Means and Ends

"Means don't justify the end, Arthur", said Simon Piltzchuck, in his tired, quiet voice, for the third time that evening.

"I've been trying to tell you", said Arthur Henderson testily. "It's not about the means at all. Screw the means. All that matters - all that really matters - is the ends."

"So we're ... we're just going to do it?"

"We don't have a choice. Think of the shareholders, Bob! Think of all the grandmothers and down-and-out dads and all the others who are relying on us to come through with this!"

Simon thought this was rich, pretending to care about the shareholders when he couldn't even remember the name of his employees. There were only twenty, housed in the small office block off Cupertino, California. Twenty employees, one proprietor, and about a hundred shareholders. Going public had been a bad idea, he decided in retrospect, it just gave Henderson's already overinflated ego more fuel.

"Look, Arthur. This is stupid. We have about a thousand people coming to the website every day. This industry runs on trust. We loose their trust, they're out of here."

"That's not the point. Listen. Listen, will you? I built this company up from nothing. I know where I want it to go, and it'll go where I want it to go. And it will be big." Henderson stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one, and in the darkness of the small road Simon saw the dull red light reflected in his eyes. "We can do this, Bob. I'm sure of it. And I'm going to bet my company on it."

The two of them were standing on the road outside the office. The darkness was engulfing, and the stars looks like the tiniest of dots in the ink black sky. Just the quietness was putting Simon on edge, but it wasn't just the quietness. It was also the man standing beside him, with the flames of the future slowly bleeding out of his eyes. This was the man who had talked him into joining his company; now, he was scaring him away.

Simon took a single, long drag on his cigarette. "I've been meaning to talk with you about leaving", he said slowly. "I can't take it any more. I liked my last job, but this ... living on the edge, sleeping at the office, I just can't take it any more. I'd like to settle down and make my money, find someone. All this living dangerously is really getting to me."

There was no response. Simon turned to see Arthur examining him closely with red bloodshot eyes. Simon turned away and looked towards the mountains. He was employee number 3 at CyberMemetics Inc. He was one of the five people who had started the company. A part of his mind was simply refusing to believe what he had just said - leave the company? His company? Was it possible? But he knew he had to. To preserve his sanity. To find himself again, after half a decade of databasing and server administration.

"Go", Henderson said suddenly.

He turned to his boss, who suddenly had a strange, half-crooked smile on his face.

"No, go. Seriously. I just said the ends justify the means, didn't I? You lucky bastard. I wish I was going."

The smile expanded into a grin, as they came to a fork in the road. The two walked silently under the luminous moon, two silent men lost in their thoughts, dreams and futures. A tiny stream of smoke curled slowly into the quiet night sky.

Throbthrob

He could barely see any more. He was drunk, drunk out of his mind, drunk out of the world, drunk out of everything. The world had long since turned woozy, and all the colours had flashed into blinding, brilliant shades of black.

He stumbled tumbled fumbled down down down, and as he went he thought a thought. An image: a girl. Twenty-four. Beautiful. Tall. Slender. Dark dark eyes. Smile like a fountain flowing. Anything else? No, no. That's it.

Through his confused bemused imbibed mind, he could almost still smell her. You never notice, he thought blearily, you just never notice how important smell is. Smell, that ugly duckling sister to the eyes, the hands, the lips. You never notice until it's too late.

He stepped into something, something squishy and icky. He barely noticed, pausing a second to scrape his foot on on on ... something hard. That's all he knew, and could he try and figure it out he could yes he could but he didn't want to not now not now.

He thought thought but the images flashed now, rushing through this densely slowly shifting last few weeks. They had met and and danced at at but but he he ...

He gave up. The pain intense sharp clogged up his insides and made him want to vomit vomit. He knew he would he was so drunk he was so very very drunk and his head it hurt and his feet they hurt so bad so bad but he didn't couldn't wouldn't care any any more. Any any more more.

Cynicism inevitably seeps in, into that secret little place where hope lives, and stamps it out. Since Pandora, it's always been the same old story. Hope against Reality. Cynicism against Optimism. If you play your cards right, you can remember what you are beneath the anger and frustration and hopelessly failed dreams, and you can keep to that. But every once in a while, the Other does creep in, and does take over, and then - for a day, a week, a month - you aren't who you want to be.

He was out, out of the disco now, out onto the road and red the car lights racing away and white the headlight on his right and black the sky and grey the moon and white the water white the building white the trees and white the dreams.

Then the white white headlight drove him down, and suddenly: Oops. Too late.

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