shiny happy people - by Achtwan

shiny happy people

As I look up at the building that has encompassed most of my life, I think back to the days when I was on the fourth floor. The days when I used to walk out of the elevator and step onto the cool marble tiled reception area and smile a welcoming smile to all my colleagues as I walked past. In fact, everything was welcoming, well I thought it was welcoming. I was seventeen then, and believed in the values of fairness, justice, equality and everything else that society demands one should believe in, to achieve happiness in life. I am forty-five years old now and on the eighteenth floor and guess what, society lied!

I used to be happy to eat a home-made sandwich for lunch with last night's left overs and talk to people who were interested in what I had to say. I knew they were interested by the way they nodded their heads. Now it's five star restaurants, long business lunches and scotch, in fact, a lot of scotch. In the past twenty-eight years I have been promoted up fourteen floors, had a dramatic raise in a pay check and gone from a Datsun sunny to a 6 series BMW. I have also achieved what most people in this world are after, money, and a lot of it. Each year I earn ten times more than an above average wage, and I have achieved so much. I have a divorce certificate from my ex-wife, a handicap of eight and best of all I don't have to worry about my children because they have no interest in seeing me. I am happy, I am successful, I am lying.

Each year I march further up the downward spiral. Each year I get closer to that heavenly place known as hell. Society has designed itself so that all the people with money, fast cars and a good job are going to be happy, aren't I lucky to be one them. The company has designed itself so that every one of us is happy, and we can all have more money, a faster car and a bigger desk. I can afford the best scotch now, the black label brand, and I drink two bottles a week. I am pouring myself one now. The golden liquid reminds me of a sunset I once saw. Who needs that though, sunsets, and mountains, when you have a Cubic impressionistic, original print of an ocean hanging on your office wall. Well, I think it's an ocean, it's blue. I am not lonely though, because I have numerous friends. We have an agreement, they don't care about me and I don't care about them, but we all care about money. Obsession or addiction would be a good name for it. It's like a drug, it's like lying on an operating table and being anaesthetised over and over again. I like being numb. I've lost my family and everything that's close to me, but I'm a winner. I'm a robot to the materialistic mass consumer society, my battery is running out, but I have a personalised number plate on my car and a computer that says good-morning.

When I had been with the company for fifteen years, they gave me a silver Parker pen with my name engraved on it, but they spelt my first name incorrectly. Some things do go well though, like this office. This mausoleum used to be John Dough's, however he killed himself last year so I was lucky enough to acquire it. His personal belongings sat in a cardboard box in my cloak cupboard for two months before anyone came to collect them. The company sent flowers and a card to his wife; I remember trying to sign the card with my pen, but it wouldn't work.

I really like black as a colour. I have a black brief case, a black desk, a black car and I wear a black suit because it doesn't show the stains as easily as lighter colours do. I try to go back to nature from time to time so I walk down Edward street. Half way down I find myself turning back towards the shining icon of light, my Messiah, the company building. The steel beams on the vaulted entry foyer ceiling stretch out their encasing talons, whilst cherubic elevator music wafts through the airconditioning system. The gleaming elevator doors open and a monotone automated voice asks me where I am going, I want to say nowhere but I press the fourteenth floor. I return to my office, my home, my Eden, my Paradise Lost.

I'll keep plodding my way up the forty-five floors of this building. Each floor becoming more important and more valuable. Until one day it'll get to me and maybe I'll die. At least I'll die a happy man. Won't I?

Achtwan, 1997