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A Man of Good Cheer

Tom Ball

    The man of good cheer said, “Don’t give up on your dreams no matter what.”
    These were dark economic days. There were many poor.
    The man of good cheer got elected as mayor and one of the first things he did was to have people wear their dreams on their chests. Anyone could download their dreams from their chests.
    The new mayor insisted on a totally socialist state. “It was no place for greedy people.” He said. As a result about half the people left for other worlds.
    He said, “He wanted brotherly love and communal living.” Some said, “It was communism,” but he said, “Great brains are free to rise up to positions of power in our society”
    And he said, “We were a race of dreamers with wine.”
    People had children here which was unusual in the universe. We wanted a high birth rate. But we could not compete with clone production elsewhere. We were destined to be in the small minority.
    People told the mayor, “He was too late to change human destiny and that androids and clones were taking over.” Super minds. “Our dreams were empty by comparison,” we told him.
    But the man of good cheer said, “He championed the ordinary, normal humans.”
    He said, “He wanted a world in which everyone got what they deserved.”
    I said, “The world will never be perfect-quite the opposite. That is just how it is.”
    People here tried to be perfect at one thing; their job. But were woefully inadequate at living life. A lot of people were “sunset painters.” They painted different landscapes with exotic looking people. And there was a sense of doom amongst the people. People lived for the day and partied hard wondering when the show would be over and we would be eliminated.
    Many of us didn’t want to work but the man of good cheer said, “People need to keep busy. If you sit around and think all day you will ’do the devil’s work.”’
    I asked, “What do you mean?”
    But the man of good cheer had no response.

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