Greetings from South Korea. My school remains closed today, so I went ahead and gave this prompt a shot. Like writing fiction? Give it a shot yourself!

The goal was this:

I would like you create a character who has some type of mental health or emotional issues. It could be something potentially comedic like torettes, or as extreme as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or manic depression.

Get ready for this one, written in ten minutes and very much NSFW!

A Day In The Life of Chief Operating Secretary to the United States Secretary of the Treasury

1909 painting The Worship of Mammon by Evelyn De Morgan.

“But that’s socialism.” Jacob Neever, Chief Operating Secretary to the United States Secretary of the Treasury, shook his head. “The idea that the government should just hand out money to people is bullshit, quite frankly. I find it repulsive, disgusting even.” He crossed his arms, sitting back on his chair, staring at his dark oak desk. “This is America.”

“That’s what the algorithm said to do,” Michael Ross said, Undersecretary to the Offices of Financial Computation. “We ran it three times. Either we start handing out money to every person over the age of eighteen or the economy burns.”

“The economy can’t burn, Michael. The FED just injected another quadrillion in liquidity into the markets.”

“The algorithm said that the eaters won’t buy it all and the diers won’t sell it all. The funds will be voided, and Mammon will-

“Fuck Mammon!” Jacob stood, slamming his desk. “I’m telling you that the foundation of this country is built on the premise that an individual has the right to starve, and if we just hand out money, then we’re filthy degenerate reds.”
Michael Ross stood calm. “Socialism is defined as the working class seizing the means of production. It is not equivalent to government welfare or fiscal intervention.”

Jacob removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. *A real piece of work this asshole. All these algorithm idiots think they’re so smart since blockchain took over. I’m not giving out money to poor lazy scumbag beggars, and my boss would never sign off on it anyway. But if I go and tell him that we have to do just that, it’ll be my head. And I like my head on my shoulders, not on the lawn of the Trumphouse.”

“Where the fuck is your office?” he asked.

“What?”

“Where’s your god damned office? What level?”

“B52,” Jacob said. “Just below the fourth level of Hell.”

Jacob Neever grunted, opening the lockbox beside him and slipping on an oxygen mask. “Come on,” he said as he slipped it on. “Show me your piece of shit techno-readout for myself.”

“As you wish,” Michael Ross said. They stepped out of the office, glossy Gucci leather shoes tapping the polished marble floors as they walked, passing golden statues of Trump Grabbing-Her-By-The-Pussy and another of him Guillotining-The-Libs. They reached an elevator and Jacob put on his oxygen mask. Michael Ross entered his code into the elevator, sticking his tongue out as the laser scanned the three sixes burned onto it.

They descended, with Jacob loosening his tie in the heat. Michael Ross’s eyes turned to flame as they reached the first circle of hell, and on through the other layers. “Any plans for the summer?” he asked Jacob.

“The wife wants another cruise,” he said with a smirk. They both laughed, shaking their heads.

The doors opened. Jacob Neever, Chief Operating Secretary to the United States Secretary of the Treasury followed Michael Ross, skull know in full blaze of black fire, Undersecretary to the Offices of Financial Computation, over the ash covered Plains of Despair. The wailing of lost sounds echoed in the caverns. One woman, being consumed by a giant leech, gripped onto his leg as he passed her. “Please!” she begged. “Oh god help me please!”

He kicked her away in disgust. “Jesus fuck,” he screamed as Michael Ross doused her writhing body in soul-flames. “Beggars never change, even in a dimension without time.” The reached the offices, built with skull-stone and gilded in blood-caste-gold.

“It’s over here,” Michael Ross said, letting him inside. “Here, I’ll run another computation.” As Michael set to work, Jacob looked over the room. The computer had once taken up the size of a warehouse when humans first invented it. For it time this changed as they grew to a tiny fraction of that monstrous size. But as their computations grew more complex, they once again grew to a cumbersome density. This computer occupied the entire office, with its interface a wall. Michael Ross pressed some buttons and activated a specimen-input-value. Next he ordered a specimen. The demon explained it would be a few minutes so Michael offered Jacob some blood-rose tea. “It’s quite delicious,” he explained when Jacob refused. Jacob relented and the two sipped the tea on leather chairs.

“I sense a deep seated rejection of the poor and needy in your subconscious,” Michael said. “Let me just say that it’s possible to ameliorate those elements without reverting to a abdication of state power.”

“It’s not about that,” Jacob Neever said, wiping the blood from his mouth with a silk napkin. “The fundamental job of any American politician is to keep the country running. And if we are socialists, that means we aren’t America, running or not.”

A demon entered with the specimen. Michael took the chained man and placed him inside the specimen-input-value container. He then took the axe that the computer printed out for him. When he was ready to slaughter the specimen, an alarm went off.

“What’s it say?” Jacob Neever asked.

“Strange,” Michael Ross replied. “The computer says it can’t run this algorithm if I commit the sacrifice.”

“What?”

“It says it has to be you.”

Jacob Neever groaned. “Fucking-A. When is this day going to be over?” He stood up. “Give me that axe, then.”
The specimen, bound hand and foot, squirmed on the ground. Jacob lifted the axe over his head, stepping into the container, and looked down at the sacrifice. The man was white, which bothered him. Why couldn’t it have been another race? A Chinaman would have been easier. There were plenty of those to spare. But this man was Nordic, with blonde hair and blue eyes. “Look, I’m sorry about this, alright?” he started. “But I’m not going to live in some Euro-cuck Scandanavian shithole.”

The first strike was hard, because the axehead got lodged in the man’s chest and Jacob had to step on the bleeding torso to remove it. Blood kept spraying too, and that pissed him off cause he was wearing a ten-thousand dollar suit. But eventually the container gave off a pleasing blue glow, signaling the computer accepted the sacrifice.

He stepped out, using a pocket napkin to wipe the blood off his face as Michael Ross ran the computation.

“See?” he said, pointing at the enormous screen detailing a financial outlook. “The diers wont sell and the eaters wont buy. We need to give out funds.”

That’s it, then. It’s my head. I’ll have to offer a degenerate policy of socialist whoredom and cuck over the nation.

“Fuck me in the liver,” Jacob Neever said. “And fuck your Mammon.”

The walls shook. Jacob turned to Michael Ross. “You shouldn’t have said that in here. He has presence. Shit-“ Michael Ross fell to his knees as the demon appeared.

“Fuck me?” Mammon asked, arms crossed over his bulging chest. The tentacles from his mouth wiggled in anger. “I rule this realm, human. You just lease the building.”

“You listen here, asshole,” Jacob replied. “You can’t just go voiding our liquidity as you please. We’ve had a ten-decade bullrun on stock buybacks and my cyborg boss aims to keep it that way.”

“I do not care for the whims of mortals.” The demon clenched its fists. Blood began dripping from Jacob Neever’s eyes. He whipped it away with the silk napkin then tossed the bloody thing on the ground.

“Tell me what I need to do to keep that from happening,” he said, pointing at the screen. “I’m not going to be memed as a right-wing social democrat.”

“Welfare from a government is not socialism,” Mammon said. “One of the primary functions of any modern state apparatus is to guarantee the liberties of its citizens, and those liberties require the fulfillment of basic human rights, rights which evolve as the technology and quality of life of society evolve. Go look at China. Despite their autocracy, and wonderful horrors of torture camps, they treat the internet as a utility. Any citizen can get a free highspeed wifi connection just walking down the street. South Korea has a functioning single payer system and so they avoided the 21st century plagues. Socialism is when the working class has seized the means of production. Communism is when class distinctions have eroded over time. It’s baffling how politically illiterate Americans are, truly. ”

“Fuck those commie bastards. Tell me what I need to do to change this.”

Mammon shrugged. Michael Ross peaked up at Jacob and shook his head.

A rusty hammer appeared in Mammon’s hands. The demon sighed.

“Come with me. We’re going to the puppy pool.”

END
Copyright 2020 T. Dalton
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