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An early February snowstorm raged tonelessly outside the office of Carl Drubner, patent attorney, swirling white hills and humps across the stretch of roof outside his window. The snow had begun as long ago as Drubner could remember, which was that morning when he woke up. He recalled that it had been a frightening drive to Burlington. Otherwise his mind was a temporal blank. It was generally easier that way.
The blue computer screen on Drubner’s desk flashed the word MESSAGE across the top. That meant the litigators were after him again. Everything that crossed their mind was so very important. It wasn’t bad enough they garnered all the new business with their quick firm handshakes and soaring egos. No, they had to confiscate his attentions as well. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone—dole out the work and get lost? Even in Burlington, in the satellite office, Drubner couldn’t offload them.
He knew the flashing would soon drive him crazy if he didn’t yield to the litigators and read his electronic mail so the message bar would disappear. Four years of mechanical engineering at MIT, three years at Georgetown Law, all so he could pay servile custom to the firm’s headliners—the ones who publicly enforced the patents prosecutors like Drubner anonymously wormed through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The litigators received all the glory, all the recognition, and therefore all the clients and most of the firm’s profits. They boasted of their courtroom cunning; they joked of their ignorance of PTO practice and rules; and they raked in new business by the boatload. Then, like Kafkaesque Arabs tossing bits of meat to the hungry desert jackals who detested yet utterly depended on them, they dispensed prosecution work to the likes of Drubner.
His phone began to ring just as the pulsing message text appeared on his screen. Drubner stopped himself from picking up the handset when he noticed it was only the direct line to his secretary back in Boston. She would be calling to remind him about the unread electronic communication. This, he was sure, merely furnished her opportunity to insinuate Drubner’s incompetence and sloth, to see if he had even bothered to show up at the office despite the dearth of work to be done, and to dash the hopeful tinge his voice always had when he answered a call.
He returned to his screen. The blinking message said: SPECIAL PARTNERSHIP MEETING FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5 AT 9AM, RE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE. PLEASE CONFIRM AVAILABILITY BY RETURN MESSAGE.
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