We are the moneymakers.  I afford at will, knighting objects to create an illusion of superiority.  At any time our family will fall down into the abyss of natural living, towards the muck of humanity escaped by someone I do not know.  

My father looks at them with optimistic eyes, only asking, “Try to be civil.  Look at what we can achieve.”  Of course he means us.  We are the ones achieving to the greatest extent of the word.  There is no we on top of the mountain.

  Those that serve us are professionals.  Their level of sophistication is equal to ours in the respective socio-economic sense.  Professional is always the main point, the only point in fact.  Each actor in our particular opera does not confess to sins.  We know no such word, just as my brother and I know no such feeling of hunger.   

I wish to speak their language, so they may see the gap through which we peek out, wandering from space to space on an autopilot controlled by human bliss. “D-a-i-s-y...D-a-i-s-y,” it sings, knowing full and well what that deep voice means to me.  

 “My knees are always strong when I walk,” my brother shouts, hinting at his unbearable health, like a shaman with all the answers for the village.  “You are a liar,” I tell my brother.  I try to maintain a sense of class, while my lips quiver with the excitement of an inside joke known to our ears alone.  

“Father,” my brother shouts, “can there be such things as a being fulfilled without

money?”  

Surely my father knows the answer.  

“Lunch,” he whispers, in complete observance of less fortunate ears, “can never

be free.” 

 I scan the makeshift opera being performed.  Lunch in a place like this is never a simple operation.  “Nothing is simple,” my father explains, “ is a silly phrase son.  Anyone knows nothing is a mathematical principle.  Nothing isn’t simple.”  My father knows people who study mathematical principles, or so he says.  

 “Scotch,” my father says, “maintains stomach acidity.  Aids in digestion my dears. Here, have a sip.”  Reluctantly, my brother eases his lips forward, showing true signs of virginity.  I too sip, at once feeling the most horrid burn and incredible shock.  

“Tastes like shit,” my brother states, as if making a declaration of war.  He does not yet know the secret of scotch, the way the right woman will like the fact he drinks this mysterious brown liquid in a small glass with no ice.  

“Neat,” my father says subtly.

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