by Hugh Macnab
department failed to deliver the necessary service levels, it could always offer rides on the beach at Get Lucky.
This department in turn printed a whole bucket load of promissory notes, which were given away willy nilly, more or less on demand – after all, they were just worthless bits of paper really. People (and ants, and all other shapes and sizes of lifeforms) used these to borrow real money, which they managed to spend surprisingly easily, buying things they didn't really need – just wanted, because the neighbours had them, which is actually enough justification for most people. However, as eventually everyone had everything – apart from actual money – people began to clamour for new things to buy, and it didn't really matter what.
For Infinite Resources Inc. this represented an opportunity for huge expansion – they took on a lot of ants, mainly - and they started creating new things they enticingly – and very creatively - advertised as 'New Things'. Having learned their Marketing skills from Bb (a consultant on ridiculous daily rates – well, they all are aren't they) they carefully differentiated these 'New Things' as 'Special', 'Colourful', 'Novel' and so on, creating huge amounts of media interest and demand.
Every organisation wanted these New Things and demanded more promissory notes to pay for them – so much so that DONKY, had to create another department to lend them promissory-promissory notes to buy new printing equipment. These new promissory-promissory notes were provided against a bond (a promissory note) guaranteed by all of the largest organisations in Wilderment – and we all know how much we can trust large organisations with our personal welfare.
The demand for these promissory-promissory notes now became so great, that the amount of promised-promised cash available exceeded Infinite Resources Inc.'s ability to supply New Things – so they in turn created Promissory New things which simply flew of the shelf as soon as they were promised.
Permission also started a discussion group to evaluate the alternatives to democracy. The original group had drawn quite substantial attention and had been forced to split into several forums – actually, quite a lot of forums. Inside each of these, sub-groups had been created specialising on sub-topics of course. The co-ordination of such a discussion required yet another department to be established, and having learned from Inequitable Revenue Services, the name was also kept straight forward. They called it the Department of democratic debate (triple D) – well, that was one of the proposals at any rate. They are still debating the actual final name of the department, but at least they are doing it democratically. No announcement is anticipated in the immediate future, but you never know – there's always Hope – but let's not pursue her story here.
Change – at one point – even built her home from Promissory New Things, as did many other people. In fact, in time there were more Promissory New Things around than actual things – but everyone seemed happy, even although the amount of promised-promised cash greatly out-valued the sum of the coin-column arriving from Earth. Still, everyone seemed content and let's face it, who cares about next year!
Nilrem went on to work with many other fine author's until achieving Golden Globe status after meeting J.R. Tolkien jnr, jnr, jnr....and so on, and starring as 'Gandalf the Peuce' in a series of books ethereally transmitted throughout Wilderment and beyond.
Purgatory and the white light were eventually merged with Infinite Resources Inc delivering a vast array of material needs – filling their coffers handsomely in the process.
Having managed to procure a mobility scooter from Earth, ONE now transported himself around, without Infinity constantly getting under his feet. Infinity, when freed from the suppression of One, expanded and grew larger still in some way that even he could no longer understand and yet another University was started to study the Matter – no, sorry that's another tale for Mass to tell, after all Matter includes many different particles all of which have some Mass, so it would be best for him to tell this particular tale. The board membership of this new University had many members from all branches of academia – after all if there is something beyond Infinity, everyone would be affected – perhaps even more than everyone, who knows? The board was chaired by Bb, of course.
Beelzebub gained his 'promotion' and moved with a fat-cat relocation package, after all, anyone who is anyone has one of these, only those of us – that is virtually all of us, who are nobody, don't. Miss torrid was much happier in a cooler climate and had restarted teaching - English to classes of ants in their millions. Seats, desks and all other materials provided by Bb of course, with a special discount for Education.
C3PO took over running Hades, having replaced his stoking position with a newly promoted electro-mechanical soul – R2D2.
The number of Seraphs and Angels grew in Heaven and the per capita workload was now much more achievable, although there was a rumoured strike pending – something to do with disagreement about the introduction of the appraisal process – let's face it, no-one like appraisals. Somehow, taking the worst offenders and reskilling them, then giving them preferential treatment wasn't going down too well – especially with those who had been sidelined or were sitting on organisational shelves, and my goodness but there were a lot of these. Fortunately, at least these people were usually well paid – let's face it, it's usually too hard to push someone aside and reduce their pay. Only good managers could achieve that, and well...if most (all, really) organisations have sidelined and on-the-shelf people, what does that tell us about management? Tricky one.
Bb – well, he had more profit-opportunities than time available to implement them, so had to take on a partner – Cassiopeia from the other side of the moon. While she ran the existing businesses, – with the help of Florentine, whose cud chewing capabilities were incredibly useful for slowing down irate customers, - Bb was more than occupied 'helping' the ants settle in – after all, there were billions of them and each seemed to have individual needs all of a sudden – no more collective solutions for them.
New contracts were agreed for the ball players and a new season kicked off with the Red Giants the hot favourites – a down side for Bb's video rental business, but as he owned several of the teams outright, it was a net gain. He did mothball the rental business, after all, you never know when money might dry up again for one reason or another.
Shylock and Permission revisited their 'wedding' from the other side of the moon, only this time in real style. They hired a marquee in Bb's fairground and invited everyone – even the spoonettes turned up to dance. The wedding ring was presented by the Department of Null Order - a small diamond ring, the bride and groom had earned for helping the department reopen and thrive once more.
As a wedding gift, Bb gave them a small scrap of chewed paper upon which the words 'uch as he....pay, sometime' could just be made out. 'You won't believe how many thistles I had to exchange for this,' he complained, his new Hollywood smile lighting the room – a dental Hollywood polishing investment which not only gave his teeth extra protection, but also allowed him to see in the dark. Very useful when selling new accommodation to ants.
Change, the original Change that is, not Shylock change or the coin change, settled back into Wilderment very nicely – after all, virtually everything was changing and that was exciting once more. She moved out of the dome she had been imprisoned in, and set up home in a small apartment, no – a wooden hut, nope – a multi-storey tenement, nope, wrong again, it was more like an eco-designed under-ground ant hill, nope – not that either, it was...well, you're getting the idea. She had also been dieting quite successfully since her return and was now quite Small Change – which most people seemed to be much more comfortable with, still, most importantly, she was happy..
The lottery continued to be popular with an ever growing number of participants and Jonah, as a result, was having a whale of a time.
With Permission for company, and having lots of new friends, Shylock eventually decided against having an exit built in Get Lucky – even although Permission gave her permission. Instead
they have settled down and built a small home - using traditional bricks as opposed to promissory New Things – and now have their milk delivered (another joint venture set up between Florentine and, yes you've guessed, Bb).