For Sale: Penthouse With View - Never Seen

Langan looks out from the balcony of his apartment on Hibiscus Bay.

All he can see is an impenetrable curtain of apocalyptic typhoon rain, twitched this way and that by the occasional tug of wind shear. The sky beyond sketches itself out hazily in #2 pencil lead, threatening to whip out the expressionistic charcoals at any moment.

Even on a clear day of the tropical sunshine that first brought him here, though, he would have little to see. His block is on the landward side of the road, the cheaper side. The high-flyers in the even numbers opposite get the sea views.

The place cost him five million — the bastards across the way will have paid twice that. Out of his price range. But well within the scope of his soul-burning envy.

If only that Mining and Logging portfolio hadn’t collapsed after Kyoto. Timberrr! He’d panicked. Damned fool. Why hadn’t he realized it would pick itself back up off the floor once all the self-congratulatory hoo-hah had died down? His chance at real fuck-you money was blown.

So here he was, with a luxury penthouse view of someone else’s opulence, a sliver of sea, and a whole chunk of blue sky where his mind was free to bitch about what might have been.

Except in typhoon season.

He hears a low rumbling, or rather he feels it first, shaking the building even up here on the fourth floor. It must be one of those huge dumper trucks trundling up to the construction site where they’re busy erecting the Hibiscus Prospect IV development behind.

Ha! They’ll barely be able to see a sliver of sky from their windows. He’ll be almost embarrassed to share a postal code with losers like that. A million price tag, tops.

The rumbling continues. Would they even be building in this kind of weather? The whole workers’ rights thing has got out of hand in recent years. Not like it used to be. They down tools and go whining to the union rep at the drop of a hard hat these days.

But they must be making a final push to meet the completion deadline. A whole convoy of trucks seems to be heading up the hill, making the whole neighborhood shake. He’ll have to find someone to complain to about that.

And then it happens.

He’s looking out ahead at the rain rolling in off the sea, raking down onto the block opposite, when all of a sudden it’s gone.

Holy fuck!

The whole damned thing just crumbles like a kid’s sandcastle and slumps down the cliff. Except there is no cliff. That’s gone as well, taking every even number on Araucaria Avenue with it. Suddenly unleashed from behind the barrier, the rain lashes even harder, whipping under the shelter of the eaves, stinging Langan’s face.

He doesn’t give a toss. He doesn’t even notice. He’s fist-pumping and dancing a jig around the balcony, crashing into teak and terracotta like a crazed bull.

By the next morning the storm has cleared. Langan strides out onto the balcony in a silk robe, feeling like a motherfucking emperor. He flings his arms out wide as he takes in the view. His goddamned view.

The seaward half of the whole plot across the way has collapsed into the sea, dragging the apartment block downwards. A few stumps of rubble poking up from the foundations along the sidewalk are all that’s left standing.

“I can see clearly now the rain has gone!” he sings like a madman, bellowing into the blue. “I can see NO obstacles in my way!”

He knows what his first call has to be.

“Hi, Su? Yeah, it’s Langan. Look, can you come over to do a valuation? No, I’m not selling — just curious. Yeah, the roads are open here — a few ambulances and shit, but nothing to worry about. Sure, see you then.”

An hour or so later and he buzzes Su up from the underground parking lot.

“Wow, Langan. That… changes everything, doesn’t it?” she says, trying to mask what she’s really thinking. As a realtor, she doesn’t have to try too hard. It comes out in a flat, transactional tone of neutral.

Langan, meanwhile, is a sizzling live wire.

“So what do you reckon? I mean now it’s got the whole sea view and everything it’s gotta be worth almost double, right? Are we talking eight? Ten? And then the market’s really picking up now anyway isn’t it? Maybe twelve, even?”

She looks at him. Trying to work out if this is some kind of weird black humor. She can still never tell with these Brits, even after years of dealing with them.

But no. She sees the look in his eyes. There’s no mistaking that. She sees it in her own mirror often enough to recognize the look of unbridled avarice.

Shit. He’s been completely blinded. That old obsession of his with the sea view — it’s completely addled his brain. What the hell can she say?

“Right, yeah… I mean, I’ll have to do some calculations, you know. Check some reference prices, market indices, that kind of thing. Look, I’ve got a viewing in Marundo at 11 — I’ll send you an email this afternoon, OK? Gotta dash!”

WHAT THE FUCK??!!! One million if you’re lucky and the geotechnical report comes in OK??? That’s a fucking prime sea view over Hibiscus Bay, you bitch! One lousy million? Jesus fucking Christ!

That’s the condensed and sanitized version of his thoughts as he reads Su’s email that afternoon.

Gradually, as a semblance of rational thought manages to slowly strip away the scaffolding of delusive greed in his mind, he begins to form a grim idea of the reality.

How completely outrageous! This is his private property that’s been stolen from under his nose. They have to do something. What do they think they’re playing at?

He gets an ad hoc neighborhood committee together, pulls some strings with well-placed clients. The city government has got to get this sorted. Now. Whatever it takes.

What the hell do they all pay their taxes for? He leaves a good twenty percent of his earnings onshore to keep those ESG goons happy — they must have skimmed enough off the top of that over the years to fix the problem ten times over.

They should pull their bloody fingers out!

Ten months later.

Langan looks out from the balcony of his apartment on Hibiscus Bay.

All he can see is an impenetrable curtain the color of #2 pencil lead. Not rain or cloud, but concrete.

The building shakes a little as the last of the huge construction trucks trundles down the hill. The new sea wall is complete.