Natalie
Being a journalist has always been my lifelong dream.
Even when I was just a little kid, no older than ten, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. There was something about journalists that drew me in; they were part artists, part detectives, and the romance of the job was too appealing for someone like me to resist.
When I started college, I was no different than my peers, filled with lofty idealistic dreams about changing the world. I know it’s a cliché, but I wanted to make a difference. As you well know, though, real life is never as pretty as the plans we make toward the future.
Still, I got lucky. I landed a job at the Gazette just one month out of college, and I thought that I was on the road toward becoming what I always dreamed of. I wanted to do serious journalism, tackle the big issues facing society, and I thought that working at the Gazette was the way to do it.
One year later and I’m still in the small cramped offices of the sports department, writing short snappy articles about athletes on vacation and their newest girlfriends. When I’m not doing that, I’m covering events, checking results, and reporting on stuff that’ll make absolutely no difference to anyone. Instead of changing the world, I spend most of my day updating the Gazette’s Facebook and website, constantly pumping out a never ending river of drivel.
Welcome to the 21st century, where dreams come to die.
“So, are you going to tell me what Fat Ed wanted?” Michelle asks me, throwing a spitball at me. It hits me straight on the forehead and then falls over my desk. Looking up from my laptop, I watch as Michelle prepares another spitball, crumpling the paper between her thumb and index finger. She has her feet up on her desk, and she looks like she doesn't have a care in the world.
Even though she’s a few years my senior, she still behaves as if she's never left college. If you ask me, the Gazette just crushed her soul to the point she simply doesn’t care anymore. Okay, maybe I’m being unfair; I don’t think Michelle ever cared about anything. She likes taking it easy, and nothing ever seems to phase her. And thank God for that… If it wasn’t for Michelle, I’d have gone insane a long time ago.
“Fat Ed wants me to write a profile on Hunter and Logan,” I tell her, turning a pen over my fingers distractedly. If you’re wondering about why we call our Editor-in-Chief ‘Fat Ed’, that’s because no one really likes him around these parts. More than being fat, he’s always rude and obnoxious to everyone under him on the hierarchy; he’s just like a fat tyrant, perched on his throne and barking orders.
“A profile? On these two?”
“Yeah… He told me that if I made it juicy, that he’d give me a shot at different material. I have no idea what I can do, though. I mean, they punch people for a living… I’m not sure if there’s a story in there.”
“That’s a lot of pessimism, even from you,” she yawns, throwing her new ball of paper straight at my face. This time I duck it just in time, and it bounces off the wall and falls on the floor next to the archive drawers. “Profiling these guys can’t hurt. Besides, have you seen them? They’re hot,” she proclaims wistfully, leaning further back on her chair and staring at the ceiling.
“You’re right… It can’t hurt. Even if their profiles turn out to be boring, I won’t be worse off because of it. Worst case scenario, I’ll go back to tweeting live scores.”
“It’s always a world of joy with you, isn’t it?” she yawns again, raising both her arms up and stretching her back.
“You know me,” I whisper, pushing my chair closer to the desk and resting my hands over my laptop’s keyboard. If I’m going to do this, I might as well start right now. “Alright,” I mutter, typing Hunter’s name and pressing Enter.
I spend the rest of the afternoon going through whatever I can find on Hunter and Logan, and I do it until my eyeballs feel as if they’re on fire. These two seem like the typical star athletes—fame, women, and money, but there doesn’t seem to be any angle in their lives that I can really explore. They’re the best at what they do, everyone agrees, but there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special or interesting about their upbringings. Sure, a few interviews and some digging might reveal one or two interesting facts about them, but I don’t think that --
Hang on.
There’s something weird about these guys. I’ve spent the last few hours going through every single article I could find on them, and one never really mentions the other. That’d odd, isn’t it? These are the two best fighters in the world, but they don’t even seem to acknowledge the existence of one another. Most sports thrive on rivalry - especially boxing - but there’s nothing between these two.
“Michelle…” I call her, looking across the office. She’s hunched over her desk, tapping her index finger against her phone repeatedly, and it looks like she’s playing some kind of game. Productive as always. Ah, well, not that I can blame her—the sports department is probably the most boring one in the whole Gazette.
“Yeah?” she asks me, never taking her eyes out of her phone.
“Is there a big difference between, uhm, heavyweight and light-heavyweight?”
“Not really,” she replies casually. “Just a few pounds difference. Why are you asking?”
“Well, isn’t it weird? Hunter has been the heavyweight champion for quite some time now… And Logan is the undisputed heavy-lightweight champion in the word. Why haven’t these guys fought yet? Everyone says they’re the two best fighters in the world… You’d guess the fans would love to see them go at it.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely. Most people would love to see them fight, but they never really sounded interested in that,” she shrugs. “They’re probably afraid of each other. Either way, they keep to their weight classes and keep out of each other’s way.”
“That’s weird…”
“Do you think there might be a story in there?”
I don’t reply to Michelle. I’m staring at a photo of Hunter on my laptop screen, one where he’s holding the heavyweight belt over his head, a tired but victorious expression on his face.
I don’t know if there’s a story in there, but I sure as hell am going to find out.