Cherry Cola by Solomon Blaze

Arthur ‘Silvertongue’ O’malley sits in the reception to an executive meeting room, halfway to the top of a 1980’s New York City skyscraper – 1981 to be exact.

These buildings always look the same, he thinks with an exhausted arrogance that most people perceive as charisma – for a short time at least, but is really just the result of too many people telling you that you’ve got ‘it’.

The rest of the Mad Men are sat in a stereotypical square of black-tie suite and faux leather, cherry lipstick red chair. The smell of brand perfumes permeates the air that fills the entire 28th floor; young, hopeful women pass back and forth – the ‘real Mad Men are far too important to be down here, with this lot.

One of the girls catches Archie and his crooked smile; she winks and blows him a kiss, then saunters off with the rest of them.

Another young woman opens the door to the meeting room, ‘Arthur O’malley?’ she calls out in a nasaly voice, scanning over each of the men with matching crew cuts.

Her lips are the same cherry red as the chairs.

‘That’s me.’ Arthur says with a dirty grin, standing up in that effortlessly catlike way and making his way across the reception; the other candidates size him up, comparing his bog-standard look to their own.

‘The Executive Producers will see you now,’ says the woman.

Archie steps over the threshold and into the zone.

The young woman with lips like smack to his eyes closes the door behind him, taking a seat beside three men, each maybe a decade or two older than Arthur and dressed in similar suites, save for the odd pinstripe here and there, with slicked back, crew cut hair.

‘Whenever you’re ready, Mister...,’ the eldest of the men says, looking closely at his clipboard, ‘O’malley?’

Knock 'em dead kid, Archie tells himself.

‘Lady and gentlemen of The Coca-Cola Company, without any ado whatsoever, allow me to guide you, through on a journey to the prodigal son of carbonated soft-drinks, and the saviour from the clutches of the dreaded New Coke Incident ,’ - he could tell, they were already hypnotized. He quickly whips The Poster - aah, thank god for The Poster – out of the tanned leather portfolio and props it up on the chair that was obviously meant for him, ‘I present to you; Cola-Cola Cherry, or as I like to call it, Cherry Coke!’

Slowly, the Executive Producers smile and begin to nod their heads, that each has a grotesquely smug smile painted upon it, as though they called all see 32 years into the future of their company.