“I would say to change, but I know that you, Rod, wouldn’t take my advice. It is only the narcissist who refuses to change.”

“I cannot be changed,” said Rod with a downcast expression; “it is the world that needs to be changed,” he added mournfully.

“My system will change the world alright,” replied Aleku smugly.

“What do you mean?” asked Rod.

Aleku let out a belly full of air, interrupted only by the ugliest of coughing fits, and said, “You already know how my system works, I presume? Since the system can alter a person’s memories, one can theoretically change their entire personality with it.”

“My personality doesn’t need changing; what needs changing is how everyone treats me.”

“How on earth did your personality become so rigid and repulsive over the last ten years since highschool?”

“Because everyone treated me badly!” snarled Rod. “And don’t you give me that, ‘do you really mean everyone?’ crap! Of course I’ve made mistakes, but I keep making them!”

“Resentment in the stomach, Rod, will damage the lining,” murmured Aleku. “Perhaps you would benefit from what I’ve developed. It is unfortunate that it requires the intervention of a general artificial intelligence to fix ‘people’ like you once and for all and provide them with the sufficient means to be good citizens like the rest of the planet. There is no doubt that there is a cure for your ailment, Rod. Your ailment is the collective ailment of mankind, after all. Ever since us Homo Sapiens dominated our Neanderthal brethren, we’ve been plagued by their leftovers such as yourself, and so to cope we have made use of people like yourself with your limited but exceptional abilities in certain key areas of technological progress. That divergent way of thinking has led us here to this point in time. The divergent thinker, the exceptional thinker, the creative thinker – the genius. The mind of such a person is and has always been incompatible with the rest of society. It is like a spoilt child in an office, all chaos and frustrated desires, belonging to no one in particular, but belonging to everyone in consequence. I think that if you come to my understanding of yourself, the one and true understanding of what a thing actually is as compared to the many parts surrounding it, then you will gladly be convinced of this line of thinking. What is thinking? As a noun, not as a verb, but as a noun. What is thinking? Thinking as I put it to you is this: an idea. And what is an idea? Well, my good friend, ideas are all we have. The next time you question as to why you struggle so much compared to those around you, consider what I am about to say to you.”

“Aleku, you are starting to awfully sound like someone I would disagree with based on fundamental principle.”

“Ah, my good friend, I am sharing with you a solution to the problem that for all your life everyone has pressed down, pushed away, forced you to shut up about. I am prepared to show you a glimpse of the future. A future that would change the human race fundamentally forever.”

“Go on, I am intrigued, but also scared,” said Rod hesitatingly.

“I cannot wait for my system to be implemented nationwide to deal with people like you permanently. People like you act like garbage human beings and yet refuse to take accountability. My system would save taxpayers tens of billions of pounds per year. You heard that right, tens of billions.”

“Deal...with people like me? What do you mean by ‘deal’?”

“Ah, always the pedantic one. What do you think I mean by deal, my good friend?”

“I think very badly of the word in this context,” said Rod.

“Oh, I cannot bare it,” chuckled Aleku, “you certainly think too much about things, Rod. You are like a child in that you always question things instead of accepting the way of things as they are. What is it that motivates you, I wonder? It is not like ordinary people; I tell you that. You are a particular specimen, a particular breed of human not fit for the current design of human society as is.”

“Too right,” said Rod, lamenting his place in the world as he gazed over the calm, settled river before him; he was not sure whether it was a canal or a river. “This world does need changing,” he said absentmindedly, and he clenched his fists until they began to glow white with vengeance. “But not in the direction that you want,” continued Rod coldly, “one day, if what you say comes to pass, or at least the threat of it becomes much more than the amusement of a privileged brat, I reckon, I predict, I foresee, that there will be a reckoning upon the UK mainland; much like what we have been seeing on the news recently.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“You mean the riots? Oh, you simpleton. You brainwashed sheep. You utter imbecilic. Do not tell me that you are like the rest, in that you really believe that those protesting are just simply racists. Oh, the stupidity.”

“Oh, I have seen your tweets on X,” Rod said, laughing, “you have really set our prime minister on fire! Do you not think that there will be no consequence to your support of the rioters?”

“Hm,” grunted Aleku, “are you saying that my public personal support of the race riots may have undermined my efforts to secure a government contract for systemcare?”

“Precisely.”

“Nonsense,” answered Aleku, “nonsense through and through, my good friend. You seem to ignore the reality of the situation. You seem to forget that governments are corrupt and by nature people are corrupt as well. I never have to act corruptly, Rod, and I never have to corrupt another person. When I meet a government official – and I meet them almost every day, wherever I am in the world, be it Cairo or Sicily or Moscow, be it New York or London or Beijing, be it Paris, Seoul, Barcelona, Melbourne or Rome – we talk about the most politically charged topic of that current day in the most politically incorrect way possible; when I am in Washington, we admire Putin, and when we are in Moscow, we admire Biden; when I am in London we admire the theocratic regimes of the middle east, and when I am in Riyadh, we admire Britain’s colonial history. These government folks are very good at being corrupt – much more, in fact, than I am. For I was born into a bloodline that promised me prosperity, but they? They were born into a competition where the most crooked is the winner. They confuse the truth with lies, whereas I confuse the lies with truth. So, when they told me the riots were a bunch of racists, I knew then that they meant that these riots were largely good British citizens scared of illegal immigration ruining their already run down communities. I sometimes wish that they all were racists, however; but they are just British people protecting their communities.”

“I detest the way that you talk about politics, Aleku,” said Rod, strolling down the footpath that led further away from the city, his head turned toward the silver-glittered riverbank. He imagined her down there, in a soft, white silk dress, barefoot and plain, skimming pebbles across the still water. “I truly think that you really are a good person, but that you are so very insecure of your own immutable insignificance. You are a sweet, big-hearted cuddly person. You always say mean things to me, and you always do nice things for me. Your ultra-conservatism is merely a pose.”

“One must play both sides,” cried Aleku, laughing; and he coughed several times, scratching the mic. “It really has been a pleasure catching up with you and discussing the state of things,” he said exasperatedly, “but I must really get off now with what I came for.”

Rod stopped all of a sudden, his eyes fixed to that point on the sand where he imagined the woman in the white silk dress to be a moment ago, and felt his heart seize tightly in his chest. He winced, and wanted right then and there to cry out, to clamber down the jutting rocks like a wild animal and holler in a delirious frenzy – like a miserable child calling for his mother – and scream all sorts of obscenities, empty threats and delusional, grandiose commitments. “I spit at you,” he thought all of a sudden, imagining himself down at the empty beach, gnashing his teeth like he had read those below the earth do. “I spit at you,” he repeated quickly to himself in the dream, frothing at the mouth a white bubbly liquid, his eyes stark red with blood. “This rage in my heart,” he thought bitterly, as he pictured himself dancing in a circle on that brown, sandy shore like a tribesman, “this rage in my heart – I still have it.” He clutched at his t-shirt violently and ragged on it, stretching the collar, so much so that he began to hear it tear over the hushing of the small cascade nearby. “Why do you not reach out?” he wondered painfully. One more step and he would have tumbled down. “What I would not give for you,” he reflected mournfully, his face streaked in the silver slivers of moonlight, “What I would not give for you to notice me again, for you to see me again, for you to think of me again. Oh, I would chop off little bits of myself at your pleasure, at your command, at your every silent wish. I would read your eyes and do it without even so much as a whisper from your queenship. Oh, how I would gladly give up my life for a frivolous whim - all for you!”

“You there?” coughed Aleku with impatience.

Rod sighed and looked up to the night sky. “Aleku,” he said, gazing at the orange and blue flickering flames above, which danced in the empty whites of his eyes, “you must really be the most stupid person in the world if you think that I would help you become even more richer than you already are. Like I said earlier, and have repeatedly said since, you will not make a penny more off of my brain than you already have.”

Aleku laughed. “And you think that you have a choice? Do you really think that you have a choice in the matter? My son, do you really think that you are free?”

“I have the freedom to say no,” smirked Rod as he walked underneath a cloud of spotty leaves.

“A privilege you seem to take for granted,” murmured the businessman, biting down on his cigar. “What will it take for you to reconsider my offer?” he inquired.