The London Underground District Line train came squealingly to rest at Tower Hill station, vomiting out the passengers it had swallowed as its winding journey carried it through the affluent suburbs to the East of London. Taut - nerved commuters twitched onto the platform and herded themselves towards the exit and another day of quiet desperation. An arrival mantra came robotically from the public address "Mind The Gap. Mind The Gap. Mind The Gap." The commuters were mostly young, not many appearing to be past early middle age, uniformly smart in their conventional business clothes and they had uniformly intense, closed expressions. Among the crowd that jostled and pushed around the corner into the street called Minories and over the crossing to Tower Gate station on the Docklands Light Railway was Robin Jonson, a thirty - five year old Corporate Account Executive whose unlined face wore the same strained expression as all the others, all the people were pushing on towards new challenges, new opportunities, oblivious of the vomit, the roaches and the empty wraps that, along with other street litter, they trod underfoot. Robin, like the others, thought it was the street litter that made the bitter smell in his nostrils but he was wrong. It was the smell of fear, of loneliness, of decaying hope. So many people moved around that corner on their route through a world of plenty. They were the warriors, the conquistadors of materialism and they had built a citadel in which human beings had never had so much. They lived however in a world inhabited by people who had never had less. The smell of the crowd they made would have told a more primitive creature that they were all hunted.
Robin was eventually carried by the press of the crowd onto the platform of the elevated railway. Emerging from the staircase he had climbed to a platform above the street he noticed a poster. It was a small landmark that he always looked for on his journeys to work. It advertised the work of a missionary group among the homeless and hopeless. The poster depicted a glowing figure reaching towards the crowd. "Jesus Saves" it proclaimed. Robin flushed with anger as he saw that some witless and unoriginal person had aerosoled "Moses Invests" across the image of the Messiah.
Although he was used to the cruel jibes that his belief prompted, Robin was furious that people could belittle the two thousand years dead prophet in such a crass way.
Corin Dreckmeyer, slim, tanned, handsome, with even, preternaturally white teeth, fair hair with perfectly symmetrical grey streaks at the temples, preposterously blue eyes and a too perfect nose was approaching forty and perfect. Even the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were perfect. He was not afraid of getting old. Age could give a man distinction if it was properly managed. Everything cfould be managed. The President of UK Operations for New Olympian Pharmaceutical Corp. was the youngest divisional president in the organization. One day he would be President of the whole corporation. It was the goal to which he had dedicated his life.
Corin lived in an apartment in an exclusive Docklands development guarded by private security staff. The central courtyard of the block was a community centre with two bars, two restaurants, a gym with pool, a marble dance floor under a retractable roof, an ornamental garden & secure parking. In the basement was a meditation room and a Primal Scream Therapy room. Like most of the development's inhabitants Corin seldom made use of these facilities for any other reason than urgent coitus of the type that should not be allowed to interrupt the networking opportunities of social occasions for too long.
Dreckmeyer was single and thought relationships counter productive. His attempt at marriage had been aborted after less than a year. "The bitch made demands." He told the group of friends who helped him celebrate the dissolution of the union.
Since then, Corin had taken refuge in serial, emotion - free couplings.
As he shaved and dressed he felt mightily pleased with himself, reflecting on a story the Radio had told while he was taking a shower. Some survey had shown that most white, professional males had less than ten sexual partners in their lives. "Jeez," thought Corin. "I've had ~ must be a fifty, sixty, more, and I'm not yet forty" - the idea that a lot of his peers had had less than their share of partners because of his efforts pleased him greatly.
Corin wondered as he made his way to work if any of the other men who would be at the mornings meeting had penetrated so many women. Things like that were important. Numbers. There was empowerment in numbers. Big numbers empower. The biggest salary, the most lovers, the highest IQ, most expensive car, top floor apartment. The things a man could be measured by empowered him. But there was also empowerment in the smallest number of all. Being Number One. Corin could not contemplate being anything except number one. His seldom driven car was the most expensive in the garage. His apartment was the most expensive in the development as was his mostly pointless, minimalist furniture. He was top man in his company's UK operation and about to make the leap to the headquarters in northern Ohio.
Corin's journey through the precincts of the regenerated docklands did not take long and he liked to consider, as he strode purposefully along, the modernity and power of the huge, new buildings, the very fabric of which seemed to contain the energies necessary to conceive success. As the President of UK Operations entered the foyer of the New Olympian Building he was noticed by Robin Jonson who, because he always felt diminished by the positive energy that Dreckmeyer seemed to emit, diverted from his path and walked to a nearby kiosk to buy a newspaper.
At the kiosk Robin scanned the headlines on the papers and magazines. "Darren and Katie Split." "Star Paulo checks into clinic." "Sinead's therapist speaks out." "Faith Healer to the Stars" and so on, over trivial stories about sport and showbiz celebs. He selected a rather subdued broadsheet and wondered why, in a world filled with people so obviously looking for something, the ones like Dreckmeyer felt so confident in denegrating Robin's beliefs and religious ethics; beliefs that gave him a firm moral and ethical footing to build his life on.
Robin Jonson tightened his lips and decided that neither Dreckmeyer and his sycophants, nor Satan, the great beast of Revelations would shake the simplistic faith that sustained him in this soulless place where everybody was looking for something to define themselves by, something to give their lives meaning. Success, Money, Love, Fame, Friendship, Sex, Power, Nirvana, The Force. Everybody was obsessed with self - analysis, improvement, upward mobility, material goals. They read self help books and slavishly made lists against which they could assess their positive attitude and achievement quotients. They shifted their paradigms, faced their issues, were there for each other. They developed the habits of highly effective people by prioritizing what they wanted to achieve (ignoring the fact that a highly effective waster makes a priority of slobbing out near the HiFi with a six - pack, a spliff and a supply of Mars Bars because to acknowledge there were, for some people, priorities not concerned with success and personal development would have made nonsense of it all.) and still they were lonely, still in a mess.
Robin pulled in his gut, decided that religion needed a paradigm shift, felt the power of the Lord flow through him like a cocaine hit, increased his stride length and determined that he would one day be President of UK Operations, to the glory of God. His success would be his evangelism. People would take him as a role model and flock to be reborn in Jesus, rejecting the old gods of Hedonism and Conspicuous Consumption, as they clamored for the buzz that only self righteousness could give. God would surely be there for him, after all he led a life of devout purity and material success would testify to his faith. Had not John Calvin himself believed that The Lord rewarded faith, simplicity and purity with financial success in order to encourage sinners to take a more righteous path. Robin felt indestructible as he stepped into the lift in which he would ascend the New Olympian Building.
In the office Fiona, the President's personal assistant showed Corin the morning papers. One headline caught his eye. The Corporate Senior President of New Olympian had committed the corporation to join the fight against the growing drug culture in Western Societies.
The corporation would commit both human and financial resources to a campaign aimed at rehabilitating persistent drug users and raising drugs awareness. The president had issued a statement that read: "We at New Olympian Pharmaceutical like to think of ourselves as the positive side of drugs. Our drugs cure sickness, relieve pain, improve mental alertness, promote physical well-being and contribute to mankind's journey onward and upward to a brave new world. But we are constantly aware that there is a negative side to drugs. Abuse of pharmaceuticals and some natural products can lead people, victims of criminal activities by those concerned only with fast profit, to become negative contributors to our society. We feel that the time has come for the forces of good to line up against the tide of evil, to join together and cut out this cancer that is eating at our world."
A document from the corporate motivational consultant caught the President of UK Operations' attention next. It concerned the product launch of a new drug, Panglostone, a universal anti - depressant that would be of interest to government agencies responsible for dealing with social issues. The paper was littered with repetitions of words like 'positive,' 'succeed,' inclusive,''modernise,' 'involvement,' 'empower,' 'improve,' 'manage.' 'change.' It was the language of a corporate pantheon.
It was also the language of inadequacy, designed to make the reader feel that the rest of the world was positive and motivated and welcomed constant change as the route to success and universal improvement. It isolated its readers, made them feel as if they were the only person in the world who wanted to scream "No! Slow Down! Let me get my head round this. It was the sociology of the Emperor's new Clothes. Who would be brave enough to see that there were no bright new clothes, just a jumble of threadbare rags tacked together by intellectually bankrupt carpetbaggers. Nobody wanted to be the first to shout out that the King had no clothes for fear that everybody else would turn away and silence would ridicule the lone voice.
At the end of the motivational consultant's paper was an invitation to call the Corporate President and CEO or one of his aides to discuss local strategy. The final sentence told Corin that his call would be received at 11.30 am GMT. which revealed that the invitation was in fact an order. It also revealed that the President and CEO did not intend to speak to Corin personally which worried the President of UK Operations.
The New Olympians
