The man in the expensive suit hung up. No breath would be wasted on pointless chatter. If his main
influencer
was taking a
sick day
then his entire day was awash.
In the past there was reasoning with Blue.
promises
of a brighter
future
, pleads that the current workload was temporary until they could finally take the foot off the gas. Such promises had been made for ten years now. Their effectiveness had dried up.
Calculations performed by some
quantitative
lab at a top tier
university
had predicted that there would be at least another
decade
of
hustle
left until The Blue Man and himself had enough
evergreen influence
to stop producing ridiculous, meaningless videos on
social media
. Then they could do the real work. Behind the scenes. Where they were no longer the spectacle for people staring at their screens while pretending to work or while on the bus or sitting on the toilet or even just laying in bed trying to fall asleep.
The Man in the Expensive Suit knew he could milk out another ten years of hustle. And until just last year, he had thought Blue could too.
Last year, during a strange month, when the sky seemed to never run out of
rain
, The Man in the Expensive Suit had for the first time found out what new video Blue had released. Before then he had known a head of time what the video would be, because he had orchestrated every damn video. But he hadn't planned for the choking of that young, un-named girl.
And then there was the shooting where the shooter dressed up as the blue man. That's when The Man in the Expensive Suit knew there was no PR'ing their way out of this. He had to tell Blue to go lie low. Go somewhere nobody knows you. "And take off that god damn paint!" he had yelled.
He never did find out where Blue spent those months. He didn't dare ask either. Not because he was scared to find out, but because he frankly didn't give a shit. He just wanted them to start growing their
audience
once more. Get back to the hustle. So that one day, they could live their dreams. One day. Someday.