It was two years now since Mackintosh had been appointed Walker's assistant. Walker, who had been for a quarter of a century administrator of Talua, one of the larger islands in the Samoan group, was a man known in person or by report through the length and breadth of the South Seas; and it was with lively curiosity that Mackintosh looked forward to his first meeting with him.
For almost any other writer—and certainly almost every beginning writer—this would be the rather obvious choice for the story’s opening line. It efficiently situates the main circumstances at play in the narrative. The two main characters are mentioned by name and the exotic locale of the setting—and why that is the setting—is made clear in a remarkably concise amount of words. The reason this seems the obvious choice for the story’s opening line is because it is pretty darn close to perfect. And yet here’s the kicker: this quote is preceded by more than 1,000 words, a dozen paragraphs and three pages of text. A handful of truly astonishing short stories are already over and done with before even reaching this point in the tale. It’s true this is a “short story” but is most definitely not a short story. Although primarily a two-character drama in which surprisingly little action actually occurs, this is a densely written, thematically rich exploration of power, authority, exploitation, and symbolic colonialism and imperialism.
He thought Mackintosh a poor fellow because he would not share his promiscuous amours and remained sober when the company was drunk. He despised him also for the orderliness with which he did his official work. Mackintosh liked to do everything just so. His desk was always tidy, his papers were always neatly docketed, he could put his hand on any document that was needed, and he had at his fingers' ends all the regulations that were required for the business of their administration.
The story is structured for the most part as a kind of game involving back and forth, like ping-pong or tennis or even the effect of playing on a teeter-totter. The narrator describers Walker as corpulent and then describes Mackintosh as resembling a scarecrow. Mackintosh is irked by Walker being an illiterate oaf who takes credit for his reports while Walker thinks Mackintosh wastes his time reading books that provide no real value to his ongoing education. They are presented throughout as the yin to the other’s yang, the square peg to the other’s round hole, the Hamilton to the Trump, the shark to the shallow waters. But which is which? Ah, that is the question.
He was a native of Aberdeen and his heart yearned suddenly for the icy winds that whistled through the granite streets of that city. Here he was a prisoner, imprisoned not only by that placid sea, but by his hatred for that horrible old man. He pressed his hands to his aching head. He would like to kill him. But he pulled himself together.
The primary difference between the two men, however, is that Walker is, after a quarter century on the job, lord and master of all his domain while Mackintosh is…well, what he said there. The prisoner thing and all. After two years of suffering at the hands of a cruel master made all the worse because of his intellectual inferiority, Mackintosh is reaching the breaking point. As, of course, he must since without that conflict there is simply is not actual story here to justify the length. But the length is ultimately justified precisely because the tale being told is one that has reached critical mass. Mackintosh is seated here at this particular moment described in this particular passage on the precipice of an event horizon capable of doing nothing more than waiting for the creation of the singularity of the black hole into which all possibility of a future worth living is sucked into, never to escape or be seen again. And Walker represents a pretty big round hole into which Mackintosh’s perfectly square peg is simply never going to snugly fit.
