ELEVATOR WAYS

Spick and span was the word that would scream at you if you walked into Luke's office at any given time of the day. Everything shone from the polished table to the windows. Orderliness ruled Luke's life and his business was an extension of his life. Little wonder the Neverlands' Company building was renovfavouriteediately after he took over from his father. He couldn't stand the sight of old or common. Everything he had in there was unique. So was he. Luke sat at his table, flicking his pen this way and that way, brainstorming ideas that would push him to hit the next jackpot for the year. For him, it was all about that. The next way out. The next investment. The next big bang. Talking about bangs, a smile escaped his lips when last night's escapades were suddenly brought to his remembrance. How wonderful his night had been. He didn't even bother to fight it. He let it develop into a full smile. The kind of child full of contentment and a wad of cash he had just gotten from his favorite Aunt's visit would give. He spun the chair around and rolled it away from the table and towards the windows. His office sat prettily on the top floor of the company's building, overlooking other business enterprises and the top of the whole city. It made him feel wholesome. Like a god. Like he was higher than everyone else. His life was perfect. Or so he thought. He could do whatever he wanted, go wherever he wanted and have as many girls as he liked. What more did a man want in this rat-chase life of his? After all, he was easily the best among you haters in the business industry. He had nothing to worry about. But he did worry. In fact, his worries had made him the best. Put him at the very top. His constant badgering of his mind and his intellect on which way to go and what next to do caused him to be one of the best, if not the best - in his field. When you're born with a silver spoon, you have two options in life. Sit in the house lying around and flexing on the dough your father worked his ass off to get. Or get your up behind and running to ensure that you become the next big thing. Luke had chosen the latter. He wanted it to be said that the Neverlands' Empire advanced greatly under his care and effective management. Nothing could beat that for him. That was his top priority. Although, he loved expensive stuff too. Loved to spend money. And to spend money, you have to make money. A lot of it. A good amount. And the economy wasn't smiling anywhere. But somehow, Luke had made it smile at him. He had cash stashed away in foreign bank accounts whenever he decided to travel the world. Only the very best for the hardest worker. From his office, he watched the hustle and bustle of city life. He wondered what it was like to be down there. To be at the very near end of the food chain, struggling to find your way up its ladder. He had discovered early enough that there were more advantages to poverty than people knew there were. Call it hypocrisy. Or whatever you choose to call it. It was far easier to build something big and grow it from scratch than maintain it. Today, someone's luck would click and shine, he'd got an opportunity that would change his life. He'd build a business out of it and move his family away from the poor neighbourhoods. He'd enjoy for, give or take, the first few years of business. Then maintenance of business and finding the next big step would set in. That was when the real work started. The real definition of hustle is that's where it begins. Across town, there was a textile factory that was the perfect example of his school of thought. In fact, he was sure that if he squinted hard enough, he would single out their building and the big sign that stood over it as the name to spell its doom. The poor man had lived in Texas half his life and brought his family into town. They find it hard to cope around here. In fact, Luke thought they would have found it hard to cope anywhere in the world. But the man had a gift, and he soon resorted to it to feed his family. That was something Luke approved of. The American dream was for everyone to make it. But it didn't include that all would climb up the success ladder by being employees. Though many had succeeded at doing that, Luke felt that trend was slowly dying. So he formed another school of thought here. If you can get jobs, do them. This was what this Texas guy resorted to. Trading in textiles. In a matter of years, the business bloomed and expanded. He expanded his mind too by converting to a textile company. It was the dream of every textile company. To become like him. However, prosperity didn't last so long as Luke's first school of thought would have it. He grew old and handed the company over to his sons. At the present moment, they are wrecked. He tried to step in and stay, but his era was way over. Most especially, the contacts weren't the same anymore. Business had changed hands everywhere. Now, it was the young people heading for the market and if you didn't know how to trade into their schedule and lifestyle, boy what a goner one would become. His young ones found it hard to maintain their legacy, and they went into huge debt. Although the company hadn't folded up yet, he knew that it was only a matter of months before they put up a 'maintenance' sign that everyone in American society knew pretty well signified the dying end of a glorious company. Luke was only privileged to all of this information because he had studied the stocks of these people. And he was only interested in it because he hoped to buy the building as soon as they folded up. In fact, he would let them off with a big amount of money that they wouldn't be able to resist. Because he knew that business wasn't moving for them then but the building was located in a place where Neverlands could expand more and more. His smile grew the more he thought about it. Little wonder he excelled greatly at this business charade. The business was a game of cards, whoever got the worst hand dealt but played exceptionally well, won. And if there was anything he knew about himself, it was that the trophy never left his table. A knock on his door jolted him out of his reverie. His PA stepped into the cosy office, an elegant lady with a nice build. "Sir your meeting is in an hour. The car is prepared and is downstairs waiting for you?"