We made our way down a dark hall, the walls gleaming with various pieces of finery- gold, emeralds, it all flashed by as Paul guided us down the dimly lit passages. I stared, unable to conceal my shock at the casual use of millions of dollars worth of jewels and fine metals plastered along the walls like a garden of glittering petals. Paul, however, didn't spare a glance at the fantasy of a house around him, clearly at home.
"Impressed?" He smirked when he caught me staring with a locked interest.
I tried to shrug off his question, but his gaze forced a reply. "Well, it's…pretty intense."
"Welcome to the world of Denis Washington himself." He gestured around with smug indifference.
"Your world." I looked at him almost accusatorily. "Do you know how many people you could feed in impoverished countries with half of this stuff?"
"Your do-good obsession is sickening."
"And your lack of it is appalling."
"Why?" He turned to me. "Because I don't feel sorry for people who have dug themselves into poverty?" He sneered, turning away. "Hardly."
"People in Africa don't choose to be in poverty. They don't have resources." I insisted as he touched the small of my back- moving me back toward yet another corridor that I had already walked by.
"I hardly see how people in Africa effect me." He opened a door, holding it open for me to pass.
"Don't you see how that sounds?" The passage was getting increasingly dark, darker and darker, the stone on the walls more and more bare.
"Think about it. So lets say that you find some idiotic inspiration to go in and give everyone in the lower class riches. Then what? Everyone's happy, successful, and equally wealthy? Then there would be no wealth for anyone- Marxism, communism, none of that works. There has to be a base for a building to be built- there will always be those on bottom. There will always be a lower class." He took my hand, helping me down from a ledge as it dropped off suddenly.
"Easy for you to say when you're looking down from the highest floor of the building." I snapped, jumping down into a dungeon looking room with none of the finery that which the argument started by. As we kept walking the light faded.
"Perhaps, but my logic remains solid." He said coolly. Suddenly there was no light at all, and his voice came close to my ear. "There's another drop off here." I felt him move suddenly- and heard him land with a quiet thud from what sounded like far below.
In the darkness- he reached up- his hands grasping mine from where he stood far below, barely grasping them- and he said in a low voice, "I'll make sure you don't fall but you need to jump."
I squeezed my eyes shut. "How far is it down? And that's stupid. You're helping people not to starve- not to equalize everyone."
"About five feet." He replied boredly. "And as I said, there must be poverty for the world as we know it to continue functioning.
Damn. Jumping into a pit- blind. His hands were strong around mine, but I swallowed nervously. I toed my way along the edge carefully. "Yeah, but you're still looking at this with the wrong attitude." I sighed. "Are you sure you'll catch me?"
"I'm holding your hands to gauge our distance- I'll know when you jump- and I'll feel it when you're falling." He was so cold, distanced in his tone. "Don't you trust me?" A bit of his acid taunting crept into his voice.
I ignored it. "You don't mind starving people dying all over the world? You certainly won't mind me falling on my ass." And I jumped.
In the next second- he released my hands, taking my waist as I fell- and gently placing me on my feet before him.
"It's a big world, Suze," He said, inches away from me, but in the black I couldn't make out a thing. "You'll be lucky if you can look out for yourself alone."
"Right now, I'm not interested in looking out for anything but a way out of this place. Where is this ghost your talking about?"
"Its farther down." He said disinterestedly, and his large hand covered mine, leading me forward.
"What did I say about the no touching thing?"
"You'll lose yourself in this kind of darkness."
His tone didn't make me question him.
"You really don't care, though?" I sighed. "About other people?"
"I look out for myself. And it's taken seventeen years to perfect that skill."
"But," I sighed, thoroughly frustrated. "Don't you get it? You're just going to end up old and alone if you do that. Lonely. Really really alone."
"Oh? And how do you figure that?" He asked me slowly, but there was a hard anger in his voice.
"If you're looking out for yourself, you can't see anyone else but you."
"That's not true." He said flatly.
"It is."
"Its not."
"Yeah? Okay, and why not?" My sarcasm was biting.
"Because," There was a slow exhale, and the silence around us overwhelmed in those long seconds.
"Because, I see you."