founded MyndClarity with the goal of launching several health and wellness tech products, and found success with the ClarityBand, a proprietary mental health product. Their company was one of the first brands to ride the growing popularity of neurofeedback and biohacking apps, and here he was suggesting that they move in a completely new direction.
“You know as well as I do that Amy’s ‘Guevara Product’ is ridiculously complex and expensive, not to mention fraught with data privacy risks!” Ash leaned forward in his chair, his gaze on Terry. “How many times has she steered our company retreats toward a social angle with her diagnostic system idea? And every time, we’ve said no! Her ‘save the world’ idealism isn’t a profitable business model. The only reason we’ve kept her on is because she’s an absolute genius at her job and was instrumental in ClarityBand’s success. You’re grief-stricken. Don’t let her sink her utopian hooks into you.”
“It’s not grief talking, Ash. We can make this work. I’m sure of it. True, my father’s death has changed the way I see things and Amy’s humanitarian philosophy is growing on me…”
Ash threw his hands up. “Terry—”
“Hear me out, Ash. Amy has opened my mind to a new vision, personally and for this company. She’s persistently chased this idea from the very start of MyndClarity. And now I know that we can make it work.”
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The Board rejected his proposal, but he didn’t let that stop him. He’d promised his father that he would persevere.
Two years later, Terry stood on stage facing a live audience of empty seats in a small rented studio. A slide projected on the screen behind him read 'What If. Affordable Health with AI’. His phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it. It was probably Ash. He’d sent an email to Ash and every member of the Board with a message that contained a link to his livestream. They were all probably watching now, aghast. He focused his attention on the red light of the camera in front of the stage and began speaking to thousands of live viewers.
“Thank you for joining me this Monday afternoon. My name is Terry. I’m the CEO of MyndClarity. Some of you may have heard of our flagship product, the ClarityBand. I know most of you are here because I promised free tickets to a gig…well… this isn’t going to be what you expected. My ads were deliberately misleading, and I apologize, but I had to conceal the true purpose of this livestream… until now.”
Terry paused as his viewership lowered by a few hundred every second. Many weren’t happy to be deceived. Most stayed out of curiosity.
The urgency in his voice went up. “I’ve risked everything. What I’m about to reveal is likely to get me into legal trouble… but I need to do this.” Then, pointing to the slide behind him, his face lit up as he proudly announced, “Let’s reimagine the future of health.”
The 'ClarityRing' slide transitioned to a video demo. A calming AI-generated voice welcomed the user to 'The Minority Report of Healthcare… without the Dystopia'.
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Across the city, the ten board members of MyndClarity found themselves in an emergency Zoom call with Ash. Their screens were illuminated with a screenshot of Terry's livestream, including the ethereal 'ClarityRing' display with its 3-D image of a futuristic steel gray ring.
Ash was pleased to note the head shaking and clenched jaws. The Board was clearly unhappy with Terry. They’d never recover from this insult. This was the end of his partner's career. He added more fuel to the fire, “Not only has Terry’s antics jeopardized MyndClarity’s credibility, I just found out that millions of company dollars have been squandered on this unattainable product. Terry covertly collaborated with a select few within the company.”
That should really get their blood boiling, Ash thought, only to have a quiet voice ask, “Is the product really unattainable?”
His eyes narrowed as he zeroed in on the speaker. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t think I need to remind anyone here that we had collectively rejected this idea two years earlier. Terry was hit hard by his father’s death. He’s unstable and has to be stopped!”
“I’m only asking because #clarityring is trending on X, and—”
“It’s trending?” some other Board members echoed, a marked change in their earlier furious tone.
Ash attempted to relax his clenched jaws and failed. “Trending or not, Terry’s actions have put us in an awkward position. This is not how things are done. Besides, by the end of his livestream, there were less than a thousand participants left, so how much genuine interest is there really?”
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Credits
TANOUSHKA EDVANKAR
Designer
MIKE JOOSSE
Contributor
JASON STEVENS
Creator
About
Delivered by our SOURCE Newsletter, Short Stories explores the drama of work through real and fictional storytelling. All characters and storylines are fictional unless otherwise specified. To sponsor, collaborate or report an issue, please use the suggestion button in our main nav.
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