Page 93 of The Examiner

Can you send me what you’ve done of your essay?

Cameron Wesley

Thought you could help me there.

Gela Nathaniel

You told me you’d already written something about burning out of the corporate world to pursue a different career, as it’s not that far from what actually happened.

Cameron Wesley

You’re right. Just found it in my files. It’s attached. Funny how writing about yourself brings out the truth, no matter how much you want to hide it.

Gela Nathaniel

What do you mean?

Cameron Wesley

Got the sinner’s urge to confess and said a bit too much.

Gela Nathaniel

That’s fine. I’ll delete anything inappropriate; fill in the gaps and you can scrape a discretionary.

Cameron Wesley

Should we discuss all this on here? The consensus is that Doodle can be accessed and read.

Gela Nathaniel

Urban myth. Theoretically, yes, but in practice that’s a legal path no one has ever gone down, in my experience. As soon as the course ends, everything is permanently deleted. Literally someone will have to die before this is accessed.

Cameron Wesley

Interesting. Thanks for that. Kiss-kiss.

Gela Nathaniel

Kiss-kiss.

Royal Hastings, University of London Multimedia Art MA *Final Project*

Candidate name: Cameron Wesley

Candidate number: 0883483

A bit about me:

Mentioning no names, lest I spontaneously combust with unresolved anger, but I once worked for a big ad agency. We handled all the top global brands, Fortune 500 companies, some high net-worth individuals on a PR basis and many myriad organisations. Lost interest in working for other people, left with a colleague to set up our own agency. Won’t say it was the worst thing we could’ve done, but it never went right, that’s for damn sure. Thought a major client was coming with us – they pulled out at the last minute and stayed with the old company. Then our second client, much smaller but important to us, was bought out and their business went to the buyer’s agency. OK, we can generate our own business – we’d done that for years already. Only outside the big-name bubble, the garden ain’t so rosy. The place was full of bears with their bums in the honey. They gas about thinking outside the box, but risk is something they take with other people’s money, right?

Suddenly my director gets pregnant and moves to France with her partner. Pulls out completely. I was stranded. I looked up old friends, but none wanted to move. Advertised and recruited. Got stung by a stream of liars and bullshitters. They say it takes one to know one: well, I couldn’t spot them. My wife left. Her call, but pants for me. I was done. Was that burnout or plain disillusion in my fellow human? I sought help for my mental health. As they say. First of all with a good mate called Jack Daniel’s, and then with a colourful bunch of his other friends at a posh loony bin called The Sanctuary.

There they said, among other things, that when you get stuck or find you’re not challenged any more, make a change. Well, I’d done that and it had failed right out of the sky in a trail of flames. So I avoided group therapy by haunting every class, from chocolate-tossing to candle-bothering. One of them was an introduction to art. Well, the teacher was the finest-looking woman in the place. She got me feeling inspired again for the first time in yonks. You know, chucking clay around and slapping paint on paper is big fun! That’s why, a while later, when I was back on my feet with a new company in a whole new sector, I decided to take this job myself, rather than leave it to one of the other private investigators.

WhatsApp chat between Ben Sketcher and Hannah O’Donnell, 30 May 2024:

Hannah