The 2084 Precept by Anthony D. Thompson

Author:Anthony D. Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: philosophical mystery

DAY 16

I awoke to another good mood, looked out of the window. Sunny weather! Not a cloud to be seen. Had a leisurely breakfast, drank lots of good Lavazza, and flipped through the hotel's Financial Times.

The markets were slightly up again this week for reasons unbeknown to man nor beast, and I have lost another €12,000. Not a problem. My bear certificate is a leveraged one and I gain or lose double on whatever the market movement is in reverse. It is quite clear to me what is coming. I will earn good money while the optimists lose theirs. I just don't know exactly when. This week, next week, next month, a few months down the road? No way to judge the timing. I am just leaning back and waiting until the institutional optimists are forced by events to throw their optimism overboard and start selling. My other investments are doing well, mainly defensive stocks paying sizeable dividends, the dividends supplying a partial buffer against any downward price trends. Not that I am ever caught by the full effect of any downward trend, I upgrade all of my automatic sell and stop-loss orders on a regular basis.

So all was well with the world as I took off for the Ritz. Except of course for Céline. I was definitely worried about her. What kind of complications had she been referring to? Could be anything. Impossible to guess. And therefore no point in wasting my time with conjecture.

I made a detour into Green Park. There were plenty of people about, a sunny Saturday morning, and I headed straight across to the other side. Stopped, turned around and checked everyone coming in my direction. Nobody appeared to have any interest in me, nor did anyone seem to be the sleuth type, not that that necessarily meant anything of course.

I lit a cigarette and stood around smoking it, then walked back fast in the direction of my hotel. I entered the lobby and looked out through the glass entrance doors. Again I could see nobody approaching, nobody standing around doing nothing and nobody standing around doing something either.

And so out I went again and strolled the short walk up to the Ritz, arriving at a couple of minutes before eleven. The lobby of the Ritz was full of people drinking coffee, or maybe it was tea, what do I know, talking, reading newspapers, waiting for other people, maybe just pointlessly killing off some of their leisure time on their road to death.

Time, for each and every one of us, is a strictly limited commodity, like oil. And, like oil, we waste a lot of it.

Jeremy was standing by the reception desk. I was wearing chinos and a sports jacket, the lightweight one, but no casual clothes for him. A dark brown suit, a white shirt, and a dark green tie with a pattern of small yellow dots. Actually, as I approached him, I saw that the dots were tiny yellow elephants, making his concession to the weekend with a motif léger after all.

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