My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings…
(The following is an excerpt from my novella "Hammerhead," now available on Amazon.)
Our story begins with the big-headed tycoon awakening in his island abode. His mind gravitates to the prices and craftsmanship of his bedroom furniture; then, to the vast collection of his wife’s closet; and then, to his wife… Oh, right — his wife…
He’s almost certain his wife hates him. Even when he proposed to her, he believed she hated him. But she made good use for enthralling and befriending the wives of dignitaries and executives and heads of state. She looks good on his arm in press releases. She has magnificent genes with which to generate his children — the inheritors of his legacy. Plus, she got the perks of unlimited wealth and power; she can have anything she desires, regardless of how little she wants it.
Being a Scandinavian-Lebanese supermodel has its perks: adoring fans, limelight, automatic access to galas and nightclubs, influence over the media, influence over the elite… but it doesn’t offer everything. And she knew this. She knew her unparalleled, unattainable beauty would slowly fade away with age — and with it would go her power, and her wealth, and her influence. She knew that other, younger beauties—similarly graced by Aphrodite—would usurp her.
So she settled for him, marrying him for his usefulness. Love is not a factor in business. He had resources, she had beauty; it was a transaction as archetypical as that of the first humans. Whether people realize it or not, the marriages that survive even in today’s “advanced society” do so on the backbone of one principle: the transaction, being that women marry for reliable provisions and men marry for reliable reproduction. Our history is owed to beautiful women and resourceful men.
His wife hates him, and that’s okay; he has access to other, younger beauties. After all, he’s resourceful.
His wife might or might not know that his mistress shares the clothes in her closet. His wife never wears them, so he figured his mistress could put them to use. She lives here, in the cantilever penthouse on the southern tip of his island. Nowadays she sleeps in another room, but she used to share his circular bed with him. They used to get into some fresh, kinky hijinks in this room; sometimes even against the glass windows, bending out over the waters below, feeling almost ethereal. But she grew older, and she learned to hate him just as his wife had.
Fine, so be it, he thought of her long ago. At least he has his domain — the hub of his universe. This whole island is an impenetrable testament to his empire, operating as the brain and heart of the Machiavellian industries that keep his corporation alive. No other man alive has the wealth, the infrastructure, or the power that he has — and very few dead could claim to be his peer.
Out his bedroom door is a hallway dedicated to those who dared as he does; lining the hall on both sides is a row of marble busts, depicting the men who shaped the modern world. Washington, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, founders of empires; Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, titans of industry; Socrates, Newton, Einstein, revolutionary thinkers; Darwin, Tesla, Da Vinci, pioneers of innovation; Beethoven, Van Gogh, Shakespeare, masters of form; Lenin, King, Genghis Khan, indomitable leaders.
Each bust lit by an overhead spotlight of dim yellow, ensuring that the only light of this dark hall stretch is provided by the polished marbled faces of the men who built the world. To begin his day, he must pass through this gauntlet of stares from formidable men who know the costs of grandeur; he must face each one and look them in their unflinching eyes, promising to do his damnedest to earn a place among them.
These are the giants who came before him, and he stands upon their shoulders. Without them, he could not become one. Someday, he hopes, people will remember him by his surname, despite all others who had held this moniker prior. Someday, he hopes, he will be worthy of having a marble bust in his likeness.
His most rational fear is that—despite all he has accomplished—centuries from now, future generations will only know of him as a paragraph in a history book. Perchance he’ll only fetch a mention, or there’s the possibility that they’ll never learn of him at all. There’s always the possibility that he’ll fade into the ether; another name proudly carved into stone, only to be eroded by the sands of time.
As of yet, he’s got the tendrils of his corporate empire, dipping into the dealings of multiple governments and entrenching themselves in the bedrock of first world societies. He’s surely rooted his legacy, but of what is it made? A Wikipedia article and a couple headlines? That’s no legacy, that’s a factoid; that’s a Trivial Pursuit answer. More must be done to ensure longevity — but what?
He’d never dare to consider it, but being the kingpin of a corporate empire doesn’t equate to having legendary talent or innovation. Men who live on in the annals of history are men of substance; he has not proven yet that he is anything other than a man of production. Output is not value; profit is not significance.
He emerges into his spacious living room, where brutalism meets art deco. The three split levels are bedecked in the glamour of the atomic age, with curving couches that don’t conform to the rigidity of walls, and swooping sculptures of steel and paint, of no discernible shape or purpose.
At the lowest level, the back wall is a twenty-foot-high, sixty-six-foot-wide aquarium, acting as a dynamic IMAX screen to depict the everyday lives of exotic fish. Party guests can get up-close and personal with the denizens of the Indo-Pacific. There’s a thriving bed of corals, with sponges and anemones; garden eels, clownfish, seahorses, zebrafish, and shrimp patrol this reef. Many other tropical fishes and jellyfish peruse the waters, gallivanting in asynchronicity.
The most impressive of these occupants are the sharks: four of the shortfin mako (the fastest of all sharks); two massive whale sharks, who filter-feed on an abundance of plankton; and his most prized possession, the endangered great hammerhead — the largest of its breed. The great hammerhead is a solitary creature who lives at the pinnacle of its food pyramid—an apex predator. It is renowned as a powerful swimmer and for being incredibly perceptive.
Humans who dare enter the water with a great hammerhead are advised to show it reverence; it is curious of humans, though it will not feel threatened by us. It knows with confidence that no creature can defeat it. The great hammerhead demands your respect, as it will not hesitate to define you as prey. Those who show even an inch of aggression towards the great hammerhead will receive its ferocity.
Troy Romeo Corpen and the great hammerhead are creatures cut from the same cloth.
If the concept of spirit animals wasn’t bohemian hokum, Troy would be sure his was the great hammerhead. In fact, the only thing keeping him from having a Na’vi hair-bond with his prized hammerhead is the eleven inches of acrylic glass between them.
And that’s all I’ll divulge for now, but if you’d like to see the rest of his island (or hear more of his inner woes and external troubles) you can purchase “Hammerhead” on Amazon!
Do it and you’ll live forever!