Being a sequel to The Dead Sea
Mr. Stone and Mrs. Stone lived happily, more or less, ever after. As soon as his loneliness was taken care of, and his love-boil a souvenir, Stone’s mind encountered the problem of changing the world. How can we change the world? How, how, how? He constantly thought about that. A popular science book, a history book, and a cigarette later he came up with an answer.
Suppose one didn’t really factor in that the world should be changed for the better. The way it is, any change would probably reflect positively on most things and life. Therefore, if an idea was energized enough, it would ripple across the social fabric of the planet, changing everything that lay in its path. A philosophical neutron bomb, so to speak.
Moreover, it didn’t even need to be a system of coherent and complete ideas. Just one bare-bone idea could change the world, he surmised. The chaotic effects could butterfly, caterpillar and bumblebee across the cosmos and make sure that the results are always unpredictable. Even if the zygote has no room for moralistic considerations, or merit, it could metamorphose into a variety of phenomenon once it really got going in a complex way. The actual seed-idea was a problem, since it now represented an almost infinite number of possibilities.
One day Mrs. Stone came back from work, mumbling about how high the mangoes were priced.
Immediately, Mr. Stone’s desperate mind found an epicenter for its aforementioned thesis, a fulcrum for his philosophy. What if, you couldn’t sell anything in the world, goods or services, above a certain price? What if human commerce had a ceiling price attached to it? This would mean that one couldn’t buy airplanes and Ferraris, but that was a rather insignificant number of aggrieved people compared to the gigantic hordes living in stark poverty who would probably remain unaffected until some kind of wealth re-distribution took place as a result of this policy. Would it make mangoes any cheaper?
He spoke to Chief about it. “Whoa! The Ceiling!” said the Chief, “that sounds great, I will apply the changes and reboot the system, immediately.”
“No wait!” pleaded Mr. Stone, “I haven’t thought this out fully. The repercussions are totally unpredictable!”
“It doesn’t matter, you won’t feel a thing. Unless you really want the memory.”
“I want it.”
“As you wish.”
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Mangoes. Can you make sure that at least mangoes are half the price they are right now? It’s just an extra line of code.”
The Chief thought it over but finally said okay. After a few instants the world dissolved into a rebuilding chaos and reappeared.
The Chief lay enjoying the sun on a cane easy-chair, watching the sprinklers water his garden. Mrs Chief came back from the Sunday market. She looked very worried for some reason.
“What happened, sweety?” asked Chief.
“It’s weird! There was this mango-seller and when he saw me he caught my hand! He kept saying “I’m your husband! I’m your husband!””
“Why, the scoundrel?!I’ll fix him in no time.” Said the Chief and flipped open his laptop.
[contd…]