I love painting, so now I am a CEO

I LOVE PAINTING, SO NOW I AM A CEO

         “Wow. That’s good to hear, Fred. Did they offer you stock options too? How about pension benefits and health care plan?

         That was my sister—or should I say, my sister by legal papers, Sophia. Sophia Sapphire. Head of the Sapphire Group of Companies. Already a Chief Executive Officer at fifteen and managed to keep the company at top for three years now. A real business genius, perhaps…

         Yes, she is a genius, sure enough. But in business? I wonder. All I know she is a real gifted artist.

         Fred was one of the Company’s Board of Directors but just a day ago, he transferred to a small-fry rival. That was foolish for a businessman with talents and ambitions but sensible to man with conscience. If you are a good Samaritan, then my sister’s Company is not the place for you. And I also believe that it is not for her either. Or it was—before she changed.

         Once you forgot what you want, you forgot who you are. That was what happened. She lost herself in business and forgot who she was—the real she—before she took over the seat of her Father in a game of chess and moved her pieces for a Checkmate without counting her sacrifices.

         The real she who wants nothing but to capture the world on a canvass. The real she who is an artist at heart. That was she. The same Sophia who would not mind signing a hundred million dollar check to buy a playmate from the Mathilda Cross Institute of the Abandoned.



         “But why not, my dear madam?” I heard a voice inside the office of the headmistress.

         That morning, I did not feel any excitement at all even though one of the Sisters had already told me that finally, after thirteen years, one had called to sponsor me. It was just a change of ownership, I answered. What’s there to get excited? It was probably a rich couple without a child or a plump, heavily jewelried ‘doña’ who wanted a houseboy or some wealthy unmarried lady playing ‘what-if-I-have-a-child game’. The usual cases for all the other orphans who had (thankfully) found generous (see the doubt?) sponsors.

         I let my imagination fly as I marched to the place where I supposed to meet my sponsor. He or she (if not a couple) might just be some old hag with pretty blush-on applied by a clown or some old man who gargled tobacco-flavored mouthwash this morning.

         But of course: it was none of the above.

         I opened the office door and saw the headmistress waving her head dismissively. An international language of refusal. I looked at the other end. It was neither an old hag nor an old man.

         It was a child. Another child was negotiating to adopt me.

         She hopped from the couch and ran towards me. She checked my nameplate.

         “Nice meeting you, Elliot,” she greeted. “We’re going home.”

         “But I told you, young missy—”

         She pulled a bundle of paper from her pocket, clicked a retractable pen and scribbled something on it. She ripped the rectangular sheet from the rest and placed it on the table.

         “A gift, madam. Completely tax-free.”



         And that hundred million dollar worth playmate was me. If I was deposited in some bank with 12% interest compounded annually. I wonder how much would I amount by now.

         That is—if the economy is not disrupted as it is now. My sister was reaping the fruits of her bad seeds. The people were pressing the government to expropriate the company’s assets, seize control over its equities, terminate its illegal activities and hold the reins over its operations. The bottom line is simple: turn the Sapphire Corporation a government owned and controlled corporation. To make it simpler: remove Sophia Sapphire at the helm of the giant mighty ship. Of course, the Constitution grants the government power to do that.

         Problem is: it cannot just be done. This is the Purple Carpet City. Named after the purple carpet where Philip Maximilian Sapphire, the first generation head of the family, walked on to during his visit at the capital. And the Sapphire Corporation is the very backbone of the city. According to legends, it was his arrival which sparked life and trade. History claimed him to be the founder. Unable to keep both the economic and political leadership, he designated a lawmaking council which evolved as the government of today. So that’s how it was. The Purple Carpet City is nothing without the Sapphire Corporation. And the Sapphire Corporation is nothing without Sophia. The Corporation is not just an economic entity but a political dynasty—no one governs it but a Sapphirist blood. And Sophia is the last one of her line.

         The Sapphire Corporation had gathered notoriety through ages. Apparently, Sophia and her family were infamous celebrities. The Sapphirist blood. The term ‘sapphirist’ had been defined by the people as ‘nastily clever in scheming things’. Others called them as ‘profit-magnets’. They were all talents and evil, they said. They bought companies one after another, bankrupted potential rivals, caused the loss of jobs of many, transacted devious dealings, profited through underhanded means and used their influence to even control the government from inside. Altogether, it is a real nasty company. And Sophia inherited all of these when her Father, the late Frederique Sapphire died when she was fifteen years old.

         She was reluctant. Opposing at first. Being a business icon is not for her. Of course, I knew. Painting is a passion she shared. That’s why even if she forgot the brush and canvass, I will not.



         “Hey, Elliot. You like painting? It’s fun! Really fun!”

         “I… I don’t know, young mistress,” I stammered.

         We were children once again. It was summer. She took me with her for a vacation in her family villa outside the city. She called from the garden.

         “It’s Sophia, Elliot. Sophia. Don’t forget,” she said as she put darker shade of pink at the sky in her painting. She was eccentric in her perspectives. Deviant. Unique and original. She knew all about your post-impressionism, abstract expressionism, fauvism, neoclassical, baroque, rococo or even surrealism, but hers does not just fall in any category. Her art is different. You can tell in a single glance. What you cannot tell is the difference itself.

         “I think it’s rude.”

         “No, it isn’t! You’re my brother, you know. Not some manservant. So forget about the young mistress business or I’ll make you eat vegetables for dinner.”

         “Is that a punishment?” I asked out of pure curiosity.

         “Of course, it is!” she answered. Her brush oscillating an inch away from my nose.

         “But I eat vegetables. All of them in fact,” I retorted.

         “Wha—Seriously? I thought that was the worst punishment you can charge to anyone. Well, forget about it. You should try painting too. Here.”

         “But… I do not know how. I might ruin your work.”

         “Listen, Elliot,’ she started, dipped a finger in a lump of bright green paint on the palate and smeared it on the meadows. Applying it unevenly with agitated strokes. And for the first time on her twelve year-old innocent and ever cheerful face, she drew out a sullen and sorrowful look. Her true face hidden behind the mask of a carefree rich kid. A face weighed down with worries. A face lined with questions way beyond her years. She was now mixing the colors out of harmony and balance. She was diluting the effect of a well-outlined converging point, forming unnecessary figures to distort the elements in the picture. She was ruining it.

         “It…It is getting out of order.”

         “Hm,” she nodded. “Well, yes. Out of order. And anyone who would see will find this repulsive. They will want to discard this. See? It is ruined after all. So no matter what you do, you will not be able to change the bigger picture. Even if you try and paint that apple a beautiful green, people will not see it. All they will see is the ugly distortion I created. The disharmony,” she said, spreading a dirty gray color on the river with her thumb. “Go on. Try to fix it.”

         I tried. And failed.

         “I think I have just worsened it. What you did cannot be reversed.”

         She smiled. A mirthless smile.

         “Humans are real intriguing species,” she added. I found myself wondering about what she was saying. She seemed to be telling me a tale she had read from another book. “They are just complexly diverse. If I hang this trash in a museum, some people would still find this a work of art and they will be the very ones who will heartily disagree if this junk had to find its right place.” She was now scrawling some dirty DNA-shaped figures across its grim surface. “It’s just hard to unite people. Always divided. So all that’s left is to ruin this picture to an extent no one will think of this as an art but just some meaningless scribble of a grade school kid. And if that happens,” as if on cue, she reached up for the container of white paint and splashed it all over the painting. “It’s time to start all over again.”

         “I can’t understand,” I protested.

         She turned at me and chuckled.

         “But the problem is, my young Elliot, life is not a painting where you can just throw some white paint and start all over again.”

         I knew she had told me something. And I knew I never got it.

         Those were memories of the old days. It felt like millions of years ago. And until now, I had never extracted a single atom of meaning from it. It was a riddle she left me to solve in silence. These past three years since Sir Frederique passed away and Sophia changed dramatically, we rarely talked with each other, if not at all. She had lost her youth in the world of adults. Always taking a bet that never lost.

         Of course, she never failed. And she will not. That matters a lot to the Purple Carpet City. But what matters to me was the price she paid for that. She lost her passion, then… herself.

         I never bothered to ask her about the riddle. After all, she was no longer the Sophia I knew. No longer the young painter with a child’s heart but the notorious figurehead of a heartless company. And there was this feeling that the riddle is about to solve itself soon.

         And then: I never thought that ‘soon’ would be as early as today.

         I reclined on the sofa and pushed the red button on the remote control. The plasma screen mounted on the wall sparked with life. Today, Sophia is going to unveil her next billion-earning project: a bold and daring plan of building a nuclear facility right in the middle of the only remaining natural forest reserve in the Purple Carpet City. An untouched ecosystem beaming with life and biodiversity. But that’s not the entirety of it. Geographical explorations discovered a huge reservoir of oil underneath the virgin forest. She was also planning to get her hands on it.

         She is about to kill it. The world Sophia loves.

         And that Sophia was now missing. Without a hint of coming back.



         The one who will show up in the live broadcast is Sophia Sapphire, the richest and youngest in the world of business. Just someone who owns the same name as my missing sister. I do not know this stranger. I decided to turn it off. I picked the remote control, pointed at the TV command sensor but never pushed the red button. I froze.

         I felt a wrenching fist in my insides. Something happened. I just knew. People are screaming and howling. Not from anger. It was triumph.

         The headline was pulsing in big letters across the screen. I cannot make it out. All I know is the fragile form sprawled at the center: the lifeless form of my sister.



         ‘SOPHIA SAPPHIRE, head of the Sapphire Group of Companies was shot dead by an unknown sniper.’ The headline says.



         No way. This can’t be true. She can’t just be… gone.

         “That happened almost an hour ago. It was no longer live,” a voice spoke from my window. “You’re the only one anticipating a funeral, you know. For the rest, it is a feast.”

         I was out of my senses. I do not want to think who he was or how he got there. Or why he got a rifle and why was a red dot following the muzzle’s end.

         “Xerxes. Call me Xerxes. I had served the Sapphire family since I was six. I am the trusted and loyal right-hand man of your sister. His officially hired secretary,” he unclipped an empty barrel from his holster. “As well as the sniper who shot your sister dead.”

         I felt an ice finger ran through my spine. Anger surged in me. This was the murderer. The same murdered who called himself trusted and loyal.

         “So what is it? You’re going to kill me too? Being a traitorous reptile as you are.”

         “I’ll forgive the offense. I stayed true to your sister. Right at the very end.”

         “How loyal are you then? Enough to assume the Company’s wealth?” I scoffed.

         “Enough…” he started fumbling something inside his pocket. “To even grant your sister’s death wish.”

         A death wish. My sister asked for her death? No. This is utterly ridiculous. Definitely no.

         The sniper flicked a folded white card at my foot. I ignored it. He grinned.

         “To my brother who will paint on the new canvass,” he smiled. “It says.”

         “What?”

         “The canvass your sister cleaned with white paint. With red blood actually.”

         ‘Life is not a painting where you can just throw some white paint and start all over again.’

         White paint. That’s it. The riddle. Her words flooded in my head as new as that day. I realized what she meant with a shudder. That Sophia… my scheming sister, she had been planning for this all along.

         I stared at the piece of paper on the floor. My fingers are trembling.

         My sister is a real genius. And a real idiot.

It was not the painting. It was the Company. No matter what she does, she will not be able to change the bigger picture. The distortion can no longer be reversed.          She united people and gave them a common villain: herself.

         She bore people’s hate. Their discontent. Their anguish. Their sorrows. And brought all of them at her fall. She was the canvass. The Company was the distorted picture. She went down with it and handed the brush to someone else.

         ‘The new canvass is yours, Elliot.’ The note ended.

         She knew I love painting and asked me to be a CEO.

         “Board meeting is in two hours’ time,” Xerxes glanced at his pocket watch. “But you can be excused for a day of crying and grieving. Contact me tomorrow.”

         “No need,” I inserted my sister’s last will in my chest pocket. Suddenly, an invisible weight was pressing itself on my shoulders. Responsibilty.

         A red dot trailed across my chest. I snickered and casually unrolled my sleeves.

         “Give me a minute to grant you some loyalty award before you pull the trigger, will you?”

         “I’ll pass for the award,” the sniper gazed at me through the eyepiece. It was curious given the proximity. “Just following an order.”

         “So my sister now wants me dead.”

         “If my brother wears the same face I had when I took over the seat of my Father, don’t let him go any further. It is better that way,” he answered. “What do you think she meant by not letting you go any further?”

         I actually laughed.

         “We’re different. I’m no good in being stupid as she was,” I said. “I will not lose myself like she did.”

         He lowered his rifle.

         “So what is the discussion this afternoon all about?”

         “Nothing much. Just little changes in the by-laws.”

         “Like?”

         “Like turning the Sapphire Corporation to a non-profit organization.”

         “Well, that was little,” the sniper grinned a meaningful grin. “Very little.”



         Board meeting (n): a systematic set of no sensible procedures by a group of pipsqueaks to render the patient’s every cell in a lethargic state.

         Well, the patient is me.

         “That’s impossible!” First three minutes and I am already having objection. A good start. “If we will not aim to maximize profits, rival companies would—”

         “Um,” I nodded. “Well said, Sir.”

         “Sophia would not agree with this. It should be a win, she used to say. First chance she got.”

         “Agreed,” I playfully tapped my fingers on the Plexiglas screen of our round table. Beneath the glass was the holographic facsimile of Purple Carpet City. A live coverage. With the real people walking on the streets at the actual moment. Embedded in the armrest of my chair was a handprint sensor device. No doubt. It was the command console. For a Sapphire who had sat on this chair, Purple Carpet City was nothing but a true-to-life video game. All he/she needs to do is to swipe a hand on the sensor pad and he/she will have the joystick to play the game. Everyone knows about the existence of Sapphire technology implanted across the city but no one knows exactly where. The console was DNA-coded. No one would use it except a Sapphire. An hour ago, I was thankful for that. I don’t have the slightest interest to use it. Now I am withdrawing the thankful feeling. Apparently, Sophia made an arrangement to give me the worst inheritance.

         “Average earnings might cost us our investments. And they cost billions.”

         I locked my fingers beneath my chin and appeared to be listening intently.

         “Finely speculated,” I glanced at my watch then back to the holographic image of Purple Carpet City, trying to show enthusiasm. My fingers halting its rhythm.

         “I appreciate your intelligent opinions. But there is a problem,” I reclined on my chair and smiled. “This seat is mine.”



         Now, I am sitting alone in my sister’s private study with piles of papers full of numbers. Financial statements. The kind I would flip and use its back as a sketch pad. Xerxes asked me to study the business but I ordered him to leave without asking how. As a result: I was left staring blankly in space. It had started to grow dark. I pulled the string of the desk lamp. A click. It switched open. But the light was blocked.

         A shadow loomed over the papers. A rolled canvass was tied by the strings.

         A short and small one. I untied it and revealed a painting inside. Definitely, my sister’s. One of her styles. Dark colors. Rough agitated strokes. It had a three point perspective. Two converging points. A definite centerpiece. I stared at it. My brain registered images. It does not seem to have a grain of meaning—which was weird. If this is my sister’s work, it should have sense. If you cannot find this ‘sense’, then it is only an either-or.

         Either you have been born blind or you have been born with a poor frontal lobe.

In choosing an option, sometimes it does not need to be the right one. So I’m on the first.

         At the middle of the painting is her image. The same face she had when I first met her at the Institute. Left: a group of multinational ambassadors who seemed to have recently met each other in a convention. Right: a muddy place, heavy with gloom and this is… a cross? A cemetery. Yes, created in abstract but I knew it is. I sighed and rolled it back. First, financial statements. Then a weird painting.

         Why do things seem too hard to understand now—NO.

         I got it. The message. My sister’s message. My skin crawled. I shuddered. I can feel my cheeks draining its color.

         Impossible. No way. I don’t need to count my fingers to know that one plus one is two.

         Unless, one gave me the wrong addends.

         I sprang from my seat, fetched my coat from the couch and ran for the car. Cold beads of sweat formed on my forehead. I gave the stairs a single bound.

         I forgot what people used to say.

         ‘What is impossible for a Sapphire?’

         I bit my lip. Even a grade school would know how to answer that. I opened the car, slipped inside. My heart was beating so fast now. The painting says…

Meet me at the cemetery.

         Of course, the answer is: none.

         “Where to, boss?” the voice asked.

         “Bring me at the…”

         The voice was different: young and cheerful.

         I delayed involuntarily. I have to catch my breath.

         “At the Sapphire Memorial Park,” the chauffeur continued. The engine started.

         The voice was not asking. It was answering for me. I looked up at the rear view mirror.

         The chauffeur laughed. ‘She’ laughed. A laugh I had long been forgotten.