THE WAR

There was a disease in the land.


Those who did not have the disease were undoubtedly carriers of the disease. For it was said that the more agile one was the more efficient one was at spreading the disease to other locations. And so the disease grew and it was written upon the faces and felt under the skin of the people of this land.

So it was agreed that something should be done. Something to stop the carriers from carrying their sober message across this land. So it was agreed that the carriers; the agile ones, such as they remained, must e shot. To every sick person a shot-gun was prescribed and it was their task for the betterment of their people to route out the restless agility that was, for sure, bringing them such bad tidings.

They knew what they were and knowing this it was important that they recognise who they were not. For it was a discrimination that this recognition brought that would cure them. This in any case was what the prescription, wrapped around the barrel of a gun, indicated. So they popped back the barrel of the gun, loaded it with pellets and whilst sipping water, wrapped beneath their warm duvets they waited behind the open crack of a closed door.

As the agile ones circled and played outside one by one they were picked off. Each time a crack was sounded from the barrel of a shot-gun the figures outside dispersed and vanished from the immediate vicinity. But everywhere they went now in diminishing numbers it was the same and so tired and exhausted they either joined the sick or ended their days there on the spot. When at last the agile ones were all gone then it was that only the sick were left and then of course their over-all majority made them feel a little better.

And so the measuring pole of well-being was undoubtedly shifted in favour of the sick and everywhere people whispered of a miracle cure.

Then one day a young and agile traveller happened to pass that way. When he saw the shrunken manner and pale complexion of the people of this land his face begun to darken, especially as he was being watched through the long dark tunnel of a deepening crowd of shot-guns.