A Kiss To Build A Dream On - Season 2: Bridge

Waltz For Zizi - Allegro

The last thing you wanted to be is on Henry White's shit-list. A hard thing to avoid, since it took little to get there.

Hold eye contact for too long? Shit list. Get his coffee order wrong? Shit list. Make a loud noise while he was trying to think? Shit list.

But above all, that which made him seethe with unbridled anger, was to have his time wasted. For Henry White, time was money, and money was short at the moment. Way too short for his liking.

And there was no bigger time-waster in Henry's eyes than a marketing meeting. A handful of kids, fresh out of college, thinking they can re-invent the wheel, but all they do is putting new bells and whistles to the same beat-up car advertisers have been running since the '50s.

"Okay, so, like," said one of the kids from the advertisement department, in a suit two sizes bigger than him, made for a man two feet shorter than him. "Well, imagine this scene. A man in a tattered soldier's uniform shuffles his way up a steep dune, with nothing but a deep, lonely desert around him. A set of heavy and rusty chains coil around his neck, chest, and legs-a deep contrast to his emaciated body. His beard, grey and matted with filth, blows in the wind."

A small projector behind him showed a rough outline of the scene he was portraying. Part of it was obscured by his own body getting in the middle of the beam. It was obvious he was nervous, which Henry found particularly satisfying.

"Every step seems to tighten the chains to his body. Legs shaking, he musters every ounce of strength to move one foot forward, then the other. The man stumbles, his chains too heavy, his bare feet bloody and sore. He collapses under his own weight; his knees try and fail to break his fall. He lies sprawled on the dune, sand rapidly enveloping him. Then, the narrator speaks."

"When the darkness casts its long shadow and the nightmares prowl in every corner, there is only one hope," he said, with an epic inflection.

"A flurry, like, blows away the sand surrounding the man, cleaning the desert like a sweeping broom. The rusty chains turn into wisps of smoke, whisked away by the fresh winds of the east. His beard becomes vapor in the air, and his harrowed cheeks fill up with a fresh coat of life. The ripped uniform turns into a business suit.

From the ground around him, skyscrapers burst out like a child's pop-up book, transforming the desolated wasteland into a bursting metropolis.

A huge flag waves in the background; the good old Red, White, and Blue looks slightly translucent in the distance. The man looks up at the sky, with the poise and confidence of a person who knows life is going to be okay. He is surrounded by women. Busty, blonde, American women."

"Geber Laboratories presents:

DayDream, the Drug that lets you Dream-awake!

Tired of waking up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat? Had enough of that pesky PTSD creeping up on you in the middle of your morning walk? Want to leave that crippling anxiety behind?

Peace: Only a Daydream aw-"

The screen, and the room went black with an audible snap, cutting the image behind the kid abruptly. Only a tinge of static lingered in the glass room.

All eyes were immediately cast at the culprit, the burly, middle-aged man sitting at the head of the conference table. Slowly, he took his hand away from the remote, placing it delicately on the table in front of him. He lay back on his leather chair with his hands clasped tightly. The blood-red ruby on his ring twinkled under the dim lights. At no point did he break eye contact with the young man at the end of the table who was in the midst of a very anxiety attack.