World Future

They were the producers of crap.

They’d give you anything. They’d give you anything you want. All you had to do was ask, put your hand out, smile bravely, hold your head high, and demand that which was due you. You might have to jump through a few hoops, fill out a couple forms, sign this, stamp that, here’s your copy, the contract copy, the redemption copy for the point of sale, file it all way, dust your hands of it. Done for the day.

Problem was he was too old to want any of it. So he never ever ever asked for nothing. Why bother, he asked himself, moping around the house in his ratty wool socks, looking in the fridge for something to eat, not seeing nothing comestible.

What would they give to the world at large out there, the ones to come, in their own frenzied magnificence? Now it’s less than nothing, it’s more like an extraction, exactly like a take. They ain’t giving nothing to no world nohow.

When it comes to the world, they only take. The world isn't accorded the high status of a customer.

You, they’ll give to. Mostly you buy it, true, but that’s all part of the asking. The world gets nothing. The world can’t even buy nothing, not even itself. Because, let’s face it, the world is very lousy at asking for stuff. It’s so busy giving.

Someday, something will have to jerk this arrangement around. The world will start to get a little ragged if it never gets nothing, and nobody wants that. The world has got to get some back without having to ask for it.

When I think about what I want, this is something I kind of wish I could ask for, instead of a new TV show or something. I would ask for the world to get some if somebody’d just let me.

The world deserves anything we give it. The world has earned our gratitude and our fealty. I’m getting all worked up thinking of how much the world really needs, and how little we give it.

It’s embarrassing.