He was wealthy beyond anything he could have dreamed of now but he couldn’t help but keep thinking of his humble origins in that vineyard over in the hills north of Lost Sanos, before he became, as it were, LOST in the hustle and bustle of the city’s mean streets. Capitalism, greed took over. Lust for power. Money. A simple video editor of GTA V he was back then. First camera. Couldn’t even figure out how to add his own speech in for the longest time. But then the talking started, and it never ended. Deal after deal after deal, making his way to the top of the pyramid, stepping on the heads of his competitors along the way. Smushing down everything beneath him that needed to be dealt with in his path like accrued sedimentary layers of mud and preserved skeletons. He didn’t feel like he was standing on the shoulders of giants to get to this point. He *was* the giant, towering above the land of man, tall as Atlas. A man and also a whole world. In his head. He could see the circumference, could navigate the surface like a modern day Magellan to all ports of call here there and there to collect favors, debts, even bribes if necessary to keep the collective going forward. But more and more lately he yearned for that old, delicious glass of Pinot noir, his favorite, while staring into the tiled fountain from his favorite seat on the patio, and wondering how to actually produce sound from his lips. Ah, the good old days.
If only he could find his fountain pens he could write down the halcyon beginnings, but big bucks blocked the way once more in the form of an attache case full of dough here, lid raised so he could gaze in on his most recently acquired booty. And he also wondered why he converted his laptop into such.
“Gertrude!” he called on the intercom to his underling secretary, one of the beaten down, one of the ones trying to escape the pressure of the city and return to country origins in her own northern arcadia of the early 21st Century, Morro Bay I believe it is called, a place Jack also knew about; where they met, actually. “Bring me a computer in here pronto and, let’s see, let’s make it a 62 inch monitor this time.” Big screen needed for a big view of the world, he rationalized. His world. F- the pens, f- the fountain, *f-* the vineyard. His thoughts had returned to the normal ones.
—-
“Do you want me to remove the attache case to make more room for you?” she asked after bringing it in and setting it up, gazing down on his now even more crowded desk and also wondering why he converted his laptop into such.
“No I’m not finished staring at it,” he said brusquely, barely acknowledging her presence all the time. Return to normal as I said. She left without more words.
Sunklands 