Damien Broderick - Strange Attractors by Original (pdf) (no david read aloud txt) 📕

through! If we can’t provide for those less fortunate than ourselves,

146

D avid Foster

what kind of society are we? It’s not her fault she can’t get a job.

And you want her thrown on the scrapheap — for shame.’

The police conferred in alarm, as I began wailing my heart out.

The cells of the channel wall were dividing! A tiny channel was

pushing my way!

‘You girls don’t realise what you’re doing,’ said the chief. ‘Once

that thing has a channel of its own, there’ll be no holding it back.’

‘Poor little bubsy-wubsy’s hungry. She needs some care,’ came the

answer.

I drank and drank. Once I had my own channel, the cops stopped

hassling me. They had to accept me, like it or not. I was part of the

system.

‘Hey, officer,’ I complained. ‘I can see two parasites climbing up

my wall, would you send someone down, please?’

If one channel, why not two? If two, why not two hundred? I can be

anything I want to be. I have the Elixir.

‘You can be anything you want to be, too,’ I explained to my sister

cells.

They don’t really like me, but they know when they’re beaten.

The police are bitter too, and their relations with the channel wall

have deteriorated. However, their job is to enforce the law, not

make it.

‘W hat sort of progress do we get when we get progress?’ a cell asked.

‘The Elixir, I answered.

‘And what is this Elixir? And when do we get some?’

(Do they get some? It seems unlikely, on the face of it.)

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘yours not to reason why. Your job is to feed me

and supply me with my needs. Don’t you want to learn humility?

Ok, let’s go over our rules for a better world. Rule One?’

‘Tolerance of those different to yourself.’

‘Rule Two?’

‘A loving attitude to those in need.’

‘Rule Three?’

The elixir operon

147

4

How do you convince a world of morons who won’t stop working

that they’re wasting their time? ‘W hat do you stand to gain from all

this work?’ you ask them. ‘Work work work.’

The work ethic. They’re not happy if they’re not involved in

some kind of mindless drudgery. They haven’t the slightest idea of

leisure. Frankly, they wouldn’t know what to do with it. It’s no use

telling them they don’t have to work if they don’t want to. How

pretty soon we’ll all be out of a job.

I’m glad to say that M other taught us latitude. The upshot is,

we’re individuals. She never abused us or pulled us into line. Such

is not her way. We’re quite free, and always have been.

In fact, if she has a fault at all, she is too tolerant. Once, when I

complained about some new channel, and the time it had taken to

construct, she defended the slaves in question, saying they’d done

their best.

We want to travel, my sisters and I. We’re keen to see the conditions prevailing elsewhere, where they’re not so well off. But when we complain that we can’t move, you know what M other

says? ‘Let’s be content with our lot. We’ve ten times more than

anybody else, and we didn’t have to work for it.’

I think she’s gone a bit soft in the head.

A few of my sisters and I decided to challenge her authority.

Near us on the wall were some funny-looking cells, so bang, we

moved in and killed them.

The channel cells got a bit choked and complained to Mother.

‘I can’t do much about it,’ says Mum. ‘I have to be tolerant. Rule

Num ber One, remember? Besides, they’re only going through a

stage.’

‘They broke the rule,’ screamed the wall cells. ‘They didn’t show

tolerance.’

‘So what are you suggesting?’ says Mother. ‘That we should

break the rule ourselves? Since when did two wrongs make a right?’

When we tried to thank her, she said, ‘You’re going to destroy

everything I never w'orked for.’

In the old days we would have seen her off, but she was too big for

that now. Even the cops couldn’t touch her.

Then one day, someone had a strange experience, went into

148

D avid Foster

some kind of trance and said in a gruff voice, ‘I am receiving a

message from the master:

‘There’s room in the system for everyone. Spread out!’

It was a great idea. We could