“At present, one hundred families in the United States own—as they think of it—more area of the Earth than the entire territory of Bangladesh, where 168 million people crowd.
“By now, it should be evident that on Earth some people accrue a lot more money than others. In fact, some have a few dollars in their pocket, while some have one billion times that amount. A few dozen people, combined, command more resources and access to more goods and services than do billions of fellow people, combined.
“It is hard to gauge how much human capital is being diverted to cater to the whimsical, self-indulgent desires of some who are loaded—and how things would have played out had it been funneled elsewhere. But that much is clear: the Earth people have the resources, know-how, and logistical capabilities to take care of everyone’s material needs. Yet, the dominant economic system produces a different outcome. This is how you get to have hundreds of thousands of homeless people—and over one million vacant homes. This is how you get to have millions of people chronically hungry and root in the garbage to see another day—and millions of dogs are driven to spas.”
Chapter 54
The Western Part of Madagascar Island, off the Coast of Africa, Qataria
Brighid awoke. Her green eyes opened to a slit, and she peered at the inert ocean of sand dunes under a clear night sky.
The hot breath of the summer night swept across her body, and she stirred. Her long legs uncrossed and stretched over the sand—fluid muscles moving underneath smooth skin. A predator at ease.
White teeth gleamed as cherry lips parted in an anticipatory grin. She eyed the two girls that lay on the sand next to her. “Is the Hunt about to begin?” Her skin softly glowed under the silvery light of the full moon.
The girl to her right, Chryseis, opened her eyes, glanced up, and gauged the position of the stars. “No, it’s not. You heated bitch!” She kicked sand at her friend. From the other side, Lee’chelle propped herself up, grinning.
Brighid rolled away with a groan of disappointment. Then she burst out laughing. “Over here,” she hollered, standing up. Her voice carried through the hills and dunes, addressing the army of invisible males. “Hello, everybody! We are here, ready to—” With shrieks of protest and laughter, Lee’chelle and Chryseis pulled her down. “I introduce—” gasped Brighid, pulling the hand from her mouth. “I introduce Lee’chelle to the world—the hottest girl—in the known—universe!” More outcries and laughter. “Lee’chelle is ready to—”
Her call was cut off as Lee’chelle leaped on her. The two fell in a heap. Grappling and kicking, they tumbled down the massive dune, a cloud of sand rising in their wake.
Down and down they rolled, until, gasping and laughing, they came to a halt at the base of the dune.
“Your kicks flattened my butt,” groaned Brighid. “Now none of the boys will hunt me down.” She touched her raw backside, wincing.
“Hey,” Chryseis shouted from the top of the dune, afar. “She’s right. We’ve got to help her.”
“Uh-oh,” Brighid said, struggling away.
“Yeah,” said Lee’chelle thoughtfully, shaking the sand from her long hair. “After all, today is her seventeenth birthday. Yep, we need to pump some air up her butt; it will inflate her buns up—restoring them in no time.”
With a squeal, Brighid sprang away from Lee’chelle and in rapid succession somersaulted backward toward the pile of their belongings. The red staff practically leaped into her hands.
She spun around and advanced on Lee’chelle, the staff twirling, blurring in her hands. Lips working silently. Green eyes blazing—the eyes of a tiger.
Lee’chelle cried out in excitement. From afar, she heard Chryseis’s battle cry as her other friend raced down the dune. But then Brighid was upon her, and Lee’chelle was in the midst of the whirlwind, dancing with the padded stick, dodging it.
Unexpectedly, Brighid dropped the staff and rushed her. She leaped, swinging her legs up. Ankles locked, she closed her legs around Lee’chelle’s shoulders and brought her down, pinning the other girl. Brighid grabbed the scarlet cane again. “Fifty centimeters of stiff rubber looking for a home,” she hollered in a theatrical voice. She brandished the stick, pretending to make good on her threat. This was when Chryseis landed unceremoniously on the two.
“Too late, Chryseis,” announced Lee’chelle from somewhere under. “Brighid just skewered me with her monster dick. Here, help me to pull it out from this end.” She opened her mouth wide.
Brighid and Chryseis howled in laughter.
The sounds of merriment subsided. The three disengaged and remained sprawled on the ground, listening to the sound of their own labored breathing.
A steady beat of drums broke their reverie. It was a primitive beat, and stirred something old and primal inside of them.
Just as suddenly, it stopped.
Silence descended upon the land: the silence before a storm.
“Has the Hunt begun, then?” Lee’chelle asked her two friends.
“No,” Chryseis said. “For about two hours, we will be alone. From this moment, no words will be spoken.”
They joined in a three-way embrace. Then, they withdrew and stood apart, bowing silently.
Each walked her own way.
One Mile West
Hush and darkness.
A faint warm breeze passed through the thicket of giant bamboo. The leaves fluttered in the upper reaches.
Quiescence returned. Gradually, time came to a stop.
Far below, the lower reaches of the thicket were rife with bioluminescent fungi. A blue and white glow bathed the pond, the light passing through the surface of the clear water, rendering the shallow bottom visible: a patchwork of large, pink-and-white slabs of quartz, streaked with black obsidian.
Silence.
A single leaf dropped. Twirling, down it went. Fluttering, down, down, until it touched the water, sending out ripples. And a giant tortoise that had been grazing at the water’s edge raised its head.
Silence.
A burst of warm desert wind swept through the bamboo grove. The small lake stirred, wavelets rushing in all directions. Next, sudden spurts in the water as a small school of flying fish broke above and in a flash disappeared beneath the rippling, shimmering surface.
A breathing tube vanished underwater, and a head bobbed. Lee’chelle opened her eyes and filled her lungs with the balmy air.
The young woman rose and marched toward the far, rocky bank. The water was becoming shallower with each stride. Her full breasts emerged, the nipples dark against the fair skin. Her broad hips broke through moments later. The powerful thighs rose and fell, stirring up foam and waves.
On the edge of the water, a pygmy hippo opened its jaw, and she let out a ferocious hissing sound, arms over her head, fingers curved. The pygmy hippo turned and made its way elsewhere, disappearing shortly afterward amid the thick foliage.
Lee’chelle reached the shore, then followed the narrow stone path that wound its way thorough the towering bamboo. Her bag was on the boulder where she had left it. She climbed to the top, turned to face the lake, and sat down. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted a pair of elephant birds picking through the foliage, seeking fruited trees to browse through. Each of the massive flightless birds must have been ten feet tall. They ignored her, and Lee’chelle tracked them with her eyes until they disappeared.
Her bag was at her feet, and she rummaged through it.
She put on gauze pants of pale yellow and a complementary tie top. She brought her long hair over one shoulder, then brushed it slowly, eyes staring at nothing. Finally, she tossed the brush into her open bag. Lee’chelle lowered herself—legs crossed, head held high, buttocks flat against the rock. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
Everything felt…right.
She had good friends and a father once agai
n. She lived in a world that made sense to her. She was able to pursue her passions untrammeled by a deadening broader culture and corrupting economic climate.
Lee’chelle Lainraad was finally home.
Chapter 55
The Reservation, Deep Underground, the Commission Building
“Quality is a perishable item,” Aratta said from atop the podium. “It flashes through a dazzling, spontaneous smile but cannot be retained by fixing the smile on one’s face. Quality can be sensed via the ripples of water at a lagoon, but it cannot be put in a watertight container and taken home. The moment one tries to capitalize on it, quality slips away.
“Sometimes, the better choice is to leave a thing as-is. Leave it to be perceived from the corner of one’s eyes, leave it transient, leave it out of reach, leave it unnamed. However, operating under the current economic system, there is an impetus to do, well, something: advertise it, make it accessible, build it up, explain it away.
“The Earth people take evanescent beauty, use it to make framed commodities, and then sell themselves on a synthetic reality. They transcribe profound, charged experiences into safe, undemanding media, and then sell themselves on a diminished life.
“In short, Terraneans have been taking the more comfortable paths.
“The outcomes are palpable. Earth people have moderated primitive beaches and wild smells as they’ve established comfortable, money-generating resorts. Some of them have outmoded hoarse singing and fervid drumming with recorded songs to be replayed in the privacy of one’s residence. Some of them have viewed camgirls for hours on end, bypassing the risks of rejections. Under the existing economic paradigm, people on Earth have created an insipid social landscape.
“In the main, they sell, but they don’t enrich.”
Aratta busied himself with his pipe. Finally, he exhaled a stream of cinnamon vapor. “The goal is to make money,” he stated.
“One doesn’t make money by producing a valuable commodity. One makes money by producing a commodity valuable in relation to one’s competitors. The marketplace setup cautions against visionary leaps and downright deters originating things that are confronting, things that could have propelled people into more fulfilling life.
“On Earth, businesses aim to get ahead of the pack; they don’t aim to elevate humanity. It is a race to win favorable attention; not an expedition to heighten the quality of life.”
Aratta puffed a few times on his pipe.
“I once saw on Earth the film Groundhog Day,” he said. “In the movie, the protagonist wakes up each day at 6:00AM. And each day is Tuesday. For him, time halts and merely oscillates back and forth within the span of a single day. He lives through one Tuesday repeatedly. A second chance—forever.
“The protagonist is enamored with a female co-worker and tries to win a place in her heart. He has only one day to do it; tomorrow, after all, will be today all over again, and he will have to start anew. He retains memories of the previous Tuesdays. No one else does; for them, each of the Tuesdays is a new day.
“Through many dates, he perfects the best lines and learns to say all the right things. He becomes a consummate reflection to this woman’s whims and alleged preferences. She declares her love for French literature, and he learns to recite French poetry. She toasts to world peace, and he formulates the perfect comeback. But every night it ends with her slapping him once he attempts to maneuver their date past a certain point. It is everything she wanted in a date. And yet it doesn’t quite do it for her, evidently.
“The makeup and quality of the courtship in that movie are comparable to what the moneymaking drive brings forth at its absolute, theoretical, impossible best. Anticipating and catering to the customers’ every wish and whim is its highest expression. And yet, it doesn’t get people to that yearned-for place—just like the date had everything the female character wanted yet lacked both fundamental authenticity and the innately attractive. It was nothing but a charm offensive to make a sale. It was nothing but a mirror held up, reflecting her alleged wishes and desires.
“The ‘customer’ aspect of one’s persona is a reaction to what’s out there, which in turn is a response to this customer persona—ad infinitum. It’s a hall filled with mirrors, bearing endless reflections of nothing worth looking at.
“The prevailing economic modality puts the cart (i.e., the token money) before the horse (i.e., creations of value). The prevailing economic modality dictates money is the target; people are the money source; the objective of a product or service is to part them from some of it.
“In line with that, ratings-driven talk shows and formula-proven movies have been devised; inane products bearing alluring veneers have been formulated. Another ‘life-changing’ self-improvement book, another ‘groundbreaking’ electronic device: torrents of nothings pretending to be somethings.
“In the role of producers, Terraneans invest their time formulating sixty-nine competitive kinds of toilet paper to wipe the consumer’s personalized arse.
“A marketplace absorbed in devising winning formulas and obliging the stock market in the short term doesn’t hold time or inspiration to conceive spaceships that will send the human race out to the galaxy—literally and metaphorically. The allegiance of the marketplace is to romance the consumer’s money. In a conflict of interests, this allegiance overrides any pending aspiration to advance the quality of human life.”
Aratta fell silent. “The goal is to make money,” he then stated.
“To maximize moneymaking, a ravenous consumer culture was contrived, peddled, and is pushed on people in countless ways. Advertisements have insinuated themselves into every pore and strand of life. They clamor for people’s attention when they fill gas tanks, turn on the television, listen to the radio, answer the phone, open the mailbox, leaf through magazine pages, check incoming emails, browse the Internet. Advertisements are in sports events. They are is in billboards on the way to work and in public bus stops on the way back from school. They are the product placement in movies, and they crop up in celebrity interviews. Invitations, pleas, suggestions, ideas to consume and acquire intrude on people when they are still in their cradles, and then saturate their life journey—all through the twilight days at the senior home.
“Under the annual rainfall of thousands of commercials per square person, the moneymaking paradigm generates needs and problems and desires where none existed before. Products and services fill up every nook and cranny in the social ecosystem. They heap one’s life with torrents of what is trivial and inane. They leave no space: no space to be, no space to reflect. Their economy leaves the Terraneans disengaged and socially isolated.
“The goal is to make money,” Aratta stated. “And with the help of massive streams of behavioral data and machine-learning technology combined with tracking people’s movements via mobile devices and monitoring their Internet searches, the online placement of advertisement is calibrated to cash in on individual behavioral patterns. Or should I say, exploit them?” He paused for a moment.
“What if hustling people generates more bucks than respect?” Aratta rhetorically asked. “What if it is more lucrative to allocate the bulk of the budget to a massive media blitz and less to field testing? What if the best way to generate money is by playing on cravings, promoting what is expedient, or by engineering deliberately addictive products? What if there is a way to cash in on people’s insecurities and their need to belong or fit in? What if that which gives a better first impression—hence easier to sell—is not that which is of a higher value?
“Your Graces,” Aratta said, “stripped down to its essence, their dominant economic system is piles of money striving to get bigger. Just that. All the rest is but means to that end, humans and natural resources alike. And those piles of money commission the services of the shrewdest and brightest to impregnate the broader culture with the essence of the moneymaking dynamics.”
/> Frowns and thoughtful glances were exchanged around the bench.
Aratta continued, “Decades ago, some fancied the advent of time-saving devices and automation would allow people to spend more quality time around their families and hobbies. If anything, the reverse has taken place. In the pursuit of job security, in the race to stay competitive, the professional demands on one’s time have increased. Their layoffs-as-needed, on-demand economy leaves an ever-larger number of people without financial safety nets, with the prospects of retirement in doubt.
“The reality is that most families on Earth are but a paycheck or two from living on the street. One’s position in a corporation is as secure as the next downsizing. This compounds the need to self-preserve, to establish a hefty financial buffer. After all, the community one lives in—such as it is—offers no safety net. For most people, the existing economic setup is foremost an apprehension-driven setup.”
He went on, “It is possible to envision a different system that would have fulfilled basic needs and then receded to the background, opening a space for true quality civic and social life with minimal stress and worry and far more space to interact and space to be.
“However, that is not the system they have been operating under.”
Aratta gestured broadly with his pipe.
“A few generations back, children throughout have splashed for hours on end in local creeks or lakes; spent their time in the public areas shooting marbles or running with sticks. They hopped over drawn numbered-rectangles, dug giant holes in the yard, kicked ball, played tag, and negotiated with each other impassionedly. Nowadays, there is much less spontaneous, children-led activities in the consumer heartlands of the world. Children spend hours at home riveted to flickering screens. They are driven to competitive team-sport meets, to performing arts activities, and to martial arts classes. For-profit products, events, performances, and competitions have colonized and co-opted much of the childhood environment. They have been keeping children more entertained than ever. And lonelier—many never develop genuine, deep friendships.
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