Shareholders

Alan Alanwich hated stockholder meetings. "We all know in the current economy, it's necessary to enter new markets. And in a market as nascent as this one, we are literally building from scratch."

Mr. Stubbs, the shareholders representative, continued to press the issue. "I didn't travel all this way for excuses. We are behind on our projections. If you can't return the company to profitability, perhaps it's time for new leadership."

Alanwich had heard enough. "This is my company."

"The company belongs to its shareholders."

"You do realize we are on the moon."

"There you go with your excuses again."

Middle Management

Alan Alanwich preferred to leave the details to his subordinates. That's what he paid them for after all. He was much too busy to worry over moon landings or oxygen to nitrogen ratios.

But someone had failed to inform him that when the rocket detached, more than half his employees would be left behind. He did not regret their deaths, but who the hell was going to oversee the transition?

Someday, his tombstone would beg the question of how a man who spectacularly failed as a the CEO of his own company managed to build the world's first interplanetary skyscraper.

Arthur

On the thirty-fourth floor of the Alan Alanwich Tower, Arthur sat between cabinets of yellowing paperwork. Had he been near a window, he still would not have noticed as the Tower crested the troposphere.

While the calculus of rocket trajectories was not terribly different from the calculus of financial modeling, the transition resulted in a couple of irregularities, putting Arthur behind schedule. Arthur always felt nauseous when he fell behind schedule.

As stage two of the tower detached, dropping the accounting department and mail-room back towards Earth, Arthur sighed. He would miss the company picnics. He had always enjoyed those.

Bankrupt This

Against the flat gray sky of the Financial District, the skyline begins to stir. Clouds of soot bellow down the narrow cross-streets and grand avenues, away from the Alan Alanwich Tower, which teeters, lurches, and completely parts company with the ground. Triumphant as Jupiter, the ten thousand ton fledgling of cement and steel lifts itself above the be-spired brotherhood of sober banks, ascending towards the heavens.

On the penthouse viewing deck, Alan Alanwich raises his fists. As all eighty-seven floors of his company rocket away from insolvency, one thought reverberates through his mind - "This will teach those fucking Democrats!"