Semmant by Vadim Babenko Page A

firms and corporations, states and cities, technology giants and commodity holdings. All wanted to live on credit – frequently hoping they would never have to repay it.
    The usual world looked boring by comparison. A cheap, simplified sketch, a soap opera and nothing more. A pasture, bare or rich at various times, where goats and sheep graze with ruddy boys and girls to shepherd them. They wander, without suspecting that above them hangs a huge, unsteady weight – above their destinies, their humble jobs, mortgaged houses and cars, colleges for their kids. It was clear: the framework would fail sooner or later – all of it, or a notable part thereof. It had more than once already, yet the shaky pyramid was built each time anew. And it would flip over again; all the mass of the base would fall down – and immense confusion would cloud all levels!
    I was looking at the very top: disarray was there, empty promises and cheat upon cheat, wolf dens covered with brushwood and needles. Of course, not just wolves were trapped in them, and even the wolves could not figure out where to tread and what to avoid. It was as if no one wanted precision and order; there were only a few guards, reminiscent of Cerberus the hellhound, to judge who was who, and who deserved admission to the bazaar of easy capital. Agencies assigning ranks, the creators of ratings and major fraud – I dispassionately observed them, made appraisals, and lined them up against each other. I compared and averaged, adding the digitized opinions of market analysts who trailed behind. Taken together, they represented a cardboard front, the adornment of a castle that was utterly vacant. They saved the public from seeing the vanity and filth obscured by the numbers, from smelling the inevitable stench, hearing the insane noise. The frantic realities of life were left outside the parentheses, beyond the walls. Alongside it they dumped the usual corporate garbage: dirty laundry and fights for power, day in and day out. Social eruptions and the movements of millions were transformed into mere handfuls of percentage points. This was the boldest of abstractions, too ambitious in my view – but I wasn’t concerned with others’ mistakes. I used it – or more precisely, I exploited the fact it is used by many. By those whose money, sooner or later, must end up with Semmant.
    I went into the deep past on the time scale. Various periods passed before my eyes. Peace and serenity; after that, a gold rush; its very peak and the sudden shock, the unchecked slide downward to a fall and crash. Then, malaise, detritus at the bottom of the ocean, deep depression descending on one and all. The periodicity and similarity were amusing. Every emerging boom began exactly the same way. A few visionaries chased a muddy wave, others followed them, each in his own swamp – and soon the whole world was raving in unison. New companies grew like mushrooms; the bubble would inflate, iridescent and huge, blown by a giant toy frog. The bubble waited for the hour of the needle, and many saw it clear as day, yet they believed it wouldn’t burst – not ever, or at least not soon. Hubris and envy dominated the world – the hubris of those who made out, and the envy of losers who came late and now, with a twisted smirk, tried to determine whether they could still jump on the train as it was pulling away. Women, driving their price to the moon, loved the former, while the latter issued forth bile, even though they had enough to live comfortably. They poisoned their own blood and became restless, became mad…
    The pictures changed, not offering much diversity. I saw nouveaux riches in expensive suits and their fidgety, troublemaking wives; the huge stones on fat fingers; obliging lackeys and wily advisors. Herds of young maidens clicked their stiletto heels, shook their silicone breasts, rapaciously stretched out manicured claws. None wanted to lose their chance. The flywheel unwound faster and