NexTrends & Associates prided itself on its ability to detect and capitalize on the upcoming fads way before the competition; their latest was as far out as it was daring and soon its clients were making preparations to integrate the ‘next hot thing’ – yodeling – into their products and services.
One of their biggest accounts was to supply elevator music to every elevator in the city, thousands of them. Proud survey teams fanned out all over town, riding elevators, recording listeners’ reactions. Almost without fail, smiles were seen beaming broadly across the faces of the usually catatonically silent patrons of the closeted trip. Reports poured in overwhelmingly positive.
Bold innovators that they were, this breakthrough would be crowned with a coup de grâce suggested by their specially assigned senior researcher from Bavaria, Klaus Hergesheimer. His plan was simplicity itself: live yodelers, donning lederhosen and Bavarian costume, would be dispatched to the most prestigious buildings citywide as a grand publicity stunt, promoting both the firm and its prescience; when the companies learned of the musical innovation through their upbeat employees, the fortune of NexTrends would be sealed.
The day had arrived, along with a planeload of the fascinating crooners. At the largest skyscraper in town, the whole management team was packed into one elevator to witness the marketing coup. Suddenly, in mid-yodel, the most accomplished of the Bavarian songsters hoisted himself up through the elevator ceiling so as to achieve maximum echo-effect, to the surprised glee of the passengers, stood atop the car, and completed a particularly difficult yodeling riff of very high pitch, causing the cable to shred thereby killing everyone on board in a terrifying plunge of 75 stories.
J.V. Pravda was born in Brooklyn, NY. He was a U.S. government attorney during Watergate when he “Felt” uneasy about governments and laws; later, he became a public company CEO and lobbyist. Now, he is a multimedia artist, published and produced playwright (paid royalties), columnist for leading magazines, and a cancer survivor. He retired, on doctors orders, from business & lobbying. Self-taught in visual arts, his paintings have been published & exhibited as well as included in a national touring exhibition and several multimedia exhibitions in NY and other venues. Published diversity author via major university, winning finalist in Stymie Magazine’s 1st annual collector cards edition. Invitee, 2nd & 3rd Annual Slice Magazine Literary Writers Conference; lifetime guest artist @ Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts via 2006 Playwriting Intensives (invitation only).
Tags: flash fiction, J.B. Pravda, yodeling