Deep in the heart of America was a man named Clark. His profession was sales; specifically in the Cyber Security industry. He was in a cab, on the way to his next presentation / sales pitch.

He saw an attractive blonde woman outside of the building, ready to buzz in. He tried getting out of the cab suavely with importance, attempting to impress her. Instead, he got out of the cab, tripping on the curb right outside the door.

“Fuck!” he yelled, slamming the door to the cab, embarrassed. He adjusted his suit before he walked into the building.

He arrived at the third floor where the presentation was to be held. He waltzed in there, ever so dignified, confident his sales pitch would be successful. After the presentation was over, he looked at the members of the board assembled, in eager satisfaction. The CEO began speaking.

“What makes you think we have money for this shit?” He stated impatiently. “We have a tight budget as it is. We have the basic, necessary security implementations in place. Thanks for wasting my fucking time”.

The board members all chuckled at each other, mocking the sales attempt. One member walked up to Clark, smirking at his tie. It had a mosaic pattern of electric blue locks.

“Nice tie asshole” he snickered, walking away. Clark stormed out of the boardroom, a mixture of upset and furious. Everyone laughed at him as he walked past, marching toward the elevator. As Clark walked into the elevator, he faced the doors; met by a few office workers laughing at him hysterically, giving him the finger. “Fuck you all!!” Clark responded, giving them the finger as well.

Clark received a phone call from his boss shortly after. They discussed how next to proceed.

“Fuck” Clark’s boss mumbled in defeat. “I was really hoping we would get that lead. I know it’s short notice, but I have another potential client for us. You would have to catch a flight to Amsterdam to make the sales pitch. Can you do it?”

Clark, still pissed off from his earlier defeat, reluctantly agreed. “Sure, I’ll do it. But I’m going to need a drink first, this latest turn down really got to me”.

Clark’s boss stifled a sigh of relief. “Whatever you need to do Clark. I’m sorry that happened; do whatever is necessary to get back to your A game. Who’s my sales tiger??”

Clark growled, unresponsive.

“I said ‘who’s my sale’s tiger’”-

“I am! I’m your fucking sales tiger!!” Clark shouted, embarrassed and annoyed. Other pedestrians snicked to themselves as he continued walking down the sidewalk.

“That’s my sales guy! Have some drinks, get some rest, and we’ll catch up later. Take care, Clark”.

With that, Clark went to nearby bar to drown away his defeat.

He woke up hungover the next day, just in time for his flight. He boarded the plane, on route to Amsterdam.

He arrived in Amsterdam that evening, feeling jet-lagged and fatigued in general. He checked into the hotel that had been arranged for him, pounded back another drink, then went to sleep.

He woke up the next morning, desperate for a fresh brewed coffee. He took a stroll down the street from the hotel, hoping his intuition would take him to the right place. He arrived at a coffee shop he felt best suited him.

From the start it didn’t go well. Someone butted ahead of him in line; he must have been another American visiting there. Clark was irate by the time they were ready to take his order.

“Good morning sir” the cashier smiled. He looked pretty stoned.

“Morning”, Clark bluntly blurted. “I need something strong; really strong. Had a shitty fucking day, a shitty fucking night, and I need a pick up. Badly!”

The cashier nodded, smoothly handling the situation as if he had a million times before.

“The ‘Businessman’s coffee’ then?” he asked with a smile. Clark’s phone rang; it was a call from his boss wanting an update on his situation.

“Ya ya, businessman’s coffee, fine” Clark hastily replied, looking away as he answered his phone. He waited out of the line as he cleared things up with his boss. The sales pitch was to commence at 10:00am that morning.

Clark put his phone away after business was settled, walking up to the counter to grab his coffee. “Have a nice trip” the cashier said, again with a smile.

“Ya, sure thing buddy” Clark said, waving goodbye as he walked out the door.

He continued walking down the street, sipping on his coffee. He was deep in thought thinking about how he was going to introduce himself. 

Shortly after his mind began to get foggy, his eyes seeing colors with unusual contrast and brightness. He started to hallucinate.

“What the fuck is going on?” He whispered to himself as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He walked by one store – a kid store. It had a huge grey elephant plush toy looking out the window. Clark screamed in panic, running away.

Clark had a secret he hid from most people – he was deathly afraid of elephants.

He hid in an alleyway, still frightened, catching his breath. He looked at a dark corner ahead of him. The grey elephant appeared again. “Hello Clark. You’ve been a bad man. MAKE THE SALE OR ELSE!” The elephant yelled, laughing hysterically.

Clark ran like a mad man, hollering to the wind, as he ran as far and as fast as he could before running out of breath. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, leaned over, trying to catch his breath as his lungs burned.

Most onlookers ignored him, while some pointed, muttering vulgarities to their significant other such as “he’s fucked” or “Can’t he handle his shit?” or “Must be the first time he’s had Business man’s coffee”.

“That’s it!” Clark announced, marching over to the coffee shop he was at earlier. He demanded to talk to the cashier from before that served him the coffee.

“Hey! You there! You happy-go-lucky hippy son of a bitch! Did you do this to me!??”

The cashier from before looked at him calmly, also having dealt with this situation before. “My apologies sir. The sign outside tells you that this is a hallucinogenic cafe. The ‘Businessman’s coffee’ on the menu here tells you this as well”. The cashier pointed to the menu, where under Businessman’s coffee it read “Contains hallucinogenic properties”.

Clark, lost for words, looked around the room feeling defeated. He saw a small elephant carving on one table, then flipped out, losing his shit. He ran out of the coffee shop screaming, pissing himself.

It was now 9:40am, almost time for his sales pitch. He was still tripping balls. He rushed back to his hotel room, took a quick shower and changed.

He arrived at the building where the sales pitch was to take place, five minutes late. He rushed in there, covered it fresh sweat.

He wore sun glasses to hide his dilated pupils. He stumbled, acting nervously as he attempted to gather himself.

“Attention, fellow prospectors” he stuttered, trying to appear confident. “I’m here today to talk to you”. The others relaxed, listening to him intently with innocent curiosity.

“That is, I’m here to talk to you about the importance of Cyber Security. Do you know, or know someone, who has had their data leaked, anyone?”

A few people in the boardroom raised their hands. “Yes! See?? See?? It can happen to anyone, at any time, to everything! It’s only a matter of time before they’ll fucking strike!”

Clark tried to calm himself, despite his awkward worked up demeanor. He cleared his throat.

“Do you have a plan for when they’ll hack your company?”

One of the board members raised her hand. “We do have some protocols put in place, such as encrypted back up drives, we use a VPN, stuff like that. Either than that no”.

Clark started regaining confidence. “Well! I’ve got something to tell you! That plan is fucked! FUCKED!! It’s doomed to fail – YOU’LL ALL BE DOOMED!! I’ll show you how!”

He continued his sales pitch, doing his best to convince them to buy his products, such as specialized firewalls, anti-virus software, tailored VPN’s for their company, etc.

Despite Clark’s frantic antics, the board members seemed genuinely interested. Clark might actually make a successful pitch.

“Wow, this was truly enlightening” the CEO of the company responded, eager to learn more of Clark’s knowledge of data security.

“We’ll take a short recess, so we can discuss how we can move forward with this. Clark, thank you once again. There is coffee in the waiting room outside if you like”.

Clark thanked them, saying “No fucking thank you hahaha, I’ve had enough coffee for today, I’ll go get some air!” With that, Clark awkwardly shifted his way toward the door, right as someone else was coming in.

A woman with a sweater almost bumped into him. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t see you there-”

“AAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!! Clark screamed, as he ran through the hallway, pissing himself again.

The woman was wearing a sweater with an elephant on it. She looked at Clark with shock, as he continued running for his life. The marble hallway was now dotted with drops of piss.

He continued running outside, feeling trapped within his own trip, unable to escape the elephants that continued to haunt him. His phone started ringing.

“No, no..” Clark whined. He took out his phone, waiting for the bad news.

“Hey Clark! Nice sales pitch. You did me a real solid today, they’re on board with us. They said you were acting quite strangely, are you okay-”

“YES! Yes, I’m good, better than good! So we got the contract??”

“Yes, my vigilant sales tiger, we do, we have the contract. Just working out the details. That is, before I kill you”.

Clark gulped in fear, hardly believing what he had just heard.

“What, did you just-”

“Hey, having fun pissing yourself? Do you miss me yet?? That’s right! It’s sir elephant! Not only are you SOOOO fucking dead, you’re also fired!! Run sales boy run! I’m going to find you hehehe”

Clark threw his phone at the building in drug-induced reflex. It went flying threw a glass window, shards of glass spraying everywhere. He continued to run, nowhere in particular, as he tried to escape - from himself.

After his insane ordeal, his boss ordered him to take some time off. They all made some good money off of their new client, allowing Clark to keep his job. Needless to say, Clark never went to Amsterdam again.