A Short Story. : Indybay

‘THE people gave their economy everything. They gave their love, their dreams, their waking hours, their sleeping hours, their intelligence, their muscle, their emotions, their religions, their arts, their health, their bodies, the bodies of their plants and animals and insects, their lands and oceans and skies, their fear and hope, their science, their technology. They gave everything. Every last entity was liquidated into money. Every last entity became a product bought and sold. Every last entity, whether tangible or intangible, physical or emotional, political or spiritual, became fuel for the economy.

AND so, their world began to change. The liberty and freedoms they so dearly valued were the first to change. These fundamental beliefs were once considered the inalienable rights of every human life. They were once thought to be priceless, beyond the realm of economy and money. But now they became exchangeable, and were transferred for other things. They became choices to be taken or not, depending on the impact to an overall economic efficiency. They said, “Our existence is entirely economic. All things must be given a price.” They said, "I shall refuse my right to speak and think freely, if my silence and obediance makes more money."

FREEDOM was once for all to feel. It now became a subject of ponderous debate and sentimental art, watched from a distance, by a silent audience, who paid money for the tickets. Liberty was once for all to exercise. It now became merely a choice, exercised or not. Shoulders were shrugged. “Whatever,” was said. Democracy was once for all to practice. It now became a choice handed out with a price that some could pay, and others could not. At the time, the phrase went, “What, would you take your democracy and your individual freedom, over the collapse of our Glorious Way?”

AS years and decades went by, they took these human rights and freedoms away from themselves, away from each other, and gave them to the economy, so that it would prosper and grow strong. Any rights and freedoms considered troublesome and inefficient to the economy were tailored or thrown out. They said, “I will give up my freedoms, so that the economy may live forever. My freedom is not eternal. But the economy’s must be.” So human freedom did not die in a war, nor was it crushed in an evil plot. It languished and withered away, like something no longer used, like something that had moved on to a different place. This was how the people wanted it to be.

AND so it was. Their endless giving created the most powerful force the world had seen. So powerful, the people kneeled before it and gave their lives to sustain it, as if their burning, war-torn bodies were pieces of coal in an ancient engine. In the year 2____, after decades of war, a war fought to crush all differences and answer all questions about the future, the world became one. “One empire! One way! One world!”, as the leaders, generals, and soldiers said. Separate nations and differing ideas had ended with the war. The world, and all it’s former races, religions and ideas, were now united in one selfless, till-the-end-of-time task: giving perpetual life to a grand economy.

AND in return, this power of all powers gave the people, in beautiful abundance and immaculate grandeur, everything they could ever conceive of wanting. Even love. In ages past, the people believed love was the one remaining emotion only humans could give one another. But the people were wrong. Love, too, became one more thing emulated and produced. The nurturing love between parent and child was first overcome. In a development heralded as revolutionary, infants and children were raised en mass, 1000’s at a time, by surrogate development specialists, allowing busy parents to work selflessly and endlessly. Parents were free to enjoy the company of their children without the burden that raising children placed on their working lives. In a similar revolution, teenagers and young people, no matter how troubled or how talented, were given guidance through intensive training regimens and corrective chemicals, insuring results and freeing parents from this difficult task.

AS they no longer found the need to love their children, they soon no longer found the need to love each other. As each person grew older, they learned to turn away from their families, from their children, from their friends, and from each other, and looked instead to their economy to provide them with products, chemicals, and feelings that satisfied them in ways that friendship and love once did. In this final, fundamental exchange, they gave their economy the love they once gave one another. And in return, the economy gave them its own version of love.

AND so, in the glorious machinery of their economic engine, their fundamental need for each other had been destroyed. In denying their humanity and their emotions, they learned to give themselves completely, as insects do, to sustain the health, glory and efficiency of the greater system. They were fully systematized. They had finally evolved.’

A Short Story.

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