The Marketing Executive sat in his superbly appointed office and pondered The Next Big Thing.

(Have you noticed that the marketing profession does not seem to have a job description that implies actual work? They go from assistant to executive without passing through the tedium of the real world. True, there might be marketing analysts who know that adding two and two produces a number, rather than, say, the colour purple. And there are those who can recognize the colour purple, but not necessarily the time of day and are called creatives. But have you ever heard of a marketing clerk? A marketing engineer? True, marketing managers exist, but they are employed not by agencies but by companies, and come in daily contact with the actual production of goods and provision of services. Thus, except by an accident of language, they have nothing to do with the profession at all.)

The Marketing Executive’s gaze slid around his office seeking inspiration. It slid off the dark glass embedded with slivers of rare hardwood that was his desk. It did not linger on the three carefully arranged and colour-coordinated magazines that were dusted daily but never opened. The single book that had a whole armoire to itself did not hold it, nor did the one unsightly plant, so exotic it was listed as extinct. The whole-wall aquarium with its tasteful arrangement of pebbles and no actual fish was uninspiring.

Then he got it, as he knew he would.

There was a side table that held a bottle of water. The water was melted from the hearts of Antarctic icebergs and was so pure that the bottle had to be made from special glass, lest the glass contaminate the water. It was the only liquid the Marketing Executive ever drank.

Water-bottle. In a flash of inspiration such as had made him a legend by the age of twenty-two (he was still twenty-two and had been for two decades), he saw that the very concept was obsolete.

His finger stabbed at a spot on his desk that was, to mortal eyes, indistinguishable from any other part of the surface. A screen appeared, seemingly in mid-air, with the image of his flawless secretary. The secretary’s entire personality was a single burning focus of attention, centred on the Executive. No chatting on the phone or doing the nails for this secretary: his nails were done, always and without exception.

The secretary was male, of course, as the outward sign of the Marketing Executive being publicly gay. But the Executive had been wondering lately. Being straight was so out of date, so absolutely passé it was positively retro: perhaps it was time for a change of secretaries.

Still that would have to wait.

“Bernard, call up the head of the design department, whoever it is. They will assemble a task force. Their job is to redefine the water bottle. Call the sales VP and tell him to sell the result. They have three weeks. And have my helicopter ready in two minutes, I will be going to my spa for three weeks. You cannot come along.”

He waited long enough to be sure that Bernard’s eyes registered genuine terror, then turned off the screen and walked out.

—

Two years later, I was sitting in an aeroplane operated by one of those third world airlines that is so backward they still leave enough room between seat rows for a human being. Not only that, flight attendants spent their time caring for passengers and, yes, even laughing, rather than telling us what is prohibited for security reasons.

It was a rare opportunity and I was determined to enjoy it. But the future was there, waiting to pounce at the slightest mistake. And my mistake was simple: I asked for a bottle of water, unsuspecting this simple request would bring me face to face with the mind of the Marketing Executive.

It was not a bottle, it was a glass. Well, it was shaped like a glass, but it was made from plastic so thin it could not keep its shape in a light breeze. It was filled to the brim with water and closed with another plastic foil, one that was welded to the container so firmly that only serious force could remove it.

I tried, I did. I used the most delicate touch available to those of us who are not ninja masters. I attempted to keep the container vertical and unsquashed while pulling off the micron-thin foil with tensile strength surpassing that of steel. I suppose it must be counted as success that spilled less then half.

I thought it behoves a man of my station not to drink directly from the table, so I raised the flimsy thing to my mouth, carefully supporting it on all sides. I spilled less than half of what remained.

And asked for a beer.

—

Sometimes I fantasize. I dream of taking the Marketing Executive, his design team, CEOs of various airlines and, yes, Bernard, to a musty old film theatre with dilapidated walls and squeaking chairs. I dream of showing them a grainy old documentary, inexpertly copied from rotting VHS tapes. The topic would be the history of the bottle.

It would dwell on amphorae. It would show the incredibly delicate middle-kingdom Egyptian glassware. It would show the leather Spanish bota and the wide-necked milk bottles of my childhood. The hip-flasks our fathers took on their outings would feature, as would the canteens they took to their wars. There would be a dry and dusty lecture by a dry and dusty physics professor about the benefits of a narrow neck in preventing spillage. There would be images from a glass-blowers convention. And when the film was over, it would run again. And again.

You might think me cruel, but I would provide for the viewers. Though their meals might taste a lot like the plastic trays in which they would be served, they would never want for water, served in flimsy plastic glasses, closed with kevlar-strength foil.