“Mr. Erogance!”
“What is it, Fetchwater?!”
“I’m going to hand you your lunch!”
Erogance looked at the toadies sitting around the conference room table who wiped his ass with words of praise every day as he pointed at a middle-aged bald man with sagging shoulders and a rumpled suit while saying, “You, what’s your name?!”
“Werth.”
“No, fucknuts, your last name!”
“Liskisasch.”
“Liskisasch, yeah, that’s right! Tell me why Fetchwater appears, on the surface, to be showing initiative!”
Werth Liskisasch shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, sir, I believe it’s because, um … I, uh ... I don’t know, sir.”
Mr. Erogance, a manly man who was thirty-five, tall, and built like a lion with a head of Viking-like white-blonde hair, a chiseled jaw with high cheek bones, steely blue eyes, and a perpetual tan, adjusted his red tie, removed his suit coat, and said, “Liskisasch, you piece of shit, hold this while I think!”
Liskisasch, dowdy and uncoordinated, stumbled out of his chair and shuffled quickly with his head hung low to hold Erogance's suitcoat. Whenever he inhaled, Erogance’s chest heaved, stretching his blue undershirt tight across the chest. Before Liskisasch could grab the coat, Erogance let it drop to the floor and bellowed, “Liskisash, you incompetent buffoon! Pick up my fucking suitcoat and take it to the dry cleaner! I’ll beat you for your insolence later!”
Liskisasch, humiliated as he had been every day of his life, picked up the suit coat and waddled out of the room with tears in his eyes.
Erogance looked directly at the woman sitting next to Fetchwater. “Let that be a lesson to you, Ballichre! I'm the man waving around the big fucking dick! You were shit when you were born, you're shit now, and you'll forever be shit until I tell you to be something besides shit!”
Trenchant Ballichre nodded her head vigorously but said nothing. She had become used to such verbal abuse and harassment. While she disliked being mistreated so cruelly on a daily basis, she also knew that she had no job title nor any responsibilities of any sort. Of course, no member of Erogance’s staff had a job title other than “staff” and not one of them had any responsibilities at all except to listen to Erogance berate them every day.
Erogance looked about the room. Heads had turtled between shoulders and the suits of both women and men seemed to be worn for armor rather than corporate protocol. Erogance grumbled haughtily and yelled, “Where was I?!”
Fetchwater’s hand flew up in the air, waving vigorously.
“Fetchwater, I’m right here you fucking dipshit! Speak up and stop waving your damned hand like a fucking school girl!”
“Sir, I’m going to hand you your lunch!”
Erogance peered into Fetchwater’s large, round eyes, almost entirely white except for a tiny ring of brown around his black retinas. Fetchwater gulped and pulled his hand down slowly. Erogance bent down, put his hands on his knees, and moved his face within inches of Fetchwater’s.
After nearly a minute of silence marked only by the flaring of Erogance’s nostrils and Fetchwater’s incessantly blinking eyes, Erogance’s mouth exploded violently and, with wild flapping of cheeks and smacking of lips, shrieks of violent noise assaulted Fetchwater’s face: “Goddamnit, Fetch, you festering pustule, hand me my fucking lunch before I shit a hole in your chest!”
At that, Fetchwater timidly leaned over the side of his chair and lifted a Styrofoam container. He then dipped his head and handed Mr. Erogance his lunch.
Erogance took hold of it, stood up, and opened the container. “What the fuck is this, Fetch?!”
“I believe it’s a calzone, sir.”
“No, you fucking shithead, the fucking container!”
“Wh-wh-what do you mean, sir?”
“Wh-wh-what the fuck do you think I mean, you stupid fucking twat?!”
“Well, it’s, um, I guess it’s, uh, Styrofoam?”
“Did you just tell me in the form of a question?! You don’t have the fucking balls to come out and say ‘It’s Styrofoam’ when you know goddamned fucking well that it is?! You gutless fuck!” With his free hand, Erogance slapped Fetchwater’s face so hard that strings of snotty saliva flew two seats down and landed on the tiny bird-like face of Titlittle Patchsnatch who flinched momentarily but otherwise said nothing while allowing the gunk to remain stuck to her forehead, cheek, and nose. Fetch’s combover stood up straight in the air as he righted himself. He put his hand to his right cheek which was rapidly turning from pasty white to bright pink.
Fetch’s eyes were watering which caused Erogance to ask, “Are you crying, you little bitch, cause I can smack you a fuck-ton harder if you’d like?!”
Fetch meekly stuttered, “N-n-n-no, sir.”
For the first time all day, Erogance muttered barely above his breath. “Stuttering pussy.”
Almost immediately, though, his fiery indignation returned. “Why the fuck am I holding a Styrofoam container?! Anyone?! Do any of you living turds remember what I said about Styrofoam containers?! I want fucking ten of them with every fucking meal! And what the fuck do I get today?! ONE! One motherfucking Styrofoam container from a frumpy little twaddler who can’t even live up to his fucking pathetic name! Fetch, I will torture and kill you if you ever disappoint me again! Do you understand me?! Am I making myself clear?! You will be exterminated in the most heinous fucking way if you so much as blink the rest of the day! I own you, motherfucker! I literally own you!”
This was true. Erogance owned every single member of his staff. In the Corporate States of Dystopia, Inc., corporate owners owned all of their employees, often purchasing them at birth then having them raised to become sycophants, lackeys, and brownnosers. Erogance’s staff members, while owned, were not slaves. According to corporate law and charters, employees were assets, having lost their rights to be humans because of unpaid debts. With bankruptcy outlawed, humans were legally required to sign over their rights as humans in exchange for loans from corporations if they lacked sufficient funds to purchase goods such as food, water, and shelter. If they were unable to pay back these loans, which they inevitably were as there were no jobs for humans, they either relinquished their rights as humans and became assets or signed over their children or potential offspring—to be delivered by a certain date determined within the terms of the loan—as assets to corporations.
While none of this would have made much sense to generations past, corporations had wiped out history and the illicit study of history was a crime punishable by relinquishing rights to be humans and becoming assets which were often denigrated, humiliated, tortured, or killed depending on the whims of corporate owners. This was common corporate practice because other than granting loans, corporations no longer produced anything or served any economic function. Technology had advanced to such a degree that every possible need and want of every human being--and asset--could be provided at any moment. Corporate ownership in generations past had seen this change coming on the horizon well before the public so they gradually changed the laws in every nation around the world and eventually eliminated governments entirely by instituting what amounted to corporate feudalism. Resisters were eliminated during long wars in places where corporate owners did not live until there were only cowards who chose to remain alive in a world in which they were most likely to lose their status as human beings as they were assimilated by corporations as assets.
For generations past, questions about why corporations weren’t abolished and near-utopian societies established never arose because those who would have asked such questions were killed before technology provided for all of society’s needs and desires without any management or effort from humans. Thus, things were as they were because humans with proclivities for curiosity and skepticism had been bred almost entirely out of existence. A species of unthinking cowards was being bred to replace them.
Corporate owners were quick to pat themselves on the back for eliminating poverty and homelessness. They had done this by holding press conferences declaring that poverty and homelessness had been eradicated. Thus, they had been. Corporate society had progressed, as owners liked to say, to the point where there were no more humans living under bridges or out in the elements. This was true. Those who had been homeless or were about to become homeless were forced to accept loans for housing and then when they defaulted they became assets owned by corporations. The early homeless, which included what had been the middle classes and even the upper middle classes, were often exterminated immediately after becoming corporate assets to eliminate the possibility of rebellion or revolt, but as new generations succeeded those from the old world, immediate terminations became less and less necessary due to successful eugenics programs which had all but eradicated qualities such as courage from humans who were not corporate owners.
The Corporate States of Dystopia, Inc., were on the verge of eliminating all humans who did not own corporations because nearly every newborn was coming into the world as a corporate-owned asset. A countdown to the last human, based on computer algorithms, was being watched by corporate owners—who could have easily made every human an asset at any time but didn’t because, well, where was the sport in that? Each owner, man and woman, anxiously awaited the indulgent celebrations that were set to take place once the last human became an asset. A person from past generations may have asked, “Where is the sport in that?” The answer to that question, had it been asked even though it wasn’t, was that the very last non-asset, non-owner human would be granted ownership status. One from the past may have thought that would have created killing sprees or remarkable and ingenious strategies for remaining alive while others perished, but initiative had been bred out of all non-assets who were not currently owners.
A man or woman from long ago may have wondered how any of this could have been exciting for owners, but such curiosities never arose long ago and, thus, no one wondered, but had a person wondered then the answer might now be that it simply didn’t matter what anyone from the past thought because they weren't present. The excitement for owners, though, came from thinking about future generations of corporate owners. By making an owner of one human who had been bred without any redeeming qualities, there stood the chance that all future owners might eventually be overtaken by the spread of cowardly, sycophantic genes thus ending for all of humanity any enjoyment of being alive in any way, shape, or form. The reason that this was so exciting for owners was because they thought of themselves as living in possibly the last age of civilization in which life was worth living. This made mortality much easier to swallow; the elimination of history hadn't hurt the cause, either. The logic may have been flawed, but then again corporate owners were known for their cunning ruthlessness rather than the use of logic or reason, both of which had gotten in the way of profits during ages when profits still existed.
Thus, Mr. Erogance continued his tirades while buying new assets so that he could abuse, rape, torture, and kill them. He lived a depraved and unsatisfying life.
