The Ritz-Carlton

by Richard Oxman

For her honeymoon, she had experienced coastal cuisine in its truest and finest form at The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay’s signature restaurant, Mavio. Now the entire AAA Five Diamond resort, situated atop a dramatic ocean bluff, was gone. Its array of compelling wines from around the world lay all over the body of Pastry Chef Michel O’Malley and colleagues amidst the remnants of the old 1,000-square foot display kitchen and raw bar. Decadent desserts with innovative pairings and creative plating –along with the personnel– had become the victims of the only 7/7 suicide bombing. Memories of the warm and relaxed ambiance with panoramic ocean views creeped in as she watched the area’s two golf courses burning like a forest fire on the early evening news.

In her reverie, she instinctively reached for her cards.

One of the things that was new was that the Talking Heads couldn’t zero in on what had happened. There was simply too much. The analyses that would previously have beat this and that dead horse to death were inundated with incessant reports flowing in, overwhelming information festooned in hospitals, police stations, etc. flooding their way.

It was a very different phenomenon than having a range of battlefields offered up for reportage in traditional wartime communications. There was nothing like a clearcut priority for spotlighting, no hierarchy of names or places to use as a point of departure.

This disruption of the normal news process didn’t stop the flux, of course, but altered the experience. For once one didn’t get *the same report* on all channels and stations. No ongoing angles allowed, it seemed. There were so many centers of horror to choose from that the various editors, managers et. al. provided whatever their singular sensibilities allowed, encouraged. And the pace of new pieces coming in provided no time for the usual…*coordination*. Government sources and media moguls were maniacally flailing for breathing room, unable to focus on news spin with their own heads truly spinning.

For the first time in many of their processed lives fear without a precedent danced with their desire for survival. They were stepping all over themselves, armor cracked, and concern for a Pulitzer took a back seat to genuine gnawing in the gut. With some their smile was inconsistent. With others papers rattled on air.

And all began to wonder out loud about reports that Montebello in Southern California was now truly uninhabitable. Could nothing be done to save the people?

As professionals they simply weren’t used to being told they couldn’t talk to all the people. And this more than anything disoriented the lot of them.

The injunctions to stay away from “stiff upper lip” talk, “Bring It On” babble, didn’t help either. All new for The News.

Arsenic in the water at Monterey Park, heptachlor along the fields of Monongahela, and Tetrachloroethylene in the schools of Montpelier, ad infinitum it seemed, was too much to bear. And where…when was anyone going to do something about what was starting to be referred to as “The M Thing” everywhere?

The fact that a handful of targets *weren’t* “Ms” began to bubble up in conversations, troubling many as much as anything else.

By the time Malone began nervously knocking on the door, Matilda was already zoned out on the tarot card she had first pulled out of her vintage deck. And the desk she was leaning on was dripping with the aura of something she couldn’t shake. The Moon, with its dog and wolf yelping, drowned out Malone’s feeble fist. And that which was emerging out of the deeps, coming up out of a nameless and hideous tendency –lower, much lower than the average savage beast– tripped her mind into new territory.

But what paralyzed her to the bone was the second card she pulled out of the stack.