Dramatic Taylor Calling

My buddy Joel pointed me towards an excellent David Mitchell short story published in the Financial Times called "Earth calling Taylor". It's got the best that Mitchell has to offer: vibrantly descriptive prose; a story that twists and turns through multiple scenes, all of which are entertaining; and a narrator whose thoughts are as entertaining as the events of the story - if not more so. In fact, one of the big strengths of Mitchell is his ability to chart the highs and lows of the ego as it lurches from one moment to the next. In this story, it's the twists and turns of Taylor's promotion: will he get it or not? At one moment when his success seems assured, Mitchell writes:

"'Taylor. Calvin Hathaway here, with a bit of festive good news ...'
The crowd went wild. King Ryan is anointed."

It reminds me of the scenes in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet where Zoet dramatizes his actions in this thoughts, often jumping from the depths of depression to the heights of ecstasy within moments. It’s an accurate depiction of how our brains often work, and it has the benefit of being extremely entertaining.