An excerpt from a work long in progress.
Chapter Zero:
Your call will be answered in the order in which it is received
Life, they say, was simple once.
When Man first appeared, none of the older and wiser animals would have bet a well-chewed bone on him to rule the world one day. He wasn’t as strong as the gorilla, or as sociable as the chimp, and the orangutan was much more handy with his feet. You would never notice this new kind of ape in a mug line, unless you happened to spot the crude wooden club clutched in his hand. A mere detail, said the older and wiser animals. Why, it wasn’t even part of him, not like fangs or claws or a good set of running muscles. How could carrying a silly stick help anyone take over the world?
It was at that moment that Man came up behind the older and wiser animals, swung his club, and smashed their brains into jelly.
As strategies go, this was an all-time winner. In a blink of the cosmic eye, Man conquered the earth. Oh, the club was upgraded a few times along the way, replaced by the knapped flint, the spear, the M16 rifle. But the hand that controlled the tool stayed just the same, and the brain that controlled the hand—well, it could still just about cope with the finer nuances of, ‘Swing club. Smash head. Repeat as necessary.’
Nowadays, life is far too complicated. But the ape with the club is nothing if not an optimist, and still hopes to find some grand theory that will explain everything and make it simple again. Science, religion, philosophy, daytime soap operas, all were created to meet this primal need: the craving to feel that we understand. But of course we don’t understand. So we think there must be something more—a conspiracy, perhaps. There must be someone out there who pulls every string, rigs every game; someone who breaks every gadget the day the warranty expires, and turns every neat square knot into an unsolvable granny. Someone we can’t see; someone very, very powerful. And someone, alas, who doesn’t seem to like us very much. If only this conspiracy could be unmasked and defeated, life would be good, the world would be our playground, and everything would just make an amazing amount of sense.
By a remarkable coincidence, the ape with the club is the only species of animal that gets locked up in mental institutions.
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