A strange one I admit, the product of a dinner break at work with nothing to do...
There was a time when I coud've walked the best clubs and bars of Uptown and mingled with the most famous people of my era. I used to be able to call up one of over a hundred stars that knew me on first name terms and go for a meal or a game of golf. There was a time when I could sit in my boardroom and make or break virtually any other company with a gross turnover of less than 100M credits. I gave everything to get there and thought I had it all. Well, I did, I did have it all, but I had it taken from me by the very company that put me there...
I worked hard so that I never had to worry about money, I earned a prettty penny as Chair of my company and made sure my familly never went without. I was an utter fool to think that money can solve all of a persons problems, it just makes them more subtle. I never thought I'd neglected my Wife Julia, I gave her everything she asked for and kept her well housed in an expensive Uptown Apartment with everything she could possibly need. I never thought that she might just need _me_. The normal me, not the board room me or the work till 2am to clinch the deal me but just me.
We had problems and she left me shortly after the year 900 celebrations, she'd met a man on a SLAnet chatroom and spent most of the previous year talking to him and decided to leave me for him. The divorce papers mentioned something about 'neglect' & 'mistreatment' but I couldn't beleive it so I fought her in the courtroom. The judge was biased against me and she walked away with half my personal fortune, I'd spent most of my half fighting the court battle and hiring staff to keep my company running.
While I was involved with this my company struggled. The same driving focuss that kept me at the top had been transferred elsewhere and without my leadership the stocks plunged and within 2 months the shareholders where puling out and I was oblivious to it all.
When I re-took the helm I had maybee a tenth of when I left and I was a broken man. I'd lost the will to get it all back again, lost the will to fight. Over the next year my life degraded even more, any hope of getting together with Julie had evaporated as she moved to New Paris. My company had lost virtually all of its value and my offices had moved first to suburbia and then to downtown. All my various contacts and friends never returned my calls and it was as if I were a ghost whispering in their ears. They just walked on by and ignored me.
I would blame them but I had done the same. I lived the vibrant life of the wealthy and never saw the grey colourless faces of those I trampled on to get there. Now I was one with the faceless masses, the colour drained from me to match the drab surroundings of my new existence. I never new how harsh life could be at the bottom, secured as I was at the top. I had to live in a squalid apartment block, the rain would seep in through the walls ruining everything I owned and I was followed home several times by gangs who took what surplus money I had in 'protection fees'. I reported this to the Shivers who filed my case and told me they would look into it.
I spent the next few months slowly loosing my remaining hold on the company, rent was high and revenue was hard to come by. Eventually my debts exceeded my income and the bank no longer listened to my desperate pleas for aid. They took my final hold on the world and I was left destitute.
I had no friends and was spit upon, mugged and scorned by the people that shared my apartment block, I suppose that I had done the same to them when I was above them. I was trapped in the most cruel of prisons and forced to watch the rich and famous on a T.V. that never turned off, never ceased to show me how much I had lost. I became a nobody. Another colourless body walking a meaningless existence in this, my own personal nightmare.
The world was taken from me and I slowly faded into the grey mass of society. I'm a tale of another vibrant soul with the will to live bleached from me by a cruel uncaring world.