Just one evil

Just one evil

Have you ever wondered why prize-winning novels never seem to be the
one you thought was best on the shortlist ? Is it that your critical
faculties are not as sharp as the judging panel ? Are you so out of
touch ?

Generally, the answer is very pragmatic. The panel all enter with their
own particular favourite and defend it to the hilt. The panel becomes
deadlocked and after a time, start talking about the other books, the
ones that weren't their particular nomination for victory. At which
point, the panel realise that everyone's second-favourite book is the
same. Pleasant as the company of judges is, the panel quickly see a
simple way to resolve the deadlock.

The winner of any literary prize is always the second-favourite book of
every judge involved.

It is this simple principle that explains why in the world today, there
is still hunger and war and intolerance; even after the Committee to
Remove One Particular Evil (CROPE) met in Berne, Switzerland.

The Committee came about as a result of - there is no dignified way to
put this - black magic. Certain volumes had come to light and certain
experiments conducted and as a result, a man named Glynn Whittaker won
a Nobel Prize.

What Whittaker had discovered was a method by which the world could be
eliminated of one particular evil, permanently, by a one-off and very
costly piece of black magic. When I say very costly, I mean just that.
No individual or organisation could ever have performed the ritual. It
could only be done by a network of countries in cooperation - hence the
need for a Committee.

The Committee was comprised of people that nobody had ever heard of. It
is uncertain to this day whether they were very powerful people or very
ordinary people. They certainly were not politicians or
businessmen.

That much is known, since on the day the Committee was known to be
meeting, the media made known the whereabouts of the world's most
powerful individuals (none of whom were in Berne, Switzerland). The
names of the Committee members was kept utterly secret and the security
around the site was to such a degree that every householder in Berne
was sent on a free holiday to Lake Garda for the fortnight surrounding
the meeting.

Some obvious suggestions were made, in the early moments of the
Committee meeting. An end to war, to hunger, to poverty, to religious
intolerance, to nuclear weapons.

But, as these were discussed, it became clear that choosing to rid the
world of one particular evil was not as easy as it first appeared.
Several countries who had contributed huge amounts of money to fund the
ritual also had a very healthy industry in producing military equipment
and were not at all keen on the idea of all war ending forever. Other
countries had spent many months drawing up plans for wars and conquests
and were not prepared to shelve these. So, those in favour of ending
all war found themselves stymied by those who would prefer that war
stuck around for a while longer.

Hunger should have been easier. But countries who produced food and
shipped it to countries lacking in food were not so keen on this
either. Countries who had huge food-production industries were
concerned about what exactly ending hunger might mean - could it be
that after the ritual no one would ever feel hungry again, nobody would
ever need to eat ? What would that mean for not just food
manufacturers, but the economy as a whole ? For if people did not need
to eat, they would not need to work and then nothing would be produced.
The entire economy of the world might collapse. The same was held to be
true of ending poverty.

Religious intolerance produced the hugest row of the entire day. All of
the representatives who were involved in religious intolerance either
as victim or aggressor felt that to remove it might damage their faith.
"We are not only defined by what we believe, but by what we do not
believe", said one of the Committee members - his name anonymised in
the minutes that were later published.

Surely everyone could agree on removing nuclear weapons from the world
? A single ritual and all of them would be gone. No lingering
suspicions or doubts that one country was cheating, holding back some
weapons to gain an advantage. To many of the Committee members, this
sounded ideal. But others argued that without nuclear weapons, there
would be no nuclear deterrent and there might be even more wars.
(Certain members of the Committee who argued earlier in opposition to
ending war did not view this as being a particularly bad thing, except
that they were also selling nuclear missiles and these were a very
lucrative product. )

The Committee had been through all of the major suggestions, the ones
which would have made a huge difference to the world and one by one,
reached the conclusion that the world was better off with that
particular evil (or rather, that certain vested interests preferred the
status quo.)

This was quite a startling revelation to the Committee members, since
if there was no unity on ending war, poverty, intolerance when it could
be done in a relatively painless way (almost by simply wishing it
away), how would this ever be achieved if countries had to work at it
?

Some of the more naive Committee members expressed strong views of
disgust at this and considered tendering their resignation, not wishing
to be a part of this.

And so, the Committee began to look for a compromise. They wanted to
find an evil that could be removed, one that would make improvements to
people's lives, without unsettling the status quo too much.

History records that Linda Sycamore was the last human being to sigh
during a conversation as a way of expressing mild irritation and
annoyance. It will never be possible to say definitively who the last
person was, but Mrs Sycamore submitted the best claim and so entered
the history books.

It is to all extents and purposes impossible to sigh now. Wistful
sighs, despairing sighs, exasperated sighs, all have vanished. Every
day, thousands of minor squabbles and tense conversations have been
eradicated, arguments that would have been triggered by a misplaced
sigh no longer take place. A certain bridge in Venice will make no
sense whatsoever to the next generation of children, who if they are
exasperated will have to say so explicitly, rather than expelling air
in a way that could be rage, or could be completely
insignificant.

That was always the thing with sighs that completely outraged the
recipient, the disguise of it, the ability of the sigher to pretend
that they weren't sighing about anything, they were just
breathing.

I would get a little wistful about the loss of sighs, but something is
not quite right about being wistful anymore. It feels incomplete.