a small story

A Small Story, prompted by Some Recent Events, and Dedicated to Those Who Have Become its Cast. (Except Not the Mucky-Mucks)

Once upon a time, there was a Sekrit Gummint Plot. The Mucky-Mucks down in Washington got tired of all those citizens complaining about ’em. Why, things was gettin’ so bad they couldn’t even log to that there Internets to goof off durin’ their highly-paid work hours, without comin’ across some damn blogger complaining about what the Gummint was doing. Them bloggers was gettin’ plenty riled up, too, and the Mucky-Mucks were fearin’ that any minute now things would go from talk to action. Even worse, those people voted, and they told other people to go and vote. The Mucky-Mucks had seen what that could lead to, and they didn’t like it one bit.

One day the Muck who was second-in-command came up with a brilliant idea. He put his tame scientists to work, those ones who said that global warming and pollution weren’t no problem, and who wrote the text books that made sure no innocent kid would think Darwin was the only one to believe in. Those scientists came up with a love pill. This one really worked, but it weren’t for sale. Instead, they snuck it into the water supply in a few carefully-selected spots to test it out. Sure enough, some of them bloggers began falling in love. They’d picked those spots carefully, to target in particular some of the ones who, for whatever reason in their past, had expected to stay single for a very long time or maybe always, and who had started to convince themselves it was best that way. Those were the first targets, because all that energy they weren’t puttin’ into a man went into their writing, and in their writing they were telling the world exactly what was wrong with it. The second-in-command Muck figgered falling in love might distract ’em a bit, and the Mucky-Mucks could go back to goofin’ off without readin’ anything that might upset them. He was mighty proud of himself for comin’ up with such a humane solution. No one could say he’d been cruel, or trampled anyone’s rights; he’d only helped them to something they’d maybe always wanted, even if they wouldn’t admit it. After all, what female wouldn’t rather be in love than complainin’ about politics?

As it turned out, there was just one eventuality he hadn’t quite foreseen. His tame scientists had done their jobs a bit too well, or maybe they weren’t all that tame after all. Each of those bloggers had fallen in love, not just in lust, and each had ended up with a partner who somehow helped her be more fully herself … her strong and downright damned opinionated self. And instead of the bloggers being distracted, now they spoke out even stronger, because now they had someone around to support and strengthen their opinion. The second-in-command Muck sighed, and marked the pilot operation a failure, and went back to his office to try to think of somethin’ else to do.