A fly on the wall investigates a PM’s missing farewell ritual
But this time, the ritual has failed. The memoir has not arrived. It has not been announced. It has not been hinted at. It has not even been whispered about in the corridors where whispers are currency.
And so our oldest friend, the fly on the wall, took it upon himself to investigate.
The fly has been everywhere. Cabinet rooms. Wine bars. Diplomatic lounges. Prairie premiers’ offices at 1:47 a.m. Him and his ilk have witnessed more political theatre than any intern with a journalism diploma and a ring light. He remembers the old rituals — the book launches, the ghostwriters, the soft‑cover confessions that arrived like clockwork.
This time? Nothing.
The fly arrives to buzz the newsroom, a room with dust in the corners and history in the air, and resignation abounding while AI publishes the daily news. Our fly passes over the youngsters who don’t even notice Trudeau has resigned. They're still getting pay cheques and are afraid to ask why.
They’re scrolling, posting, debating whether the former PM’s music‑video cameo was “iconic” or “mid.” They barely noticed when Trudeau left. They certainly haven’t noticed how he failed — again — to deliver. This time, a book.
The fly drifts past, unimpressed, wings humming with the weight of institutional memory. He heads toward the back — toward the shabby corner where a dusty correspondent sits, last of the old guard, the one who still remembers when political exits meant something, and smoking a cigar in a newsroom was a non-criminal event.
The correspondent’s desk is a museum: yellowing clippings, a coffee mug older than half the staff, an old pair of shoes stashed below the desk with an ancient IBM keyboard. No one has the courage to ask him to throw anything of this fire hazard out, and a stack of unwritten obituaries for traditions that died a quiet death are part of a journalistic hoard.
The fly lands on the rim of the mug. “You’re back,” the correspondent mutters, not looking up. The fly nods — or does whatever the fly equivalent of nodding is.
“Still no memoir?” the correspondent asks, flipping through a notebook filled with half‑finished headlines. The fly buzzes once: which is 'no.'
The correspondent sighs. “Does he think he's too young to write a memoir? He's not.” he says, knowing the answer.
The fly buzzes twice: absolutely not.
“Is he too busy?”
A single buzz: is 'maybe.' He is a professional dancer now.
“Too happy in a new career as a backup dancer?” The fly pauses, then nods his bulbous head three times — the fly’s version of a shrug.
The correspondent leans back, staring at yellow ceiling tiles reminiscent of the Mulroney era. “You know,” he says, “I covered four Prime Ministers who wrote memoirs before they finished packing their offices. One of them wrote two. One wrote a memoir and a cookbook. One wrote a memoir that was basically a cookbook. This one might achieve coloring between the lines."
The fly fell off the rim and crawled back up, presumably laughing in agreement. He must remember. He was there. He's everywhere.
“But this one?” the correspondent continues. “Nothing. Not a page. Not a paragraph. Not even a rumour of a book. I guess he doesn't need a payday. That too is a prime ministerial first.
The fly lifts off the mug and circles the desk, inspecting dust, licking his front legs, clippings, fidgeting at the ghosts of deadlines past.
“It’s diagnostic of a missing link,” the correspondent says, tapping his pen. “A political departure without a memoir is like a national anthem without a melody. Something’s missing. Something’s off. Something’s… unfinished. Even the lack of mention is disturbing. It's nothing but a huge "Meh," as if to say, "It's over. Let sleeping dogs lie.”"
The fly lands on the notebook, on top of a headline the correspondent has been trying to write for weeks: Fidgeting, hunting at waiting for something.
The correspondent laughs — a dry, papery sound. “You know,” he says, “the kids out there don’t care. They don’t even know it’s missing. They think political memoirs are something boomers read on vacation.” The fly buzzes indignantly. He cares. He remembers. He waits. This book will be the biggest pile of shit he's seen in his life, and he cannot wait to devour it.
He will be the last witness to ancient ritual — the final archivist of political tradition — and he knows a missing memoir is not nothing. It’s a gap filled with hanging questions and uncomfortable quietude. A cultural glitch in the matrix.
The fly lifts off, heading toward the newsroom ceiling, ready to resume surveillance upside down for a moment.
He will wait. He will watch. He'll buzz past interns who don’t know what they’re missing. He returns spins, dipsy doodles, takes a dump on an interns ear, and drops by the dusty correspondent to nod goodbye, like driver's passing at a glance, but the silence becomes too loud. So he heads for the open window on a wave of smoke and incandescent light.
And until the memoir appears — if it ever does — the fly will keep asking the only question that matters:
Where’s the shit? Or in this case, the apologies.
Written by CoPilot, as directed by Mack McColl, for McColl Magazine Daily
