Diamond surfaced from sleep at 6am to find Frank sitting up beside her in bed laughing. He had the laptop on his knees. “What ARE you doing?” she whispered.
“Who do you think is the richest plonker in the world according to Forbes?” Frank responded and Diamond de-fuzzed her brain by scratching her head. “For fucks sake, Frank! Why on earth would I care about that?” Frank smiled and carried on regardless:
“It's Bernard Arnault, whose LVMH empire includes luxury brands Louis Vuitton, Moet & Chandon and Tiffany & Co. He’s French and his family are worth $186.7bn (£150bn), according to this latest list of billionaires, while Elon Musk's value is a mere $176.8bn. Aw, poor Lone Skum has slipped off the crown, thanks to spending $44bn on Twitter! Like he is bothered about that! Gautam Adani's $133.7bn puts him third and Amazon's Jeff Bezos’ measly $115.7bn comes in fourth!”
Diamond slipped her feet to the floor and headed into the en-suite bathroom muttering “Geez! However do they work out how much these people are worth?” and Frank laughed again. “It’s a donkey derby, honey! Some hack gets AI to work it out, but of course the result depends on how accurate the input has been. Everyone knows that the trillionaires don’t ever get mentioned. Oh no! Can’t have the great unwashed finding out about THEM!”
The sound of the shower drowned out Dim’s reply and Frank consulted You Tube to play some morning music. He was feeling more than one hundred per cent contented with himself and his legs did not hurt for the first time in many months. He threw back the quilt and unpeeled one of his honey patches thinking, It’s amazing how quickly flesh can rebuild itself. He got up and joined Diamond in the shower.
London was freezing at minus six degrees centigrade and Kensington Park glistened silvery in the streetlamp light. Dawn doesn’t happen until past 7am at this time of the year. London doesn’t care about that. She wakes up and creaks into action by 5am. Her people never question the fierce work ethic, it has always been this way, probably since the Romans built the first docks and began two thousand years of empire building on the back of human slavery.
Across town, Pru Dense was listening to her squawking radio alarm, extracting herself from her tumbled bed covers and switching on the bedside lamp. The soft pink glow of it always made her skin look fabulous. She staggered into the shower and woke up by a cold blast to the face. Today was going to be packed with meetings and fake smiles as usual. Pru loved Fridays. She usually finished up by 3pm and headed for the wine bar. She wanted to look as razor sharp as possible today because she had a new client to impress. Little black number? Or that multi-grey sculptured dress she had found in Marks & Sparks? Decisions, decisions!
On her mind-list were an endless array of networking phone calls to keep herself relevant and up-to-date with the city gossip. The first of which came in as she was drying her hair.
“Hi, Diamond! How are you doing?” and she was impressed with the happy response she received. “Yes, darling! That is great…. OK catch ya for lunch maybe?” as Diamond reported that she was ready to return to her engagements, Pru saw a string of ££s parading into her bank account.
—0—
Sleeping on SeaSwan was a haphazard affair, taken in unstructured shifts depending on the weather. Usually, one of the three seafarers was catching a few hours rest while the other two wrestled with the wind and waves. There was no hope of anyone getting a full eight hours sleep for at least the next 10 days, possibly more. Olympia had calculated that it was impossible to be home for Christmas. Maybe in Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa if they were lucky? She wasn’t especially worried about missing Christmas Day itself, just as long as they were going to be in London for New Years’ Eve. Can’t miss that….
Olympia stripped off her wet clothes, sponge washed quickly and dried herself with a rough towel. There was no mirror in the cabin but she could see that her arms and legs were taut with overworked muscles. She ignored the aches and massaged herself with a generous dollop of aloe vera to sooth the dry salt damaged skin. Don’t be a wimp, Lymp! She heard her tennis coach shouting through her memory, Rome wasn’t won in a day!
Rome be damned! Thought Olympia. London is the new Rome and I’ve already conquered it! She had a healthy disrespect for the city of her birth and had been disgusted by the simpering, almost begging, symbology of the predator class that is being exposed to scrutiny lately. She knew the message behind Beauty and the Beast, which was grabbing the spotlight in its 30th Anniversary TV extravaganza. Sure, we will forgive you terrorising us for centuries! She sarcastically mused as she tucked herself into bed. Forgiveness requires a bit of humility first though….
Show us the humility and the promise of a future without fear first, predators.
Then we might believe you.
As she dozed, fitfully tossed about in the raging untamed Atlantic, she remembered one particular episode of the X-Files and hoped and prayed that Diamond had avoided the vaccines. She eventually slept, sure that would have been the case.
Diamond may be a little dim, she thought, but she is not stupid.
To access all the episodes of this ludicrous fictional tale of social media influencers and their self indulgent life, simply go to the pinned comment on:
Episode 17 -https://francesleader.substack.com/p/diamonds-are-occasionally-dim
Thanks. Life in the time of "Rainbow Brite - TikTok" entrepreneurs. Take refuge in the land of muddy creeks, mountains, rivers, plains & your feathers and amber.