The Strange Case of The Red Stapler and Other Related Stories

The year is 200`000 before Trompi.

A man sits down to eat. A hyena comes out of nowhere and attempts to gnaw at the side of the man's food opposite his mouth.

The man sets the food down and chases the hyena away.

The man returns, and sits down to eat again. A hyena comes out of nowhere and attempts to gnaw at the side of the man's food opposite his mouth.

The man sets the food down again, and chases the hyena away again.

The man returns, and sits down to eat yet again. A hyena comes out of nowhere and attempts to gnaw at the side of the man's food opposite his mouth.

The man sets the food down, grabs a torch, chases the hyena all the way to its nest, and burns the whole god damned thing down, matriarch to last hyena pup.

The man returns, and sits down to eat yet again. He enjoys a quiet meal then, and briefly for a few more occasions on subsequent days, before plague brought on by the rats that used to be kept at bay by the hyenas that no longer exist brings the story to its abrupt end.

The year is 2`000 before Trompi.

A man goes to the shop to buy a ten drachma pair of shoes for his cohabiting whore. Notwithstanding that the man explains why exactly pairs of shoes for cohabiting whores are to be ten drachmas, the obnoxious shop clerk with a vacant stare insists he can't sell them for less than fifteen. The conversation goes on heating for half an hour until the man threatens to burn down the whole damned shop. The clerk agrees to sell the god damned shoes for what they were supposed to sell for in the first place.

The man sends the cohabiting whore to buy a measure of wine the next day, to better celebrate her new shoes with. The cohabiting whore returns half hour later without any wine, and explains that while she tried to explain to the obnoxious shop clerk that a measure of wine should be ten drachmas, he swore up and down he couldn't let her have it for less than fifteen. The man sent her back, and after she returned empty handed again he picked up a torch and went to the wine shop. It was thereby established that indeed the price for a measure of wine being ten drachmas, the man is to leave the money and take the wine.

The man went and paid the Caliph Emir Bin Sultan of the respective settlement a visit, and asked him to pass a law forbidding further haggling. The Caliph (Emir Bin Sultan) saw the wisdom of the man's request, having his own lot of cohabiting whores and the attendant shoe and wine difficulties. Further haggling was forthwith forbidden, and the men enjoyed their respective whores with and without shoes and wine as circumstances demanded for that brief interval before Eastern barbarians effortlessly overpowered the once great empire with an inexplicably collapsed economic basis.

The year is 20 before Trompi.

A man working in a great office farm wrote something on a piece of paper. Another man working in the same or another similar great office farm wrote something else on a piece of paper. The man met the other man, or vice-versa, and words were spoken about what was written on the pieces of paper. Eventually one of them threatened to burn the whole pile of paper down and the other relented.

The next day, a man working in a great office farm wrote something on a piece of paper. Another man working in the same or another similar great office farm wrote something else on a piece of paper. The man met the other man, or vice-versa, and words were spoken about what was written on the pieces of paper. Eventually one of them threatened to burn the whole pile of paper down and the other relented.

Things would have proceeded in this manner endlessly, seeing how the job each man was hired to do in the great office farm was specifically to write things on paper at odds with the things the others wrote on the same paper. Now and again one man would get angry, bring a flamethrower to work and burn as much paper and as many of the other men as he managed before they caught up with him and sent him away. This produced no visible change, because the great office farm being specifically organised for the purpose of pointlessness, it simply replaced all the individual pieces of paper and their attendant pushers -- a flamethrower can only burn things, not roles.

Eventually one man understood the reals/ideals dichotomy, and set about to destroy the very roles instead. He persuaded everyone else to go home, and was left alone in the dimly lit once-great office farm to write on the paper whatever the fuck he damn well pleases and not have anyone haggling with him and gnawing at his thing. Supposedly this approach works better here than previously, because while hyenas are actual things, abstract dances of imaginary roles are not actual things.

The perspectives for the future of mankind remain ever doubtful.