Sustainability
How ironic Alphy thought he had travelled 4.367 light-years to Earth, only to find himself confined in a lockdown to a 10-kilometre radius from home. He could have left Earth, entering the nearest portal, but he had volunteered for the mission and felt obliged to stay.
Melbourne and the State of Victoria were in a fourteen-day lockdown. The latest cases were from the more virulent strain initially referred to as the ‘Indian variant.’ When Alphy first heard this expression he thought it was something out of the Kama Sutra, but alas no. To avoid offending Australians of Indian descent the name for the variant was changed to Delta, (so only offending those with that name).
One of the difficult things for Alphy was the knowledge that he could tell the Saps how to easily eliminate Covid, but all inter-galactic missionaries from AC were specifically forbidden from intervening with other life-forms unless it meant preventing their extinction. Given the Saps use of hotel quarantine, inept rollout of vaccine, cohorts of anti-vaxxers and the like, Alphy thought that might not be that far away.
His share house colleagues Johno and Janno were not happy. This was the fourth time they had been in lockdown and ‘we’re over it’. Johno in particular was prone to go into rant mode. ‘Those anti-vaxxers should be refused hospital treatment for Covid — Darwinian selection at its finest.’
Given his background in marketing he was particularly critical of the Federal Governments advertising campaign supposedly informing and encouraging people to get vaccinated. ‘No wonder the take-up rate is so poor, they are boring as bat shit.’ Alphy wondered where bats rated on the scatalogical spectrum of boringness?
Johno and Janno both worked for the same marketing company ‘Infinite Possibilities’ usually referred to as IP. ‘Infinite possibilities to separate the clients from their money’ Janno had joked.
Johno referred to himself as the ‘Head Creative’ and Janno as the ‘Client Carer’, Johno pointed out to Alphy with no hint of irony ‘forget the pretentious job title, she’s an Account Manger mate.’
Given the restrictions IP had decided to have employees work from home. The Saps have not developed holographic communication so instead of immersive interactions they had to look at each other via flat screens. Johno had spent a lot of time acquiring books (most of which he had never opened let alone read), to place behind him on the bookshelf for his Zoom calls.
Alphy couldn’t resist pointing to one of the books ‘A Brief History of Time’ and asking Johno what it was about. Johno looked embarrassed and mumbled ‘the history of watches’ and quickly changed the subject. Not to worry thought Alphy because in terms of revealing the true nature of the Cosmos the Stephen Hawking book on a scale of revelation, was akin to the Bible revealing the Supreme entity.
Johno was currently working on a new campaign for one of their major clients ‘BET24-7’. Australians loved a punt and there was always an opportunity to develop new ways of extricating their money. Johno was finalising a campaign to support their new ‘market’, placing bets on the number of confirmed Covid cases in Victoria, 5 days ahead. The product was to be called ‘C+5’. They had been initially worried that Health Authorities would try to stop the product, but they had come to the conclusion that punters would probably have a greater probability of correctly predicting the numbers than they would.
Johno had just finished producing the 30-second advertisement for C+5 and had shown Alphy for his feedback. Alphy had always found the tag line ‘Gamble Responsibly’ at the end of gambling ads somewhat perplexing. ‘What does that really mean’ asked Alphy? ‘Well it’s all about sustainability mate’ said Johno with a knowing wink. ‘We want you to be a life-long gambler, sustainable losing we call it.’
’ Sustainable Saps — I doubt it’ thought Alphy.