23 July 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3173: auditor
“Listen, we don't have to like R.E. Ludlow, and his choice to forget he could have owned a bunch of people he started his company with a few hundred years ago instead of co-owning with them and making them all rich with him – we don't have to like it but it's a free country and the Ludlow Bubbly is squeaky clean. He ran that ship like he was a Navy captain!”
Mr. C.L. Willingham, auditor, had looked over the filed portions of the sale documents of the Ludlow Bubbly to its workers with billionaire Thomas Stepforth putting up the capital in between, and several veterans' groups organizing to swiftly repay him so their members would own free and clear. Looked at by the numbers, Mr. Willingham's type of men were the ones mostly benefited, but …
“Y'all are worried about the wrong things!” he said.
He didn't even mention that Thomas Stepforth himself was Lofton County's Black billionaire … there was no point.
“I don't get it,” he said to his wife when he got home. “They basically wanted me to make up a false report to throw the sale back just so the Trents, Duboises, Gonzalezes, and Miyamotos couldn't get a piece of it. It is the dumbest thing ever!”
“Charles,” she said, “you don't live every day trying to figure out how well you are doing based on how badly someone else is doing. You don't realize how weak other men are.”
“No, I guess I don't!” he said. “What difference does it make to my bank account because some other color person has more in his or hers? I have more business than I can handle as an accountant! Our investments are recovering from the Covid crash! I have God in Christ, and I have you – and oh yeah, we have three beautiful kids! I have more than enough!”
“And I keep telling you that you have to do the forensic side of your accounting because to some people, nothing is ever enough and if they think that people who should have nothing get something, they have been cheated by that,” Mrs. Willingham said. “It makes no sense, but, human nature often doesn't.”
“I guess it doesn't – that's why I work with numbers and stay away from people as much as possible – and I gotta block a whole bunch more people!” Mr. Willingham said. “Having me spend time on such nonsense and calling themselves friends – BLOCKED!”