Always Well-Meaning.

Always Well-Meaning.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. What more can I say? You can’t say that you didn’t know I was a prick of the first order in the first place. I even told you, do you remember? I said like David Niven said of Errol Flynn, ‘You can always rely on Errol, he’ll always let you down.’” You may have thought it cute at the time and quite endearing, but you’ve had plenty of demonstrations over the years that I spoke sooth.”

“Yes, that’s true, Willie, but this is not something that saying sorry will make right. I want you out of my blasted life for good and I am in a position to make that happen. You are going to be sent to a world of your own and I think it will be on your own as far as we know, nobody else lives there. In fact, we’ve saved this parallel world, I realise, just for you.”

“But Archie, you can’t do that, it’s barbaric. I really am sorry I blew up that country, I just meant to warn them of the consequences of pissing us off. It was just a small country, and after all, there’s no one left to protest.”

“No one left to protest! Most of those sods hated living there so much they came here. Some of our earlier leaders out of a misplaced sense of humanity allowed them to come and they are making my life a misery. They literally wanted me to have you hung, drawn and quartered and the event broadcast on the net, but I demurred. We decided to let you take your equipment with you and maybe in 50 or a 100 years, if you have developed something that is worthwhile, let you back in for a while.” 

Willie Sanchez as an inventor had genius qualities, but like some of that ilk tended to rate their own observations and intentions so superior to those around him that he could, and usually did, ignore them. Wiping out a whole country was just the final straw that has led him to be exiled, maybe forever. His friend and protector, Archie Mulnor, had finally had enough. He overlooked the normal idiosyncrasies and irrationalities of this clever man as he had made good contributions to society at large. However, there was an ever-present danger that like the aforementioned country, Mankind might not like his more grandiose offerings. Exile it would be.

Although Willie came equipped to his new world with food supplies that would last him for a few years, his incarceration, as he saw it, could last for centuries. He set about developing the necessary machinery to turn the local products into safe and pleasantly consumable products. This took him 2 years of that world’s time, which he thought paralleled the one he left, and then he got down to business.

There was a certain relief that he had no one here to piss-off, and thought he should remedy that. 

His first thought was, human type, robot, or android. Human types, despite programming, were liable to eventually also ship him off to somewhere, as he didn’t think his own internal programming would necessarily be overridden by his new world experiences. He plumped for androids.

It took Willie 10 years of concentrated work to produce a variety of androids that met his requirements. He made them all shapes and sizes, eschewing the really obese, but keeping enough fat ones around to remind himself of what he didn’t want himself to become. He needn’t really have bothered as his food and the chips he had implanted into his body kept him at an ideal weight anyway. Finally, he thought that he had got the ‘housekeeping’ done, now he thought as to what he should do to break new frontiers of knowledge. He wanted to ingratiate, or at least have the possibility of ‘earning’ his way back to his former world, if only for a visit. But what was there left to do? 

Mankind, also with Willie’s help, and others, of course, had solved most of the problems of living a healthy life. No one had financial problems as largesse was freely made available to anyone that needed it. Man was long-lived, if he or she wanted it, and were to a large degree left to pursue their lives as they thought fit. That was most of the world. However, there were some small countries that belonged to the ‘Sackcloth and Ashes’ mentality that thought they were closer to God if they deprived themselves of certain fundamentals, such as adequate food and health care that alleviated suffering. One of these countries got closer to God as a community when Willie inadvertently eliminated them with his ‘warning’ shot. He had to be protected from rogue assassins, usually made up from the unfortunate country that they had escaped from, as a form of piety in case early religious programming had a modicum of substance to it. Archie wasn’t willing to allow them to go that far, almost, but some strains of the friendship persisted. Willie knew he would really have to put his ‘thinking cap’ in order to furnish his former world people with something they considered they needed.

Willie developed a whole raft of, he realised, useless labour-saving devices for imaginary people as they didn’t need them at all with the ever-present robots servicing their every need. So, he looked to the spiritual. 

Archie, with a concoction of herbs and spices - read drugs - developed a combination of these things plus a device that fitted snugly upon the head which permitted the activation of dormant properties of the brain and spirit to accomplish wondrous things. He could levitate, walk on water, change water into vodka and largely do whatever the hell he wanted. The androids praised him unstintingly but he hadn’t mastered yet his need to be praised by his peers and mingle among them - for a little while at least. He wanted to go home. 

Willie didn’t know how to get a message over to his former friends so over the next few years made a device that he was able to let his friend Archie know of his brilliant discovery. His friend was very happy that Willie had survived and prospered, but on no account did he want his tranquil life to depart, so refused to countenance Willie’s return and indeed shut off any possibility of Willie being able to communicate with anyone in his former world. Although this dispirited Willie a great deal, it also instigated a challenge for him that would occupy him over the next 10 years. He would make his own doorway to get home.

Everything was set for the ‘grand opening.’ There was no doubt in Willie’s mind that he would be parading and laughing together with his good friend Archies very shortly. Oh, how he would be welcomed back into a society that had eliminated most of its fundamental needs and would welcome the new experience he would provide for them.

He pressed the button and Archie’s world ceased to exist.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Willie said to an empty space, “I’ll try to make it up to you, somehow.”