***
There was fresh coffee on the table and some good-looking cakes and I took some of both. Jeremy had been standing looking out of the window and he came back and took his seat at the table again. "Thought about the two subjects?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "I think gender relations are an important component of our social organization. And economics."
"Sounds logical to me," he said. And he leaned back in his chair and waited for me to start.
Which, after finishing a mouthful of cake, I did.
"You are presumably aware of the biological differences between men and women and I will therefore exclude all sex and reproductive activities from my comments. Suffice it to say that in our species men are stronger than women and are therefore dominant in the natural way of things. However, our species never allows nature to remain as it is. We always want to change everything, pervert it if you like. Give us the most beautiful planet in the universe with wonderful forests and flowers and meadows, and we will not be satisfied. It doesn't matter which planet it is. No sir. The first thing we would do would be to start chopping it up and changing it. We would start making 'gardens'. We would destroy most of the forests. We would cover vast swathes of the planet with concrete. We would create huge mining operations to dig its guts out. And we would not stop."
"I thought you were going to talk about genders."
"Yes, well…we are not satisfied with nature in that respect either. And so we are changing this as well. Men and women are not only physically different but also mentally different. Their brains are different and are of a different size. Many women will automatically lock onto such a statement and accuse one of having used the word 'inferior' instead of 'different'. Untrue and of course it's not worth wasting time discussing such ludicrous misinterpretations. There are facts and that is the end of it. For example, we will never have a female overall chess champion of the world. As in physical sports, chess has to be separated into male and female championships. Darts also. Snooker also. There has never been a female Formula I champion—in fact, unless I am mistaken, not even a female Formula I driver. The reflex speeds and the abilities to judge distances and velocities are different. Possibly also the aggressiveness ratios are different, I don't know."
I drank some more coffee, thought it over.
"I think the best way to explain the differences to you would be for me to start off by explaining that everything a woman touches and uses in this world, absolutely everything, has been envisaged, designed and manufactured by men. There may be the odd exception but I can't think of any at the moment. In other words, the cutlery at the table, the table itself, the chairs, the bathroom, the bed, the lamps, the food, the coffee machine, the house she lives in, the electricity supply, the water supply, the sewage system, the heating system, the heating oil and the gas supply, the trash cans and the trucks which empty them, her gardening equipment, the bicycle she uses, the car she drives, the roads she drives it on, the trains she rides on, the planes she flies in, the ships and the ferries and the yachts she sails on, the office she sits in if she works, her office pens and pencils, the tennis courts if she plays tennis, the tennis racquets and the tennis balls, the swimming pools if she swims, the exercise machines if she exercises, the sports arenas if she plays sports, the sports equipment itself, the baby carriage if she has a child or children, the children's nappies, the hospital where she had her children, the hospital equipment, her shoes, her hairdryer, her mobile phone, her computer, her television, and so on and so on and so on."
"Everything?" asked Jeremy.
"Yes. And also all of the factories which are needed to manufacture all of these things. And also all of the machines that are needed in the factories to be able to manufacture everything. And also all of the mining of the required raw materials as well. Those are the facts."
"There are no exceptions?"
"Maybe, as I have said. But I don't recall any at the moment. It doesn't matter anyway, you have the general picture. Men are the providers."
"And this is because women prefer not to do any of these things?"
"Yes and also because, as regards most things, they can't. In general, they are not inventors or manufacturers. They are users, consumers. Now, I should make you aware of the fact that you will find a lot of women and maybe even some men who disagree with this. They will say that men prevent the women from doing any of these things. They will say that men won't let the women have any money to do any of these things. Men prevent them from obtaining all the intricate mental skills and drive necessary to invent, say, the airplane, or a rocket to fly to the moon, or a space station. And on top of that, if they did start inventing things, men would prevent them from manufacturing their inventions. Men, in these people's views, are to blame for things being the way they are."
"And are the men to blame?"
"Of course not. Women have the just same opportunities to attend school and university as men do. It's just that most of them don't want to be engineers or inventors or builders or manufacturers. Nor are they interested in the computer and IT world. A survey this year in Germany by the Allensbach Institute discovered that only 0.5% of school-age females were interested in pursuing a career in IT. And a lot of women have a lot of money, huge inheritances, vast divorce payoffs, or they have earned a lot by being an actress or a singer. There are female billionaires. But they don't use their money to build factories and create jobs and they don't do much inventing either. They either don't want to or they can't; it is not that men prevent them from doing so. Not that money is always necessary anyway. Some massive corporations start in a garage on a penny budget."
"So women do not accept that they are the way they are?"
"Some do, they don't have a problem with it. But a lot of women don't. So we now have things like female boxing tournaments, if you can believe that. And recently they have discovered that there are other male sports like kick-boxing and wrestling and arm-wrestling and so we have female versions of that as well. And we have female politicians demanding female quotas for highly paid jobs in industry, top positions on supervisory boards and so forth. But you never hear them demanding that women build factories themselves and fill them with female personnel and create their own top jobs. They just want women to be given the icing from the male cake. You will never hear them demanding quotas for female construction workers, for female slaughterhouse workers, for female front-line soldiers, for female coal miners, for female car mechanics, for female truck drivers, for female bomb-disposal experts, for—and what could be more logical—female gynaecologists and female surgeons. And so on. They just want quotas for the nice fat jobs which men have created and which they are unable to create for themselves. In fact in Norway, I think the management or supervisory board of every company already has to comply with a 40% female quota. And in Germany, 30% is being introduced. By law. And this is irrespective of whether there are enough female candidates who are qualified enough, experienced enough and knowledgeable enough to outperform any available male candidates. The quota, quite simply, must be filled."
I stopped. I would finish this off by throwing in a summary of Steve's views.
"As that friend of mine says," I went on, "if they can't achieve money and power through their own efforts and in their own factories, their only chance is to shame the males into agreeing to a law which hands it all to them on a golden plate. The future is clear, he says. Thanks to the birdbrains, we will end up on this planet with a lot of Queen Bees supervising large masses of worker bees, who will all be male. They will need the worker bees of course, he says, because they cannot themselves design and build houses, schools, hospitals, factories, machinery, cars, trucks, airplanes, ships and so forth. Without the males, their world would unavoidably be an extremely backward one. Primitive."
"If I may say so," interrupted Jeremy, "these opinions of yours make you sound immoderately anti-feminist."
"Now that, Jeremy, is not fair, not fair at all. First of a
ll, I have only been stating facts. Facts about who creates what on this planet, facts about who uses these things without creating them, facts about the demands for quotas, facts about what the quotas are being demanded for—and also what they are not being demanded for—and facts about many women complaining that men prevent them from doing the things that men do. Or from achieving the things that men achieve. And even my friend's stated opinion is a fact. That is exactly what he says."
"Hmm…"
"Which is not to say that I don't have opinions, Jeremy, and in this case they happen to be the exact opposite of what you are inferring."
"Ah, then I would be grateful to hear those if you don't mind."
"I don't mind at all. Firstly, I don't think we need to dispute the fact that men are the physically dominant inhabitants of our planet. At the same time, women are just as important as men in our society. They are just as intelligent as men, although not in the same way or in all of the same things. They are also better at many things than men, never forgetting however, that vice versa is equally true. Women are superior in specific roles such as nursing and caring for other humans, also animal care, possibly for biological reasons, I don't know. There are many excellent female doctors and surgeons, there are many outstanding female authors, there are many outstanding female accountants, and so on. Women excel in many areas compared to men, while at the same time being inferior in others including, for example, the composition of music. There are no female Beethovens, at least not so far as I am aware. And so in my view our society has a very well balanced gender mix with some roles being the same and other roles being forcibly different. These complement each other in a beneficial and harmonious manner. In a natural way. As Nature intended it. "
"And so your point is…?"
"And so my point is that I totally disagree with that friend of mine who describes women as child-bearing parasites, even if he doesn't mean it as nastily as it sounds. A parasite is something which lives off something or someone else. Women however furnish as many beneficial contributions to our society as do the men, and the male humans depend on the female ones just as much as the other way round. A perfectly balanced situation you might say."
"Well that's something positive at last," said Jeremy. "I was beginning to wonder whether there was anything positive at all about your planet."
"Yes, but unfortunately we mess this up as well. We have a complicated system for the cohabitation of males and females. We call it marriage. A couple signs a legal document promising to live together monogamously and which, among other things, authorizes the state to apply certain laws under certain circumstances, including financial compensation—usually, but not always, by the male to the female—in the event of a separation. The problem here is the naïve assumption that all human beings, particularly the male ones, are monogamous. Some states, in line with their religions, have recognized this anomaly, and their laws permit the male to marry several wives as time goes by, providing he accepts the responsibility for keeping and supporting them all."
"So you have created various differing social structures on your planet?"
"Yes, and my view—and it is my view that you are after, Jeremy—is that the male human being is not by nature a monogamous creature. Certainly, some men may be born monogamous but these would be the exceptions. Just as homosexuals are exceptions, even if some of them end up marrying women. But whatever…let us forget my views on this and get back to the facts. This complicated marriage system of ours is a disaster. If people want to stay together, they shouldn't need a piece of paper to force them to do so. But with marriage, we have created a system which is unworkable, and we have therefore had to create another system to undo it all—a system for legal separation. We call it divorce. The marriage system simply does not fit the nature of its participants, transparently so. There are over 10 million divorces per year on this planet, each and every year. Non-stop. That is over 27,000 divorces per day. Those are undeniable facts and they support my assertion."
"Not very intelligent."
"No, but the situation is worse still. If we take the top 20 divorce countries, the divorce rates are between 40% and 68%. In other words, about half of the marriages disintegrate. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is compliance with an activity which is part of nature—sexual adultery. Polygamous activity in other words. However, we also need to look at the other half of the marriages, the ones which do not end in divorce. Of these, half again are horror stories. Some are psychologically horrific, some are physically horrific, and some are horrific in more subtle ways. And if children are involved, they have no alternative but to participate in these horrific lives as well. And the reasons such couples remain together when they shouldn't do are many. Belief in the power of the legal piece of paper, fear of physical violence, religious beliefs telling them that to end the horror is a sin forbidden by whichever god holds sway in their particular culture, and with fearful godly consequences in the event of non-compliance (most of our gods are extremely keen on using vengeance as a religious tool). And then there is the fear of financial hardship for one or both of the parties, and there is also plain inertia or resignation, and there are several more reasons as well. In the end, Jeremy, perhaps only 25% of humans benefit from this complicated marriage system. And you know what?"
"What?"
"They are the ones who would benefit without it anyway."
"So the whole thing serves no purpose whatsoever? For anyone?"
"Correct. As you can see, we are a species which is not prepared to leave things the way they naturally are. We have to meddle with it all. And going back to the matter of quotas for females, that is just another example of our meddling. We can't leave anything alone, not even, as I described in our first interview, the animals in the wild. They have to be put into zoos. They have to be put into laboratories. Or killed, with or without neck-vices."
"And so to summarize, and as you said at the beginning, Peter, your species cannot even leave the gender roles and the gender relationships alone?"
"Exactly. 'Vive la différence' is what the French say and that is the way I look at it also; and without restricting myself to mere matters of sex and sexual function. But oh no, we can't have that, we have to forcibly meddle. We have to build an unnatural, strained and artificial system of cohabitation. There will be more ‘quotas’, Jeremy, take my word for it. We have only just started."
"Well," said Jeremy, "it is certainly all very interesting and one could probably use a few other adjectives as well. But if you agree, perhaps we could leave this subject and finish up with our last one? Economics? This will be of particular interest to me of course, being in business here as I am."
"It's a deal, Jeremy," I said. I poured myself some more coffee, took some more cake, and thought about how to start.
"Could you keep it short please, Peter? I need to get back to the office and deal with some important documents. Perhaps just a couple of items to direct my research?"
"Right you are, Jeremy."
No problem, I too want to get out of here.
"Now let me see…” I said, “…I would think that the dominating themes in economics nowadays would include 'economics based on growth', 'economics based on debt' and perhaps 'social economics'. Given the complexity of the topic, that is a severely restricted agenda, Jeremy."
"That is understood, Peter."
"O.K. Then I think I will start off by saying that the human race has never identified an economic system that works. And it never will. Economics is, in fact, a false science which only functions partially and only in the short-term. It is based on theories which are at first applied and then blown out of the water as soon as new divergent economic situations arise. The existing theories are then modified to adapt to the new events and, as new cycles come and go, they too are blown out of the water. This applies to the theories of even the greatest economists—I suggest Keynes to you, Jeremy, for the purposes of your research—and, you guessed i
t, these are also argued and argued and argued about whenever they fail to produce the results they are supposed to."
I poured myself the last of the coffee and drank it down, my throat was generating Satchmo sounds.
"If economic science were a genuine and authentic science, there would not be the unforeseen financial disasters or crises which occur time and again as assuredly as the moon orbits our planet. These crises occur on a global basis, or on a country by country basis, or even on a regional basis at provincial or county level, despite the fact that most of the world's governments are stacked to the gills with hordes of highly paid economists. If you trawl a couple of thousand years back through history, Jeremy, you will find two things. First, you will find crises throughout. And secondly, you will be able to read hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of economists' theses and articles. Conflicting ones of course, arguing away with each other like starving hyenas fighting over some road-kill. And more and more theses and more and more theories are being created right now as we speak, Jeremy, and will be created on into infinity. I beg your pardon again Jeremy…until our species ceases to exist."
"Yes, you have mentioned several times that conflict is the main trait of your species, and that arguing is the unarmed version of it."
"Yes, well let me get down to the nuts and bolts. Most of our economies are based on what we call growth. Low growth is a troublesome circumstance, zero growth is extremely bad news, and negative growth produces a poisonous crisis involving, among other things, high unemployment and a corresponding rise in poverty. More and more and more and more is what our system is based on. It is like pushing a snowball uphill. It gets bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier but it has to be kept rolling at all costs. And when it does stop, because it eventually has to of course, we have another crisis. The construction industry is an easy example of the folly of this kind of economic system. Construction forms a major part of most of our economies and it is the reason why we continue to bury our planet under a massive layer of concrete as fast as we can and, like the snowball, this activity must be maintained—forever. If it stops, or nearly stops, thousands of construction companies go bankrupt, their suppliers go bankrupt, millions of workers become unemployed. The economic model then suffers under the murderous dual effect of heavily reduced taxation income coupled with an enormous increase in social benefit costs. So the snowball has to be restarted and we have to begin suffocating our beautiful planet with more and more concrete again. This is the only thing that the masses and their elected clowns—at national, provincial and municipal level—can envisage. More, for them, means better, flap, flap. They don't understand why ‘more’ should mean better, but they can't envisage anything else. And so they proceed to do as their predecessors have done and as their successors, with equal certainty, will continue to do. Flap, flap."
“You frequently use this expression flap, flap, Peter. What do you mean by that?”
“Ah yes.” I answered with a smile. “Definitely not a common expression. It is merely the way in which I picture the birdbrains all over the world as they flap their wings with one new idea after the other, day in, day out, while at the same time squawking ‘more is better’, ‘more is better.’”
“Ah hah!” Jeremy laughed out loud, his eyes lit up, he waved an arm around in the air. He really enjoyed that one. He chuckled and he cackled, a rare interlude away from the depressing content of our interview themes. “All succinctly summarized,” he continued, “by means of a single once-reiterated word. Yes, I like that, Peter, I really like that!”
“Pleased to have been of assistance,” I said.
He laughed and nodded his head. "Flap, flap, O.K., thank you very much.” And then he was back to serious mode, the solemnity required for his delusional study work for his delusional doctorate taking precedence again.
“And so this ‘more is better’ is a pillar of most of your so-called economic systems?"
"Yes."
"Amazing."
"I should also mention inflation in this connection, Jeremy. Inflation is necessary because we are a greedy species by nature, we are always wanting more. As a result, we have recognized that zero inflation is impossible on an ongoing basis. Wages, salaries and the prices of goods may not stay the same (now wouldn't that be stupid?). They must in fact increase, because deflation would be even worse than the 'zero' scenario. Nevertheless, we do recognize that too much inflation is bad, it leads to uncontrollable chaos. If you research the horrors of the hyperinflation in Germany's Weimar Republic in the early part of the last century (prices would double in a matter of hours and a loaf of bread, for example, eventually ended up costing 200 billion marks), you will understand what can happen. And so most countries want inflation, but introduce inflation limit targets. Needless to say, the politicians are frequently unable to control or manage the targets they create, and so the targets are often not met, what's new?"
"So it doesn't work of course."
"Only for certain periods of time and usually only by luck. The way the United States is going today, printing—just as in the Weimar Republic—more and more currency, is a guarantee of what is going to happen. The dollar is now a worthless piece of paper. So are many other currencies. The only question is how long it will take before the international masses—and their international birdbrains—recognize this. But more important than all of this is the subject of debt."
"Ah yes, economics based on debt, you said."
"Yes. Most of the world's developed states have an economic system which can only survive if they borrow money…more and more each year. Another type of snowball being pushed uphill, flap, flap. The birdbrains in charge wish to finance the things the voting masses would like to have but for which insufficient tax income is available. And so they borrow the money to do it and, since they themselves have no personal liability for these debts, they borrow more and more and more until they have created a situation whereby the amount is such that it can never, ever, be paid back. Irresponsible idiots, according to the powerless minority, a charge which the majority and—need I say it?—the birdbrains themselves reject."
Jeremy stood up, stretched, and began to pace slowly around the table. He wanted to get back to his office, but he also wanted to hear a little more about our so-called economic systems.
"They blame the world markets," I said, "they blame the banks, they blame everybody and everything except those responsible, namely themselves. And so what do they do? They borrow even more money to pay off the old debts as they become due, as well as the additional new amounts they need each year to enable them to continue with their totally insane system. They keep muttering the word 'growth'. Growth and more debt to be able to achieve the growth is the only way out, they keep saying. At the same time, their puerile verbal inanities continue and they add more and more unbelievable promises to the historic political dunghill. 'We will stop increasing our country's debt by the year 2020' or whatever. Laughable, not even their aunts believe them. But the aunts are a minority. The masses believe them, and the masses therefore vote for them. And if somebody were to stand up today and say, 'I will stop this lunacy tomorrow morning; we will only spend what we earn', you can believe me that he or she would hardly receive a single vote. Because the intelligence ratios of the masses continue to be the same as those of the clowns they vote for."
"So they think that the cause of the problem is colossal debt which can never be repaid. And they think that the 'solution' to this problem is to create even more debt which can never be repaid? New unprecedented levels?"
Jeremy's forehead was more than furrowed and his eyebrows were raised high above his chapel hat pegs.
"That is the way it is Jeremy. Obviously, at some point in time this snowball also grinds to a halt. The most bankrupt countries in the world at the moment include Japan, the USA, Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain and a host of smaller economies such as Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and so on. And, I don't know whether you can bel
ieve this, but some of the bigger bankrupt countries are even giving away more billions they don't have—they only have debts—to some of the smaller bankrupt ones, like Greece. And all of them will soon go feet up, no need to think about it."
"What do you mean by soon?" asked Jeremy.
"Oh, I can't tell. I don't know. Could be years. That depends at the moment on countries like China. I say at the moment because, under this system, China will go down the same road in a few decades' time. Countries are like companies, they have customers who buy their goods. And when a customer has no money left and he can't continue buying from you, you have a choice. You can stop selling to him, in which case you lose money and you create unemployment for yourself, or you can lend him more and more money so that he can continue to buy from you. In the latter case, and ridiculous though it may seem, you are, unless your customer is going to repay you one day, buying from yourself. Now, up until now, it has suited China to assume that major customers like the USA will repay their loans, and it has therefore continued to lend them more money. By the massive purchasing, for example, of US Treasury Bonds. But when China determines that its potential losses are bigger than its benefits, either because their hard-earned money is going to disappear into a big black hole, lost forever, or because the dollar begins to heavily devalue, in which case the value of their loans will disintegrate, they will stop. How soon this will happen, and some economists still maintain that it won't, nobody knows. But it gives China tremendous power, economically, politically and consequently—very important on this planet—militarily. We in the industrial countries are placing ourselves in their hands and our future birdbrains will go flap, flap."
"I see," said Jeremy with another laugh, "or at least I think I do. No wonder your system doesn't work."
"Right. It works only as long as people keep lending money to those who want to borrow it in order to spend it on what they can't afford. And all of this is aggravated by the fact that the borrowers have to continue finding even more money to make ever-increasing interest payments on their ever-increasing debt. Some economists have now begun to admit that the Euro crisis arose because the birdbrain liars have committed massive crimes by breaking their own EU economic contracts and by ignoring their EU constitutional laws. They say that, thanks to those imbeciles, the whole Euro system is doomed. At the same time, it being the human race, a large number of other economists continue to maintain that the whole thing is not doomed. They say it is a great and wonderful system. But trust me, Jeremy, everything will one day go belly up. A mammoth crisis. Economic history will be rewritten."
"Now hang on there a moment, Peter. You just described the politicians as liars. Now that is definitely an opinion as opposed to a fact."
"No, Jeremy, it is not an opinion. It is a fact. A fully substantiated and proven fact. Certainly, it is a generalization in the sense that a minority must be excluded. But in general, if they didn't lie, they wouldn't keep their jobs. Or even be voted into them in the first place. It is an integral part of their profession. Someone should collate the evidence into a book. The title could be 'The Top One Million Lies in Political History'. It would make for an interesting read."
"Well, please do me a favor, Peter. I find this interesting. But I am running out of time. Just give me two or three examples please; current ones, up-to-date ones. Maximum two or three."
"Nothing could be easier, Jeremy. We have a whole cornucopia to choose from. How about this one? The birdbrains in various countries have recently been telling their electoral masses that they are SAVING MONEY. Check it out, it's been in all of the headlines. This is, however, one of their many lies. In spite of the national bankruptcy situations they themselves have already created, they continue, as I have already made clear, to pile more and more debt every year onto the shoulders of said masses. Now any person with more than five brain cells knows that saving money means taking money you have and, instead of spending it, putting it away for a rainy day. The birdbrains, on the other hand, are taking money they don't have—they only have debts—and are increasing the debts still further. Their countries' debts, you understand. But because they now intend borrowing only large amounts of money instead of crazily large amounts of money, they issue the statement that they are SAVING MONEY. These people are professionals, Jeremy. They know that if they lie about something, and that if they do it often enough, the masses will end up believing them. And—hopefully—the masses will vote for them next time around. And the masses are stupid enough—the 10% intelligent ones carry no weight—to do exactly that."
"Dementia," said Jeremy quietly.
“And the Greece fiasco,” I continued. “Hundreds of billions in loans being thrown away by those European birdbrains naïve enough to believe the Greek birdbrains’ promises that they will repay them. Naïve enough, indeed, to believe that the Greeks could repay them even if their birdbrains were not lying in the first place. Allow me to mention some of the German birdbrain lies to those who voted them into power. The Finance Minister in 2009: ‘We Germans will not pay for Greece’s problems’ (five months later the first European rescue package of 110 billion Euros was approved by the German government). And the same man again in 2010: ‘The rescue packages are becoming due. That is what was clearly agreed’ (eight months later the EFSF rescue package was prolonged - and what is more, for an indefinite period). In the same year, the German Chancellor said: ‘all the experts confirm that Greece can meet its debt obligations, both with regard to the interest payments and to the repayment of the nominal loan amounts’ (ten months later, 100 billion Euros of Greek debt was simply waived, obliterated). And in 2012, the pinstriped statements became even more colorful: The CSU Party Chairman blustered: ‘There can be no more concessions, either on repayment deadlines or anything else’; the Chancellor again: ‘Greece has already achieved a lot and is achieving more every day’; and the Finance Minister again: ‘the agreed-upon measures are costing the taxpayer nothing’; and the Bavarian President: ‘what must never be allowed, is to waive any of Greece’s debt’; and the FDP Party Chairman………”
“Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, Peter. It is clearly insane. These people are liars, either voluntary ones or involuntary ones, no doubt about it. Hopefully the latter. Like eight year-olds who have been given the responsibility for hundreds of billions of their voters’ Euros, and don’t know how to explain what they’ve done with them.”
"Quite," I said. "And for the third and last example, how about the European birdbrains' latest trick? As from the fourth quarter of this year, all European countries can include prostitution income as 'income from services' in their official GDP data. Fraud, black market labor and illegal business proceeds can also be included, under the description 'productive revenues'. And illegal drug purchases can be estimated and included under the heading 'individual consumption turnover'. I mean, how pathetic can you get? The situation remains the same. The debt remains the same. But 90% of the masses will be fooled because their countries’ debts will appear to be slightly lower—as a percentage of GDP."
"Lunacy," said Jeremy. No raised voice. No adjectives. No need.
"I really do have to leave soon," he continued. "And you still have the subject of what you call 'social economics', I believe?"
A waitress came in with fresh coffee. I glanced at Jeremy. Had he been sending messages to her or was this just normal service? He caught my glance, raised his eyebrows and gave me an enigmatic smile. Who knows? I filled up, I would really like another smoke, really, really, but we've got to be nearly finished by now.
"Yes, that's what I call it. Most developed countries have a system whereby a lot of people have to work and pay higher taxes to support those who don't work—that is, those who can't, and those who can but don't want to. Now, before I start, Jeremy, I would like to make it clear that a system which pays a minimum amount to permit people who want to work and who are healthy enough to do so, to support themselves and their families until they eventually find wor
k, is a fine, admirable and necessary system. But this is how it goes, and I will take my country of residence as an example."
"Germany again? Go ahead," said Jeremy.
"In Germany, if you are out of work and have only a small amount of savings, you are classified as being poor. The elected clowns have made laws whereby the working population has to provide everybody else who is poor and out of work with an apartment, a washing machine, a dryer, a television, a telephone, furniture, clothes (new clothes), electricity, heating, food, transport, free health care and—believe me, Jeremy—alcohol and tobacco. All of these items are included in the official German calculations as to how much the poor must receive. It is the modern clown definition of poverty."
"This is poverty in Germany," said Jeremy. "I see."
"Yes, but there is more. You are poor but you want to have ten children? No problem. You can have as many as you want. And irrespective of whether you are German or not, we will get the working taxpayers, including those who have decided they can't afford to have ten children, to pay you more money for each and every one of them, you don't have to finance a thing. So…go ahead! And…we'll get the taxpayers to pay for an even bigger apartment for you to house them all in. And even if one or more of your children get married, you will still receive a monthly child allowance for them until they're 25. And nobody checks whether you are spending all of these money gifts on your children either. And if you are a foreigner, but your children are still living with their grandparents back in your home country, the nice German taxpayers will pay you the same amount of money each month as they would if your children were living in Germany. An awful lot of nationalities have learned how to benefit from this wondrous German law, the leaders at the moment being the Poles. The Germans are currently paying for over 41,000 Polish children living in Poland."
"That does sound incredible. But what happens if the working taxpayers want to stop paying for all of these other people? Or at least want to pay them less?"
"They have no choice Jeremy. The birdbrains have the power. Their laws have caused this; we call it social security tourism, or poverty tourism. The most recent influx is from Romania and Bulgaria. An estimated 180,000 per year are pouring into Germany, where the nice taxpayers provide them with a luxury life compared to what they would receive from their own governments. Whole villages hire buses and they turn up, legally, in Germany where housing and everything else has to be provided for them. Attempts are made to find jobs for them, but many can't work for reasons such as they can't even speak the language. As a matter of fact, many are illiterate, or close to it, in their own language. And as for the remainder, many learn quickly how easy it is to have yourself officially classified as ill."
"But surely the German people can refuse to pay for this unlimited social security tourism?"
"They can't refuse, Jeremy. As some of the birdbrains themselves say, we need the masses in order to get elected, but not in order to rule and make the laws. Ha, ha, flap, flap. And, Jeremy, the right to live in Germany means that thousands of young girls, illiterate or not, have become prostitutes and more are still arriving there by the busload as we speak (prostitution is legal in Germany and they now have a legal right to work there). And maybe plenty of not so young ones as well."
"Fascinating," said Jeremy. His tone was flat; not an unfriendly flat, just a mildly disinterested flat.
Germany also takes in close to 300,000 political asylum seekers each year. These are people who are threatened with death, violence or imprisonment in their home countries.”
“Threatened by other human beings? Well, well, well, surprise.” Monotone again.
"Yes. And then there is the question of illegal immigration as well. The birdbrains flap around like headless chickens, praising the inefficient European border control system they have implemented, denying that they themselves have any responsibility for the mess they have created (what's new?), and affirming that in any case they wouldn't know how to stop it. Quite the contrary. Illegal immigration into Germany increased by 25% last year. But this was not their fault, of course. Someone else is to blame. Oh yes…flap, flap."
"Awesome." Jeremy fiddled with his coffee cup; again, no emotion that I could note.
"Anyway," I continued, "back to the overall social security recipients, irrespective of nationality. It is factually true that a larger percentage of these are obese than is the case with the workers who are paying for them; and many of them just sit and watch television all day or spend their time drinking in a pub. You can find plenty of them there at any hour of the day or night, and in any city or in any town. It is legal for them to do that. That is a fact. And there are a lot more facts, some of which you might find difficult to believe. For example, the working taxpayers in Germany—thanks to the birdbrains again—give interest-free loans to these out-of-work people. Last year, the amount was €65 million. Naturally, a lot of these loans are not loans at all. They are never repaid. They are a gift."
"And that is a fact, is it? €65 million? Interest-free?"
"According to the official statistics of the German Employment Ministry, Jeremy."
I swilled some of the fresh coffee down my throat, which had now reached the stage of being able to provide, if required, a perfect rendition of Rod Stewart singing Waltzing Matilda. Or Rod Stewart singing anything, come to that. It is just that the legendary Waltzing Matilda sticks in my mind because of its peculiarities—it being, as I am sure know, a romantic Scottish tune with Australian lyrics which have nothing to do with dancing or with a young lady by the name of Matilda or any other name.
"But for many things they don't need a loan, Jeremy. In selected provinces in Germany last year, many of the unemployed who were looking for or starting a new job received free gifts of money for haircuts and new suits and/or overalls. And if the job is not close to where they live, then the taxpayers finance the purchase of a car for them and will also pay for car repairs up to an amount of €2,000 annually. And if they can't drive, the taxpayers will also contribute to the cost of driving lessons and other costs involved for them to obtain a driver's license."
"But surely some of the taxpayers can't even afford a car themselves?"
"That is true, but they have no say in the matter. Their tax payments contribute to this the same as anybody else's, the birdbrains make no exceptions."
Jeremy had adopted a slightly glazed look. "Fascinating." he said. “Farcical.”
"Farcical? There is no end to it Jeremy. How about this? An unemployed German married an Indonesian woman and they had a child. They lived off unemployment money and social benefits for several years, and then the woman left him and returned to Indonesia, taking her son with her. This year, still unemployed despite being healthy, the man decided that he wanted taxpayers' money to visit his son, now ten years old, in Indonesia for a few weeks. Something they had already done for him the year before. Not a bad holiday methodology, you might think. And this time around the authorities refused to pay him the money. And so he took the authorities to court. And he won!”
Jeremy was tugging on his shirt cuffs, twiddling his cufflinks, adjusting his tie. Becoming nervous. "Mad," he said, not for the first time.
"Indeed," I said. "But for something really farcical, listen to this. Last year in Dortmund, the birdbrains, and/or their lackeys, were offering unemployed persons cash gifts of up to €280 per month for three months if they would do them the favor of taking the jobs that had been found for them. Even though they are required by law to accept the jobs."
"Even though they are required by law to accept the jobs," said Jeremy pensively.
"Exactly. In fact I am now waiting for the birdbrains to introduce a system whereby murderers will receive taxpayers' money in order not to commit murder, even though the law requires them not to."
"I must admit there are things which deserve your kind of cynicism, Peter. Particularly since these weird practices presumably continue."
"Well…not comprehens
ively, Jeremy. What I've described is all factual, but some of the practices have been subject to certain conditions, some are restricted to certain cities or provinces, and some have recently been stopped because the applicable birdbrains eventually recognized their law-making errors, or someone else did it for them."
"But perhaps you have only mentioned a few exceptions to the rule, Peter. Perhaps you are exaggerating the overall picture…"
"Oh no, Jeremy. There are hundreds of thousands of cases. I have only provided you with a few illustrations. And because the system," I continued, "is incompetence personified and full of holes—like most politicians' systems, as I have previously mentioned—there is massive fraud."
"Massive fraud? That is your opinion?"
"No Jeremy, that is not my opinion, neither mine nor anybody else's. The fraud is a fact, and so is the adjective. There are an average 200,000 convictions each year in Germany for total or partial social security fraud. But these are only the people who are caught. Nobody knows how many people are committing fraud; several estimates put it at well above 1 million. I even know some personally. Many of these people also earn extra money by working illegally without paying taxes or social security contributions while continuing to receive their assistance money—also tax-free of course—from the tax-paying population. They contribute nothing to society.
I can quote from many interesting cases. Recently, Hans-Jürgen L. from Düsseldorf was convicted of drawing benefits for many years although he had nearly €500,000 in a bank account in Liechtenstein. A Turkish guy owned three launderettes, all in his son's name. Another Turkish guy had built himself a luxury villa back in Turkey. A local guy from Hamburg received €35,000 over three years although he was the owner of a profitable whorehouse, and drove a brand new Jaguar to boot. An Islamic priest in Cologne, who doesn't have the time to go to work but does have the time to preach death and hellfire to all Christians and Jews, prefers to live in a house rather than an apartment and is also supported, together with his family, by the nice German taxpayers. Who are mainly Christians. And so it goes on. The list is a very, very, very long one."
"Well, I prefer not to hear any more examples, Peter, thank you. Let us just say that all of this is ridiculous and must cost a lot of money."
"It does indeed. Even the costs of the controls to try and catch some of the swindlers are immense. But no matter how much the taxpayers pay, it will never be enough. The pinstripes' imperfect and defective system just cannot be financed. This in no way represents a problem for the pinstripes of course; they merely borrow more money in the name of the people to pay for their ghastly incompetence, flap, flap. And…they keep inventing new ways to spend even more. For example, men who have become fathers and who want to play mother can now absent themselves from their jobs for several months and receive money from the other taxpayers for doing so. But, as I have said before, all of the schemes these incompetents create are full of holes. Firstly, this father money is also paid to well-off men who don't need it. And secondly, many men use it to enjoy a prolonged holiday from work at the other taxpayers' expense."
"But perhaps Germany can afford all of this?"
"Jeremy, last year, Germany's debt passed the €2 trillion mark and they are still taking on additional new debt each year. To provide a simple guide, Germany's debt will today have increased by another €140 million. Yes, today, while we are talking. This is what happens when incapable people are allowed to design systems, make them law, and borrow increasingly vaster amounts of money to finance them at no risk at all to themselves personally, flap, flap. These ghastly people are not, as a practical matter, held responsible for any of their actions. This is precisely what always happens when you sanction the non-existence of accountability, when you allow the separation of authority from responsibility, when, in fact, you permit the complete annihilation of any form of concatenation between the two."
"But if there is not enough income to finance things, are you sure there is no way at least to reduce the expense?"
"There are many ways to reduce the expense, Jeremy, and without harming anyone. For a start, if you were to require all of the unemployed to appear at 07.00 a.m. every workday and stay there until informed as to whether a job or any kind of work were available—or payments would be stopped—you would probably save billions. No further action required. Because a sizeable percentage of these people would simply not appear. Or not for very long."
"O.K., I understand. But Germany is one thing. Is this also widespread among aother countries which run a socialist system? For example, what about here in the U.K.?"
"Same thing, Jeremy. The U.K. system cannot be financed either. But the U.K. birdbrains don't understand that. And so they make the U.K. borrow and borrow again. The U.K. debt is factually worse than Germany's as a percentage of GDP—a total of over €1.7 trillion. And the interest on this is around €48 billion per year and they continue having to borrow more and more at the rate of over €2 billion per week. The U.K. debt is now 100% of GDP, despite their birdbrains' National Investment Rules which only permit a maximum of 40% of GDP. Just another example of what generations of birdbrains can achieve. And if the U.K. had not had the same luck as the Arabs, by which I mean finding oil (in the North Sea) and imposing vast taxes on it, it would have become a bankrupt country long before now. Long, long ago."
"But hasn't the U.K. saved any of that oil tax income?"
"Saved? Oh no, Jeremy. The U.K. has spent it all trying to support its various social systems and theories. If you would like to see some of the results of this, I am told there is a good television series called 'Benefits Street' which would give you an idea of how the money is spent and what types of people receive it. No, the fact is that the money has gone, it continues to go and, as I have just mentioned, they continue to borrow more. Norway, on the other hand, created a special national fund into which it channeled and continues to channel a major share of its North Sea oil revenues. This fund now totals hundreds of billions of Euros and continues to increase."
"Peter, I have to say that that is enough. It is difficult to comprehend why you structure your society in what appears to be not only an impossibly complicated manner, but also a disastrous, inequitable, illogical and financially unworkable one. I believe it is simply due to that same lack of general intelligence which explains your constant warring and other murderous activities. But the broad outline you have provided me with is adequate. And I shall, as always, fill it in with the details I require. Now…there was something I wanted to discuss with you today but I no longer have the time. It is, however, important. Do you think we could get together tomorrow morning again, let us say for about an hour, perhaps less?"
Hell, why not? At least it sounds as if I'll be doing the listening for once instead of the talking.
"Can do. How about around 11 a.m., Jeremy?" That was fine by him and he said let's meet here again. In the lobby, no need for a conference room.
And we said our usual courteous goodbyes and I was out through the lobby and lighting up my cigarette almost before it was legal to do so. Piccadilly was full of people walking along in TGIF mode, two days of life in their beehives coming up before having to return to their office prisons.
In a couple of minutes I was back at my hotel. There was an unattractive girl at reception whom I had seen a few times before. She was unattractive and fat. Polite but not friendly; categorized by me as one of those who treat sex as a duty, hopefully to be performed as rarely as possible, maybe whenever Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, and preferably after a few drinks, and then only with a man who is as fat as she is. I am merely surmising of course, perhaps I am completely mistaken, who knows, but all she gets from me is a civil 'good evening' and not a word more.
I was tired, I was not in a good mood. I was not enjoying the Jeremy meetings, certainly not protracted ones such as today’s. Or ones which feel protracted, even if they are not.
No message from Céline. Well… no panic, she had
said the weekend. I ordered a room service meal. I wondered what Jeremy wanted to talk about tomorrow. No idea. Shower, read another of Ellin's brilliant creations, ‘The Cat's-Paw', and fell sleep.
DAY 16
I awoke to another good mood, looked out of the window. Sunny weather! Not a cloud to be seen. Had a leisurely breakfast, drank lots of good Lavazza, and flipped through the hotel's Financial Times.
The markets were slightly up again this week for reasons unbeknown to man nor beast, and I have lost another €12,000. Not a problem. My bear certificate is a leveraged one and I gain or lose double on whatever the market movement is in reverse. It is quite clear to me what is coming. I will earn good money while the optimists lose theirs. I just don't know exactly when. This week, next week, next month, a few months down the road? No way to judge the timing. I am just leaning back and waiting until the institutional optimists are forced by events to throw their optimism overboard and start selling. My other investments are doing well, mainly defensive stocks paying sizeable dividends, the dividends supplying a partial buffer against any downward price trends. Not that I am ever caught by the full effect of any downward trend, I upgrade all of my automatic sell and stop-loss orders on a regular basis.
So all was well with the world as I took off for the Ritz. Except of course for Céline. I was definitely worried about her. What kind of complications had she been referring to? Could be anything. Impossible to guess. And therefore no point in wasting my time with conjecture.
I made a detour into Green Park. There were plenty of people about, a sunny Saturday morning, and I headed straight across to the other side. Stopped, turned around and checked everyone coming in my direction. Nobody appeared to have any interest in me, nor did anyone seem to be the sleuth type, not that that necessarily meant anything of course.
I lit a cigarette and stood around smoking it, then walked back fast in the direction of my hotel. I entered the lobby and looked out through the glass entrance doors. Again I could see nobody approaching, nobody standing around doing nothing and nobody standing around doing something either.
And so out I went again and strolled the short walk up to the Ritz, arriving at a couple of minutes before eleven. The lobby of the Ritz was full of people drinking coffee, or maybe it was tea, what do I know, talking, reading newspapers, waiting for other people, maybe just pointlessly killing off some of their leisure time on their road to death.
Time, for each and every one of us, is a strictly limited commodity, like oil. And, like oil, we waste a lot of it.
Jeremy was standing by the reception desk. I was wearing chinos and a sports jacket, the lightweight one, but no casual clothes for him. A dark brown suit, a white shirt, and a dark green tie with a pattern of small yellow dots. Actually, as I approached him, I saw that the dots were tiny yellow elephants, making his concession to the weekend with a motif léger after all. Flying ones would have been better, if you ask me, in view of his mental state.
"Peter, good morning," he said with a smile, albeit a somewhat hesitant one it seemed to me, not his usual cheery beam. "There are too many people around for what we have to discuss and so I have arranged for a small meeting room after all."
"Just for an hour? They do that?"
"No, they don't. But as you know, money is not an issue for me." Another smile, a pleasant enough one but not full of the joys of life either. I wondered what was on his mind.
"It's this way, Peter."
The room was not that small, except perhaps in Ritz terminology, and was furnished simply but with taste, expensive Ritz taste. Coffee and biscuits were already there and we sat down in what had become our standard positions, a corner of the table and a spare seat separating us. Jeremy poured us both coffee and I grabbed a couple of biscuits.
"Peter," he began, "we have an unfortunate complication. A serious complication, a very serious one. But first I need to clear the air, so let me say that I am aware of the fact that a man of your intelligence does not believe I am an alien, with or without certain 'hacker' capabilities. You also no longer believe I am a fraudster, among other things because you have already received a substantial sum of money from me. You therefore believe that I am insane. You probably believe me to be the original Jeremy Parker who was able in some way to obtain his release from his mental institution. Am I right?"
You bet he was right. But no way was I going to say anything that might disturb this lucrative arrangement. Keep it going was my motto.
"Well…" I said, trying to think of how best to lie, how not to answer the question while still appearing to do so. The training an elected clown receives would have been of assistance to me.
"Well…" I said again, "I do indeed believe in the possibility of aliens. The sheer weight of probability mathematics, given the vast numbers of solar systems, billions of them, means that other life forms……"
"Yes," interrupted Jeremy, "but do you believe that an alien could visit your planet? Do you believe that an alien has already visited your planet? Do you believe that I am an alien?"
"Well…" I started off again.
"Peter, if you had to make a statement regarding my person right now, at this very moment, would you opt for the version that I am suffering from weird delusions resulting from a not unknown form of mental aberration?"
He was not going to give me a way out, obviously. My neurons spent a couple of rapid seconds considering first this answer and then that answer and comparing them with even more potential answers, and then they reached a conclusion.
"Yes," I murmured. Embarrassing, but there you go. I waited for his reaction.
"Good," he replied. "So now I can explain to you what has happened without you taking it too seriously or getting upset in any way…
"Depends what it is," I said.
"Well, Peter, as you know, after each of our meetings I conduct a considerable amount of research. I sift through enormous swathes of information which are available to your public, including on your Internet, and I do this at a speed which you would find difficult to envisage. No, our brains cannot go faster than yours, but they can be trained for rapid calculations and…what would you call it…speed-reading? Very fast speed-reading. In fact, a few of you humans can do some of that already. They appear on Quiz Shows and I.Q. contests. But anyway, I delve far more deeply into the themes you have talked about during our meetings, I check out some of your statistics for accuracy, and then I finalize some formulations of my own. And finally I complete a 'working paper' which I transmit to my professor."
"Yes, so I had understood."
"Now…after my first working paper, the one on your interaction with the other species on your planet, my professor was to a certain extent disturbed. He found the subject matter to be especially brutal and repugnant. But that was it. Not everything we learn about lower intelligence life forms—begging your pardon Peter—is necessarily pleasant. And extreme though the activities were on this occasion, he merely gave me his academic comments and stored the information in my thesis file."
“Dissertation file.”
“Yes,” he smiled, “I keep forgetting the fine line you draw between the two words when using them academically. Right. So he stored the information in my dissertation file.”
Jeremy paused, looked me directly in the eye, leaned forward with his elbows on the table and continued. "My second working paper, on the subject of how you guys interact with each other, caused him considerable concern and alarm. His immediate evaluation was that your species is clearly not only a non-benevolent one, but an actively destructive and dangerous one. And in such a case, which is a rare one, he is obliged to inform the Governing Committee of the Universae. Which he did. As a matter of fact, I was truthfully unaware of such a regulation until he informed me of the step he had taken. And now your species has been classified as 'hazardous', one of very few life forms ever to have been placed in that category."
Oh my, oh my. Or oh my God, if you prefer that expression, and as usua
l please feel free to choose whichever god you prefer. This guy had to be the ruling monarch of all lunatic fantasy worlds, a medical delight. The Governing Committee of the Universae, my foot. Just how many intricate and complex details can a deluded guy manufacture to bolster the complicated structure required to support his delusions? An interesting question, but hey, I was still after the remaining big payments, or the possibility of them, so let me play it straight. Even if he knows I think he is a maniac. There is nothing to be gained by being disrespectful.
"Hazardous?" I asked. "How can we be hazardous, Jeremy? To whom? We can't even travel around our own solar system, let alone go anywhere else."
"Ah, and there you have hit the nail on the head, Peter," he replied. "A hazardous life form is one which is not only a cruel and murderous one within its own habitat, but one which is potentially dangerous to the universe. In other words, a species which is likely, eventually, to discover and understand the workings of the fifth dimension. Likely, as a result, to be able to spread itself out into the universe. Likely, therefore, to spread its homicidal and barbarous activities among other species. And unintelligent, with all due respect again Peter, though you may be, you are quite clever in the relatively insignificant field of technological matters. Slow, but clever. My people estimate that in less than one hundred years, using your planet's time scale, you will have acquired reasonable knowledge of what the fifth dimension is and how it functions. And that would make you seriously dangerous, a hazard to the harmonious and benevolent existence of all of the universe's intelligent species. And that we cannot allow."
"Would? Cannot allow? Tell me, Peter, what happened to the first life form you identified as hazardous?"
"We eliminated it. A cancerous growth needs to be prevented from spreading."
"I thought you said you were a benevolent lot. How can you go around eliminating things? Species, for goodness' sake."
"We are back to the ants in your garden, Peter. If you are an animal and insect lover, you probably wouldn't want, nor see any need, to harm them. But if they invaded your house, and if they were a variety of killer ant, and if they were multiplying and beginning to disrupt the harmony in your life, you would probably take steps to eliminate them. As you would with some aggressive wasps which had built a nest by your front door. Their lives are not, after all, of great importance to you in the overall scheme of things."
"Yes, but…"
"And my analogous example is, in fact, an understatement. You already have chemical factories around the world manufacturing toxic sprays for the mass slaughter of ants and wasps and slugs and other insects which bother you in minor ways. Such as daring to walk across your terrace, for example. And what we are talking about here is slightly more important than that, if you will allow me the understatement."
"So we are as unimportant to you as the ants and the wasps are to us?"
"Correct, Peter. And you would normally be of no interest to us other than for study purposes. But the facts of the situation have now changed this."
"You don't mean that you are going to eliminate us? Is that what you want me to believe?" I asked. A distinctly crazy question, no doubt about it, but then I was conversing with a distinctly crazy person, no doubt about that either.
Jeremy chuckled, not particularly humorously, but he chuckled. "No, Peter. As I have already mentioned, I know you don't believe anything at all about me, although you should. But no, no decision has been taken yet to eliminate you. The problem for you however, is that it might be. And in the meantime, I think we should try to prevent such a decision, or at least try to have it delayed. But we would need to work very fast."
"Why do you say 'we'? And why would you want to prevent such a decision? I thought you said we were as unimportant to you as ants."
"Yes, I did say that and yes, you are. As for wanting to allay such a terminal decision, let me say again that I am a benevolent being and would not enjoy seeing the unnecessary elimination of a species before its time. Any more than you would want to start killing ants when you get back home just for the fun of it, if they are neither bothering you nor interfering with your life. At least I hope you wouldn't, although, as you have already explained, many of your fellow beings do in fact kill just for the enjoyment of it, sport I think you called it. And I say 'we', because you are the only person I know who could possibly help me in this attempt."
"Yes, but as you said—and I mean this respectfully—I don't believe a single word of any of this and therefore I am not about to involve myself in whatever it is you have in mind."
"Your answer was of course foreseen," said Jeremy. "And so we come down to money again, an incentive of an amount which will surely be of interest to you."
He wasn't wrong there. Even more money! The ocean waves I am swimming on right now are gentle and beautiful ones indeed, carrying me tenderly toward an exotic island full of coconut trees and half-naked girls (half-naked being preferable to naked, thus retaining the pleasurable anticipation of making one or more of them naked later on). However, Jeremy was not going to make me a billionaire. So how much should I insist on? And what would I have to do for it?
"How much?" I asked.
"I was thinking of an additional €200,000," said Jeremy.
"For doing what? I mean, if we are classified as 'hazardous' already, there's not much we can do about that, is there?" I am playing the game I am, right through to the money winging its way into in my bank account. Hopefully.
"'Not much' is an accurate statement," said Jeremy. "In fact, there is only one thing we can do, or attempt to do. And that is to try and have you change yourselves, change who you are and what you are and what you do, your whole behavior. To try and have you convert yourselves into a benevolent life form, living peacefully and in harmony among yourselves and among the other species on your planet. And consequently, when you have learned how to travel, to peaceably and amicably relate with the other life forms in the universe also. A pretty simple and intelligent goal, you might say. An obvious and highly beneficial objective. For an intelligent species, it is. But with you guys, at your level of intelligence, it is going to be a complicated and difficult task, to put it mildly. And that is why I am using the word 'attempt'."
"And how on earth do you propose to achieve that? Or rather, attempt to achieve it?" I asked.
"Not I, but we," corrected Jeremy again. "Being organized the way you are at the moment, we would have to get all of your world's top elected birdbrains—as you and your friend call them—to meet and agree on the initial steps necessary to launch a mutation process. It will take them time, many years I would think, to actually implement all of the changes, assuming of course that they can manage to agree to do so in the first place. And that, needless to say, is the risk. It is very possibly a hopeless task, but at least we can force them to start."
"Force them? How can you force them to meet? And even if you manage that, how can you force them to agree…on anything at all, let alone a concerted action to modify the human animal into a creature capable of peaceful coexistence?"
"Not you, Peter, we. And the answer to your question is fear. As you have more than once made extremely clear, your species is incapable of agreeing on more or less anything. Discord, hostility and constant arguing or violence are integral components of the nature of your species. Consequently, at this initial stage, the members of your species need to be forced to agree with each other. And fear is the only instrument capable of achieving that. The concept of fear, unlike love, honor, truth and so on, is the one emotion that they can all understand and agree upon together, because it applies to each and every one of them individually. Fear affects their selfish interest in their own individual self-preservation. Fear, as your Peter Scholl-Latour once wrote, is the main prerequisite for survival."
"You seem, Jeremy," I said, "to place great faith in fear. How do you know we will not just be laughed at?"
Jeremy put his elbows on the table, folded his hands, placed the
m under his chin, gave me one of his smiles, and then proceeded in a pleasant but seemingly bored intonation, for all the world as if he were teaching a Psychology I class for teenagers. "Because we are going to implant real fear into their minds, Peter. Fear is the strongest of all of the emotions in existence, and that holds true for all of the universe’s life forms. It is the prime instinct responsible for ensuring the survival of a species."
"How about love?" I asked.
He tilted his head and sighed in an amused sort of way. "My research to date shows me that you all interpret that word differently. And in any event, there are too many cases of what you call love which in fact are of the 'if you love me, then I will love you' variety, and if you don’t, I won’t. And when that happens, as it often enough does, the so-called love can even turn into blind hatred. Or else the emotion simply disappears as if it had never been. Forget it, Peter."
"Well, maybe. I know what you mean. Certainly there are plenty of us who think of love as a kind of temporary illness for which there are several easy cures. Marriage being one of them for example.”
“Ha. Good one, Peter!” beamed Jeremy.
“And the actress Romy Schneider once said that there is nothing as cold as a love which has died. So perhaps the word love merely defines a temporary idea. But who knows? Anyway Jeremy, how about sex? Now that is one hell of an instinct, you have to admit."
"Not really, Peter, it can't compete with fear. If I were to tell you that you had to choose between living a life without sex, or being tortured to death this evening, I know which one you would choose. Fear easily wins the day, as it always did way back in the day. Fear is what ensured the survival of your primeval lizards in their almost un-survivable environment."
I nodded, point taken.
"But we need to apply collective fear. And in order to apply collective fear, we will first of all need to bring your most powerful birdbrains together. And we need to start by convincing one of them, or rather scaring one of them, into undertaking that attempt. And I suggest that the prime minister of your country, the U.K., would be the easiest one to reach for this purpose. And that alone will be difficult enough. And that is where you come in."
This fantasy game was going too far. I didn't need this extra hassle. Nor did I need the unmistakable risk of embarrassment which might result. I had no desire to make a laughing stock out of myself at this elevated level. At any level in fact, I have my pride. Just like you or anyone else. And embarrassment might not be the only thing I would have to deal with. So…I am not interested. Not at all. Unless of course…unless there is sufficient money in it, more than he is offering. We are all potential prostitutes on this planet, not just the females or the pretty boys.
"I am sorry, Jeremy," I said, "but I am not interested. I am not going to become involved in this."
"Because you don't believe a word and you are therefore concerned about the embarrassment," he said. "And the amount I have mentioned is insufficient to compensate you for that. So…how much?"
"Jeremy, you already know that I don't believe this…this whole scenario. And I really do not wish to involve myself any further."
"And if I guarantee there will be no embarrassment for you? How much?"
"Can you really guarantee me that?" Not that I was really interested. But for the right amount, and with some of it in advance just in case, sure I would do it.
He didn't say anything, he just put his head to one side and smiled his round-faced smile at me. Well, O.K., he's right, he has never given me reason to doubt his word. Even so, it has to be a lot of money, every prostitute has his or her price.
"Double the current agreement," I said.
"Double?"
Yes," I said. "We are currently agreed on €600,000 of which a third has already been paid. So it would be the same amount again with a third in advance."
"You know," said Jeremy with a quizzical look, "if you really knew how serious this situation was, and if you believed in it, you would be doing it for nothing."
"Jeremy, you are probably, as usual, quite correct on that."
"Well, I am not prepared to comply with your suggestion, Peter. There are limits and moral principles from my side of the fence which I am not prepared to breach. I will offer an additional €400,000 making the total a round million, and I will advance you €100,000 of that as a further token of trust. Take it or leave it. And if you leave it, no ill feelings. But we would not be continuing with our interviews because, as I am sure you understand, I would need to find someone else to undertake the task and it would be best for him or her to be the person who at the same time helps me finish my thesis work."
“Dissertation work.” I smiled.
“Dissertation work; my apologies again, Peter.”
Oh, oh. This could possibly mean a few hundred thousand down the drain for me. Well… hard bargainers are hard bargainers and Jeremy is a hard bargainer. And we have to accept that.
"You are a hard bargainer, Jeremy," I said, "and you are a good psychologist. A penny less and I wouldn't do it. Seriously; I wouldn’t. But you probably know that already, you probably calculated things to a very fine degree. So yes…fair enough…agreed."
He laughed, a real, genuine laugh. "I am not a hard bargainer at all, Peter, as you must know if only you think about it. On top of the interviews, this latest arrangement will only involve you in two or three additional meetings with the police and perhaps some politicians, and hopefully you will be instrumental in achieving a meeting for me with the prime minister himself. You will be earning a whole million for, forgive me for saying so, doing relatively little. And, as you yourself have just said, I call that fair enough."
"Touché, Jeremy," I agreed, "touché."
"And fair enough for me also," he continued. "I must say I consider myself fortunate to have you as an interviewee. You are a fairly knowledgeable person on the one hand, and on the other you have taken great trouble to provide me with as much of that knowledge as possible in the short time available for doing so, and this has allowed me to organize my research in a more targeted manner than would otherwise have been feasible. You are clearly a person who believes in complying with an agreed arrangement to the best of his ability, and I appreciate that kind of conscientiousness to no small degree, nor do I have any doubt about it continuing. And that is why I consider the amounts I am paying, which under different circumstances might be considered excessive, perhaps exceedingly excessive, to be equitable and value for money. And my thanks for your principled cooperation, Peter, are sincere ones, contractual obligations aside."
"Well now, that's very kind of you, Jeremy," I said in turn, aren't we both being gracious to each other, "and I thank you for your integrity regarding our agreement as well. But what exactly is coming up next? What are we going to be doing now?"
"Hmm…first, we need to finish our initial interview agenda as quickly as possible. My thesis, you understand. My dissertation. It's very important to me. Can we do the next interview on Monday?"
"We could, Jeremy. I could make it at 2 p.m.," I said. "I have to go down to Slough in the morning."
"Good, good. That will be fine. In my view 2 p.m. is always a civilized time of the day for meetings. Let us meet in my office again. That is no longer going to be an issue in view of the new situation. On the contrary, we now want to communicate with them." He thought for a moment. "Do you have a means of contacting the policeman who was following you?"
"Yes."
"Then I suggest you ask him for an urgent meeting. He will be delighted—although for the wrong reasons of course. We need to get him and his superiors to take us up to a higher level, ministerial involvement. To do that, we will need to convince him with a 'hacker trick' or two. Let him choose which ones of course, only harmless occurrences. So if you succeed in arranging a meeting, call me on our mobile while it's going on and tell me who, what and where and I will perform as necessary."
Now that is really very fine, absolutely O.K.
No way am I going to be embarrassed. On the contrary, if Jeremy manages to produce a couple more computer-hacking rabbits out of his hat, that Delsey guy will assume I am a partner in a team of two or more persons with amazing and as yet unheard of telepathic powers of some kind. On the downside, both Delsey and his superiors would be going to extrapolate and conclude that these powers made me a dangerous person or, at least, that they made Jeremy a dangerous person. The latter of course being the same as what I believed myself. Jeremy undoubtedly constituted a potential for danger. True, he might never take it into his head to abuse his powers. But what if he changed his mind one day…what then? There was no doubt that the poor guy was seriously deranged. Anything could happen.
"As regards the meeting, Peter, Mr. Delsey and his friends are going to regard me personally as a significant danger to society after witnessing our little demonstration. Understandable of course. Also understandable, since he is a member of your species, that he and his superiors will wish to capture me and hold me in custody while I am investigated, probed and subjected to tests by an ever-increasing number of scientists, psychiatrists, and medical researchers, and eventually on an international basis. And for this purpose they would attempt to restrain me and hold me in a confined space. I am thinking of the chimpanzees you mentioned. And I consider that to be a more or less guaranteed scenario. But a scenario which I would not allow to happen—an easy enough exercise for me as you can imagine."
A waitress brought in more coffee and biscuits. Good. I had eaten all of the others, it happens sometimes when stuck in non-smoking territory. And was this normal service or a Jeremy message, who knows? I could go out for a smoke of course, but I prefer to hang on, the sooner this meeting finishes, the better.
"Now we mustn't forget," Jeremy continued, "that Mr. Delsey has no reason whatsoever to assume that I am a lunatic. There are no events or occurrences of any kind to support such a view. Certainly, he knows that I am an ex-mental patient. But my recuperation was officially and medically certified. No…for him, the concerns at the moment have to be either fraudulent activity or perhaps criminal activity of a more evil kind. But he can't act. He has nothing to act upon."
"But after your computer-hacking, we will have the scenario you just outlined."
"Yes, but as I have said, I will be able to deal with that. The most important thing in your first meeting will be to convince them that you have a matter of untold importance which can only be discussed face to face with the prime minister. Let us not fool ourselves: our tricks will not achieve that. But they will hopefully be sufficient to convince him and his superiors to pull in a politician or politicians of a certain level for a second meeting. And for that reason alone, you must not mention that I am an alien. Or rather, that I say I am an alien."
I was chewing away on the remaining biscuits. Easy enough, I thought to myself. I wouldn't have to disclose the topic for discussion, the hacking tricks are persuasive enough to convince even hard-boiled cynics to arrange a second meeting, and I wouldn't have to mention Jeremy's delusion that he is an alien. What a way to earn a stack of money. And the whole thing would eventually fizzle out anyway, what else? I saw no pitfalls. It was like having a solid position in a chess game; impossible to lose…unless you make a tactical error.
"O.K. But what I don't understand, Jeremy," I said, "is why don't you do all of this yourself directly? Why do you want to involve me?"
"Because it has to be the human race itself which does it. I have to see whether the human race is capable of changing itself. I couldn't do it anyway, any more than you could tell your ants not to invade your terrace, or your wasps to stop stinging you. Only your species itself can do it, and then only if it wants to. What the only solution is and how you have to implement it is something I will explain once we get the world’s leaders together. And even then we have to discover whether your species is capable of agreeing to try instead of disagreeing. And if it agrees to try, then we have to see whether it is capable of turning that decision into reality. And you are the first link in this process, the human being who will hopefully start the ball rolling. I have to detect a willingness here, I have to detect some kind of desire in you and your fellow beings to actually want to mutate and irreversibly modify your civic traits and social behavior. I am admittedly prepared to assist initially by introducing fear as a helpful driving force, by explaining the mechanics of the solution, and by paying you personally more money, but that is it. And if I see no signs, I shall abandon the attempt and the Governing Committee will take whatever decision it decides to take without the benefit of any further examples or additional input from myself. That is why."
If this were a real situation instead of an impossible Jeremy Parker delusion, that would really be putting me on the spot. But in either event I would be doing it because of the money, wouldn't I?
"Fair enough, Jeremy. I understand. It makes sense."
It made sense alright. Another €400,000. Possibly, at least.