177 The Gift 11 (2/2)

The day was coming to an end and Sylvia could be found burning the midnight oil at the office. It had been a slow few weeks for news and they were running out of things to report on. Tension was high in the meeting earlier and the editor was desperate for people to come up with any idea so there would be a paper to publish tomorrow.

Ideas were tossed around but none seemed to work. In the end, it was Sylvia who suggested they return to reliable industry practice in hard times like this.

The idea was to dig through their available files to search for news that might not have been published because there were other more attractive news back then. Other than that, they could do a follow-up on stories that might have been forgotten. Readers would like to know what happened after the big news and sometimes it was worth looking into the past to see whether they had missed anything.

Of course, this was merely a nicer way of saying they were going to recycle old news. When the meeting ended, Sylvia's idea was accepted and that was a testament to how boring the last few weeks had been instead of the young woman's brilliance.

This was why Sylvia was still at her press office even though the night was already falling. Most of her colleagues had left work already but she was still there working hard. Since she was the one who suggested this idea, she felt a sense of responsibility on her shoulders. Other people had already given up but she was on a mission. She was not going to stop until she came up with something that could be put into tomorrow's paper.

Sylvia clicked on the mouse tiredly as the pictures and articles that she had done weeks or even months ago flew past on her screen. The glare was getting to her eyes since she had staring for the computer screen for hours already.

Sylvia leaned back in the chair and yawned, rubbing her tired eyes with her hands. 'Maybe I should just call it a day.'

As if mechanically, Sylvia reached out to grab the mouse and continued clicking while her mind was thinking about the inviting, fluffy bed that was calling to her from home. She did not pay much attention to the things that flitted across the screen. After all, there was a reason these pieces of news were rejected in the first place. If they failed to make the cut the first time, Sylvia could see no reason why they would suddenly become newsworthy. She started to regret proposing this idea in the first place.

A yawn escaped her lips and Sylvia poked her head out from the cubicle to look around the office. If she was the only one left, then she would have no qualm leaving the office to head for home. She would consider it a show of solidarity.

If they were destined to fail, at least they were going to fail together. All for one and one for all, right?

To her surprise, there was still a single lamp that was lit in one of the cubicles.