Reading harold_maude's journal

Says one to the other, "Next year I'll have enough money saved to go on that vacation I've been promising my family for years"
Says the other "That will be wonderful."

The next day the first one on his way to work spies a car he's been in love with since highschool.
He cannot resist. And it takes all the money he has and more.
At that moment he has enslaved him self to two things, and given much more away than just a vacation.

He has given away part of his life to fulfill a want that should maybe have been left in highschool.

The next day, his wife and children are killed while driving to the market to buy food. They had been talking about where the ideal vacation would be. You see he had told his family that next year there would be enough money saved for them to take a real vacation and there would be no work attached to it, like the other "vactions" over the years where the cover for a few days here and there was that it was connected to business.
The driver who hit them was a business man in too much of a hurry and too busy talking on a cell phone.
He was discussing the next violent take over of the company the man worked for.

And in the dark shadows the monster grins, and rubs it's bony hands together.
And eats another and more. Death to all who oppose it, it knows what it has taken...it smells of money..

He hadn't figured out how to tell them about the car, and after buying it, was having regrets and trying to decide which was more important, the promise he had made to them or his own desire that hadn't died since he first saw that car.

Now it was too late. The car which he gave their vacation up for now represented so many terrible things. Each one was pre-empted by the faces of thoes he loved.
Now they were gone.

He hated that car now. How selfish he had been.

Too late.

The smell of money, the lure of it...that's where this all started. Thinking about corporate things. How it promises much and delivers only a shadow that is vacant when you get close enough. It enslaves you than robs you of yourself and your freedom. It is a selfish whore who eats humans and spits out bitter withered bags of bones.
Nothing left but to burry them all.

So it is with the man who gave it all to have something that made an illusionary promise in highschool. That he would be admired and wanted. That he would be cool.
It took from thoes he loved, and then he lost more.

All that is left, is the shell of a man. Alone. Given a few days to take care of business, and then is expected to return to work and perform so that the company makes more profit. More money.
If the man cannot do his job efficently he will be fired. There will always be another body to replace him.
The corporate world doesn't care if you face death, or loss.
The only thing it wants from you is your life's blood. That smells like money to the corporate world.

It loves eating humans. It gets fat off our lives and then when we are too old to be of use it disgards us.

The man sits at the bar. The first one says to the second, "I have nothing left, except bills, and a car that I hate. My bed is cold and the laughter of my children haunt me.
The company I work for is about to be taken over, and I'm about to loose my job. How much more can I loose?"

Says the second man to the first "Things may get better, you never know. You put in a lot of loyal service to the company, and they have to reconize that....don't they"

Meanwhile, in a plush office there sits another man who looks over the lists of empolyees of the company that is about to be aquired and sees the man who has lost the most important things in the world. Sees how old he is, and writes these words over the top "Although he is very skilled his age is an impediment to our sucess, we are interested only in someone younger who has these same skills. He will not be rehired."

...somewhere in the dark shadows the creature laughs...

I missed this when it was first posted. All I can say is I wish I'd written it. How I would love to have my name attached to this...

You're here, aren't you? You're talking to me, aren't you?

...Thank you...