After dinner I feel like watching the stars, so I take the glass elevator to the terrific view room. I already told you none of my rooms have windows. Quite a few of them have glass ceilings though, primarily the ones on the top floor, but I have one on the eighteenth floor as well to show off the special design on the soles of my shoes. The good thing about glass ceilings compared to windows is that they only show the sky (except for the one on the eighteenth floor which shows the bottom of a lot of furniture, some Oompa-Loompas and sometimes me, but never when I'm watching which is a pity since I don't get to see myself from that angle very often) and the occasional aircraft, and aircrafts are about as much human contact as I can take.
I step inside the terrific view room only to notice it's cloudy. Can't anything be done about that? Well, while I'm here I might as well get some air. There's a window in the glass roof and as I open it I feel a small wind against my face. The night time air is so cold, I am sure I will catch pneumonia. There's also this smell in it, this unclean smell, poisonous almost, gas? There might be a gas leak somewhere tonight. I had better close the window again.
Having closed the window I turn off the lights and lay back on the black leather recliner with brocade pillows in the centre of the room to watch the sky. Since there's a town out there the sky is never pitch black, and I have good eyesight, like a cat, daylight only blinds me. And squinting is no good for you, gives you wrinkles, I would have to use sunglasses if I ever went here during daytime, which I don't. Now I can see the greenish, greyish contours of the moving clouds in the dark. It's quite meditative. Perhaps I'm ever so slightly tipsy from the few mouthfuls of wine I had with my dinner too. I like the taste and scent of exclusive wines and liquors, I like the warming sensation of them, but I certainly wouldn't get myself drunk. I doubt I could even drink enough, given I ever wanted to. Gluttony has never been one of my vices, chocolatier as I may be.
Thinking about spirits has given me quite the urge, so I call for an Oompa-Loompa to bring me a glass of chocolate liqueur. It's my own concoction, the ones available on the market simply won't do. It is not overly sweet, instead it has a very high concentration of cocoa, and perhaps this ingredient is more intoxicating than the alcohol itself. I barely let the liquid touch my lips, then I lay my head down again and feel the taste of it. The tip of my tongue burns just a little as I run it along my lips, a pleasant kind of pain. I'm suddenly reminded of that scene in From Hell where Fred Abberline is drinking absinthe with laudanum in his tub. The association makes me feel quite the decadent. Come to think of it, Johnny Depp is almost as good looking as me. Almost. At least when he's clean shaven and sharp dressed, as in Sleepy Hollow. He might be worth the honour of impersonating me if there ever was a film about the world's most famous, brilliant and handsome chocolatier. It would have to be soon though, before he's too old. And oh, he has that horrid American accent.
How did I become the world's most famous, brilliant and handsome chocolatier? Well, the very day I came of age I decided to build a huge chocolate factory, the largest in the world, with my father's money. Wait, why would my father suddenly give me all that money, when he had never…? That's right, he didn't.
Anyway, I used the money to build my life's work. To build my life. I already had the shop on Cherry Street by then but I obviously had to put someone else up as the actual owner. Someone of age. I picked one very much of age, what a pun, I picked that old Joe. He adored me and agreed to anything I proposed, including not getting any of the shares except for his wages as a worker in the shop. He was my kind of man, never interfering with my plans. "After all, you're the genius behind all of the wonderful sweets and treats, I just put my name on a paper" he said and he was right about that of course. I didn't recognise him when he escorted Charlie to the factory that day, hadn't thought of him for years, why would I, but it was him alright. Now he's in the gingerbread house room, sort of, isn't that nice? He would be honoured.
I much prefer to have things my way, and having things my way is easier with no people at all than with people even of my taste. Strangely enough, some oppose to fulfilling my genius plans. I don't like it when that happens. Makes me irritable. Makes me have to eat chocolate to calm my nerves (not that I mind). The Oompa-Loompas never do that, never ever. They're my kind of guys alright. Quite literally.
I'm so tired, so very tired. I think I catch a glimpse of the starry sky between the clouds right before I fall asleep.