What Jack Wanted!

What Jack Wanted is a short story about greed taken to the extreme. You can read the full story in the short story section of this website.

Can you guess what significance the image below has in relation to the story?

Modendaity $780 Oil on canvas 60 90 cm

What Jack Wanted.

It started with a new car. Oh, it was big and flash and red – his favourite colour, and a thrill to drive. Yet it simply wasn’t enough. In a week or two he’d tired of it and then he felt empty again.
So he worked harder, earned more money. Yet hard work was dull and exhausting. He didn’t want to grow old and it was not enough to get him what he really wanted. So he searched inside himself – but there was nothing there. So he searched externally and found much – especially on surfaces, for that was all he could see.
He started a business.
Now he needed followers, helpers – and he found them. He filled the holes in their personalities with flattery. They couldn’t resist him. They were like him soon. He owned many of their thoughts.
Soon his business had turned to businesses – all of them booming. Good ol’ Jack was as regular as they came.
Everyone loved him.
Politics beckoned, but he took it slowly. Everything was going too fast.
He wasn’t even sure what he wanted any more.
What did he want?
He went home to his family, but they were only vaguely there. They were like him already.
Soon he owned a dozen red cars and a private plane that allowed him to visit the kids. Yet he never did – only when his wife suicided.
This upset him, so he decided to buy a Swiss Bank – while no-one was looking. In a week or so he felt better.
Now Jack had become a human magnet.
People and possessions gathered around him. He accepted them all and put them to good use. More and more of them were becoming like him every day. Yet something was missing. He needed time to think it through. Yes!
Time! That was it.
He went on a holiday, but everywhere he went people flocked and his time disintegrated. Everyone loved Jack, but they couldn’t give him time, only take it. Still he decided it wasn’t important anyway – for now.
Now Jack owned a parking station full of cars and their red chauffeurs. Jack said all the right things at all the right times. How adorable could a man be?
Then one day he noticed a bald spot on his head. Jack saw red, so he patched it up and carried on. No-one would know.
However, Jack did. This prompted him to feel lonely, so he organised an orgy, but was disappointed because all that his friends and associates did was scratch one another’s backs.
Now questions rained on him. Who was he? Was there a God? What did he want?
What did he want?
It sat on top of all the rest. He answered….