Jerome

Another character study from Investing in the Afterlife, Inc.:

On Basil’s right sat tall, corporate, gangly, self-gratified Jerome, with a little first aid kit tucked under his arm. He was a cynical free market ideologue who believed everyone had a duty to pay whatever price he asked for whatever services he provided. Every person, every service, every product, every benefit, every feature, every living thing stood independent of the rest. He would happily believe in Society if only he could flog it but, in the absence of an over-arching price tag for the entire job lot, he preferred to chop the world into its component parts and sell it off, bit by bit.
To Jerome, children were a luxury you chose to invest in. Love was a corporate coming-together of financial muscle. Art was a pretty design to excuse an elevated price point. Death was a creative accounting opportunity. Nature was a warehouse doling out gratis commodities. Life was to buy and to sell, much as he hoped he could entice Goss to invest in the right to stock his new line of first aid kits.