The Endings
(Fun Removers)
by Michael S.
Collins
Last month the
government decided to pass through the Fun Act,
forever more illegalising non-profitable
activities against the public interest by the
public. No more drinking, gaming, pulling,
playing, watching, drowning: anything that could
be considered a fun activity by anyone. The
country was in recession, in war and in crisis,
and the only way to prevent national catastrophe
was for everyone to work, work and work until the
bankers in charge were satisfied with the growth
of the economy. Moreover, that could hardly be
achieved while you had workers going home and
playing with their children, their girlfriends or
their video games.
“They’ve
gone and banned fun,” said one anecdotal
worker to a friend. “What the hell are we
meant to do now?”
A suitable
answer might well have been: “Let’s go
down the pub for a pint” but drinking in
misery is someone’s fun, and so banned by
the act.
The Fun Act
was a slippery slope. There is no statutory
definition of fun. It's an activity someone
enjoys. Therefore, in banning all fun to speed up
the recovery, the question came to be asked: What
are fun activities and what are we banning. TV,
alcohol, sex were obvious bannees. Too many
people, enjoying them. Books too, except in terms
of education, because no one clearly enjoys being
forced to read a book (so the legislators
promptly decided). This led to the unforeseen
upshot of several million more applications for
English Literature courses at the Open University
than usual, and so, realising the system was
being abused, all books had to go on the list,
for reasons of public safety.
Public parks
were closed, after reports came in of people
walking through them, and sitting on benches in
the middle of them, as if having fun. The
government sorted this out by turning the lot
into Parking Lots reserved for expensive cars
only.
OAP groups
complained about the closure of all libraries and
public parks, but the government got around this,
by realising that grans and grandfathers (and
other elderly relatives) were a source of fun and
mischief for the younger workforce, and the only
suitable recourse to action was to euthanize the
lot.
So old people,
parks, public arenas, books, fornication, theatre,
pubs, TV, video games: all gone.
Yet there was
still fun had. The government realised that
people, even now, were enjoying themselves, out
with work hours, through the joy of having pets
and families. The government repossessed all pets
and threw them into the North Sea, and passed the
Family Disunification Act, whereby all families
members were placed in separate towns and cities,
so that all workers were surrounded by total
strangers.
Even now, the
recovery was still slow. Three quarters of the
work force had died, or were being medicated for
depression. At least they weren’t having fun,
but they were slow and rather useless.
The other
quarter were still having fun, meeting strangers
in their new towns and cities and forming new
friendships and relationships.
The government
decided the only way to completely remove fun, in
accordance with the Fun Act, was to launch a
nuclear attack on their own country, and then
conscript whoever was left into the army.
This was
achieved. The generals got carried away, enjoying
themselves, and accidentally obliterated all life
in the country.
Then there was
silence. Deathly.
Finally, the
Fun Act had been carried through to its
conclusion. There was no one to have fun anymore.
And, no debt either, since debt is only carried
as long as a person is alive, a country is the
sum of its people, and since all of the people
were dead, the debt was thus cancelled, and the
recovery completed.
The Fun Act
was considered a tremendous success.
|
