ungrateful

Trifextra Writing Challenge Week 23

There’s a West pole just above the Equator, just where Siberia’s north coast has slipped down alongside of Central America to make a vast bay. A bay where the aftermost archipelago is my diplomatic task. The gargantuan City of Akron must at least attempt to show the flag by visiting every last island, islet and inhabited skerry and present each root persona with an eviction token. Virtual airship after airship is setting out from every company workery to remind the customers that any and all fiefs must be folded up before the mussel-crusted world farms are flooded in three days. Most of the world is empty now, but the bay remains a buzzing hive of holdouts who don’t believe the company communications. It would be a shame to see thousands of man-hours of intricate craftsmanship, writing and cultures become an empty sea of glittering potshards when the reboot comes. Why won’t they listen, why do asymptotic walls turn us away at every fractalized angle? Mostly the trouble lies in the free-landers, the clot of hackers and coders who have never paid a monthly bill to the company, but who were already living in the corrupt sectors of the world before the company was granted its universal charter. There’s a quivery red spline curve flashing in and out of visual range in my view port. At a nod, the helmsman turns the ship into parity match with the artifact and I can read the choppy cursive banner clearly: “Thanks, we don’t mean to seem ungrateful, but we don’t need your help or charity. We’ll still be here after you are gone!” Really, how can one deal with unregenerates like this... but our terms of service insist that we must keep trying until the end.


Photo credit: duboix from morguefile.com