A secret rebel in a kingdom of sleep

Madysyn Amandalynn 5

The fifth part of a longer narrative poem I’m working on about romance in the Bay Area.

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

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V.

Next day at work was like a waking dream,
a long night’s journey into the workday.
Lucid in the land of that corporate routine,
Madysyn suddenly perceived the uncanny
in everything. A secret rebel in a kingdom
of sleep, its veil made sheer, as if undone.
Her senses sensing a more salient reality.

Awake but tired, tired but bright-minded.
A warm afterglow and a cooling comedown
had bolstered her brazen spirit in a cloud.
She walked without a foot upon the ground.
A moveable paradise, a perfect parity,
made everything plain changed, everything
both charged with strangeness and clarity.

She felt the stillness of a city bus,
and loudness of the bay enriched in bloom.
A tacit trust had made her as light as wind
that lifts the brume. It was as if she’d made
A covenant with nature unknowingly,
and now could see in all things a readiness,
how all was held together by its essence.

The sun arose from its seat on the bay as if
to greet her, and all day the people she thanked,
as if in a movie, hung on her every mood,
as if she were the lead, the main character.
Each song on her playlist seemed written for her.
All shimmered with reason, all was right,
for Madysyn had met someone new last night.

And it felt different this time, was different
than before, because something about it
had seemed effortless, something seemed
unexpected and genuine, and the feeling
stayed with her, carried her throughout the day.
Yet what it was, exactly, she could not say.
And how to feel towards it she was unsure.

Ekphrastic, she wanted to name it, but
the sense outran her, always on the horizon—
was like the horizon itself the way it receded.
And out of reach, a brightness, toward which
her mind raced excitedly. How halcyon
her thoughts, dazzling like sparklers in the dark
that hid behind their light she knew not what.
 
Yet she was alive, and not exhaustion
of the long night could keep her from her task.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
to onslaughts of meetings and answering emails.
The work of the week had only just begun.
There were blockers and bugs to overcome.—
But how she checked off priorities one by one!

Reviewing metrics, signing off on forms.
Planning and checking in with, and on.
She synced up with engineers in the scrum,
attending to all with quiet enthusiasm,
her eyes smoldering with positivity,
that lifted the spirits of her team, made them
feel appreciated for all the work they’d done.

Even the product she’d been given to manage
that plagued her so many months with its
abortive life cycles, now posed no problem
at all, nor caused her any grief. The fear
and frustration at the arrested development
of her career seemed, though unresolved, 
no threat to her happiness, no big deal.

To stall was suddenly no great obstacle
because it no longer appeared a deadend.
Instead, potential and possibility
had forged the means by which she might ascend,
had figured a way forward, envisioned a future,
not with the guy—it was too early for that!—
but out of pure, ripened opportunity.

So too did it ignite a creative spark
within her that she’d not felt since first
she moved to the City and landed her job.
She gave a rousing speech to her designers
that redefined and reenvisioned her MVP,
and again to her counterparts at the end of the day
for their weekly meeting on usability.

“The product we’re building,” she said, “the experience,
it’s not a personal shopper, or assistant.
It’s a friend. It’s someone who wants to help you
find that perfect outfit because they want you
to look your best. They’re not selling whatever’s
on sale, or trying to tempt you with what’s new.
They’re a friend who only wants the best for you.

They don’t pop up at the bottom of the homepage
like some fake call center bot. They come in after
you’ve been looking through the rack, after
you’ve browsed and had time with your thoughts.
And they know whether you want it or not.
They’re there to offer encouragement, or gently,
like a friend, suggest you something else.”

She’d never quite put it that way before.
The vision had never been so near. Her words
so crystalized the vibe around the product
that all could understand it crystal clear.
Her counterparts agreed, whatever AI
meant to the company, it must be that.
“And you said it,” they said, “so beautifully.”

At the end of the conference table was Caeli,
barely hanging on until the end of day,
who had the whole meeting not much to say.
But seeing how others paid her friend praise,
she stirred and clapped, and kept clapping,
as if to tell them what they seemed to know.
“That’s how you fucking fire from the hip.”

The room was in agreement, and word spread. 
Madysyn’s pitch, so inspiring was it,
was mentioned in the daily newsletter,
and by the next day had worked its way up
to leadership, whose feedback, left in Slack:
“We don’t just like it, Madysyn, we love it!”
They told her to take the idea and run with it.

So Madysyn circled back with her engineers
and told them they were starting again from scratch.
“But,” she said, “that doesn’t mean we have
to lose a step. It’s not a loss if we get a rematch.
We’re still agile, still quick. At best we lose
about a month, which shouldn’t matter all
that much. This time it’s gonna stick.

So take a week to think it over—review
the new PR’s I wrote (I sent a link).
Come back refreshed, with a summary of goals
and shareable timeline so everyone’s in sync.
And thank you guys so much for everything.
I literally don’t know where I’d be without you.
I just know this is gonna be our breakthrough.”

They might’ve been angry to have wasted all that time
again, but if they were she couldn’t tell—
so small were the video tiles they conferenced in on
(for most of the code was done remote)
Madysyn could barely make them out at all.
Mere artifacts peopled her laptop screen,
softly focused and compressed to 360p.

That day she stepped outside the office reborn,
a newfound sense of purpose marking her.
And the sun beyond the bridge sieved its light
through the slatted clouds, and the concrete
skyline was burnished red, and every window
black as pitch unless it flashed in gold.
So did that Tuesday in the Bay unfold.

Madysyn stood like a thing apart from the world,
like a riverrock that splits the traffic of the pier
around its gap. And as she walked to catch
her bus back home, she looked down into the dim
brightness of her phone, and through the glint
she glimpsed his text. “Hey, it’s Eli.
Had fun this weekend. When can I see you next?”