Growth

When the vice president turned on the ambassador, it was shocking but not surprising. You can sense a tsunami in the swell as the sand is exposed.

Truth did not matter anymore. The truth was not popular, more than that, the truth was destructive if left to bloom.

The ambassador tried to speak but was told to ‘shush’ gently. Instead, the instruction was given and he knelt when asked, he had little choice, his knees quivering in their suit trousers. He was something of a rogue scientist, his nation’s government perturbed with his troublemaking, his awkward verified results and news pieces – and that made what was about to happen easier, not that permission mattered.

There was a whimper, he looked up with eyes that silently screamed. The VP positioned his legs as if for a golf swing and with a little grunt and shuffle, the blow was swift, slicing half of the ambassador’s head off, not at the neck but at the lip. It was as if his mouth was the source of the offence and therefore the target.

What followed was an intense release of blood, fountaining and then squirting like it was trying to escape the scene. So violent did it gush, it was like a last rebuke from the ambassador.

Addressing the heavy silence of those around the room, his well-presented staff, his heavy-set armed guards and the visibly horrified maid, the vice president coughed free his rage, to distil his delivery.

“This man,” said Drekke Hains calmly, “would have destroyed everything we had built over the last hundred years. I want his head on a spike and his body dragged through the capital tomorrow. Broadcast it around the world. I want everyone to know not to challenge the work of The Company. We must always stop these kinds of people, cut them at the root, I don’t care how protected they believe they are.”

The VP cleaned the elegantly curved sword with a silk scarf and walked deliberately slowly to the wall to remount it. His jet-black pointed beard. tight hair bun and tattoos on his neck and hands revealed his obsession with Asian culture, with emperors and warriors of long-dead kingdoms.

Hains’s long-suffering assistant, Tobias Higgins felt relatively little shock anymore as he deftly scribbled on the video pad a sequence of instructions to staff. He was old enough to remember when there was more than one company, and when businesses answered to governments and not the other way.

The ambassador had made a big mistake, suggesting the continued expansion of The Company could lead to the extinction of life. He was right of course, but The Company was beyond right and wrong, it was simply a blind giant that consumed without satisfaction.

“We’ve nearly run out of materials…”, the ambassador had whimpered. “Production cannot be sustained. And… we modelled the atmosphere breakdown to be in ten years, not thirty as previously thought… We have to stop now and do something different…I am sorry to tell you but…”

And that had been enough for the VP, who had been feeling intense emotions akin to betrayal and hatred, even before the ambassador entered the room with his device with its pages of research and data.

People used to protest, but those days were all but over. It became common knowledge that death visited anyone voicing complaints, not just them but also their families, who would be dragged out in the shadows of night. It was usually a pair of dark vans, a knock on the door and the Smith’s and Jone’s and everyone and anyone, simply vanished in minutes with muffled yells and lost shoes on the pavement. Neighbours would hear it and hide behind the thin barriers of curtains, relieved it wasn’t them.

The formula of living had become demanding. People had salary-linked product lists and quotas set by The Company, made up of compulsory purchases. Everyone had to share in the buying, to ensure all the products were popular.

Tobias scratched his shoulder, something was irritating him, a lump was growing under the skin, which was turning blue and purple, ironically, the colours of The Company branding. It was strange, the little lump appeared and shrank and then grew back somewhere else bigger. Scratching it helped but it never stopped itching.

“What are you doing?” snapped the vice president.

“Sorry Sir, a small medical matter…”

“Let me guess, a colourful lump? I have three now,” bragged Hains.

“…Yes, Sir.. Do you know what it is?”

“Yes, I do… My doctor explained…Just bits of excess flesh, more for less if you will – nothing to worry about. Something to do with the product chemicals.”

“Which product chemicals, if you don’t mind me asking, Sir?”

“Oh… All of them. Paint, plastic, and coatings – all these kinds of things accumulate in your flesh. Now, fetch me my agenda for the week and for the love of profit, clear this blood up and get the rug changed before my next meeting.”

The huge wall-wide window of his rooftop office revealed an endless glittering ocean under a baking sun, the sparks of light winking from bobbing bottles, cartons and colourful debris. The sky was hazy with a fierce heat.

There was a sense in Tobias’s gut that he ought to run or do something uncharacteristic but the feeling passed. He put it down to a little adrenaline. He sighed, glanced up at his employer and remembered all at once, that he had a luxury car, a seven-bedroom house with a long drive, a family to look up to him and privileges not afforded most, in this hard rock world.

He smiled and clicked his fingers at the cleaning staff who scuttled in with heads low, to remove the decapitated body. When no one was looking his way, he began scratching his growth hard, almost enjoying the relief his sharp digging nails gave him and he wondered if everyone had these now. He sensed his nails break the crust and a little blood and puss seeped under his shirt.

How strange, he thought, that everyone would grow the same ‘on-brand’ lumps on their skin, maybe, he thought, there was a marketing campaign in it. Of course, customers would buy what they were told, but he did like a clever marketing campaign, it made him believe again.

The End