Hole

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It took the entire world to fix the hole in the System. Chinese Control Officers, Eskimo Energy Anthropologists, US Department of Technology Practitioners, Canadian Space Enthusiasts, and Croatian Computer Component Manufacturers—anyone and everyone. The hole was three thousand miles long, five miles high, and had required the redirection of much traffic. Its collapsed current of gold glittering waves hung from the desert sky for all to see. Buildings had been laid waste, trains overturned, and secure packets of information lost to those who had sought the system’s demise.

Clerics had come down from the mountaintops to get a good hard look at the thing. They conferred and confessed, took measurements and micro samples, formed committees and assigned lead investigators. The hole was large, they said. It would take more than a village to sew it back up again.

So the world showed up with shovels and hoes, wire clippers, wrenches, and infrared thermometers. Cable was brought on trucks, coiled like snakes around spindles twenty-seven feet high. Many pushed, some pulled. Others shouted directions while reading clipboards ripe with complicated measurements.

The desert made for hard labor, sandstorms and scorched wind unmeasured and relentless. Scaffolding was erected, wires strung for hundreds of miles on all sides to keep the elements in line. And then, the real work began.

Buckets of technology were handed up the scaffolding one level at a time. Passed from country to country, citizen to citizen.   For three years everyone worked, wind and sand infecting the progress. But still the world kept on. Brothers helped sisters, fathers helped mothers, and strangers loved strangers. Jokes were told, friends born, and new wives were made of husbands. Chinese husbands with Canadian wives, American babies with Italian mothers, Croatian fathers with Eskimo daughters, Egyptian sons of Afghani fathers—and it was beautiful, and wonderful. For three years, no one fought. Even those who had cause in creating the hole joined in, put down their arms, and faced West, or East, or where ever consensus led them. For three years, everyone loved.

When the hole was fixed and power restored, electronic searches began anew. Those who had helped most retreated to the cities, back to their mainframes and caffeinated beverages. The rest headed for country, in origin and land. The Clerics returned to the hills, while still others to their caves. Power was restored, they said. Projects could begin again.

One by one, the chat-rooms powered up and the texting resumed. The Italian mothers waxed poetically in digital domains about the shortcomings of their American husbands. Canadians built sites for Canadians with strict limits on the number of Chinese. Neighbors placed guns in their closets and signs in the yard. The Clerics posted messages about God and potluck dinners.

Caves sprang to light under the yellow glow of aging computers. Tan colored tarps were shaken of sand, corroded equipment pointed at the sky. Plans were hatched, beliefs posted, and the world turned inward.

At first, the new devices were to blame. They spoke volumes and kept heads pointing towards the ground, eyes away from the sky, preoccupied and unaware with what was coming next. Then, the implants made things easier, quicker, and confirmed that daylight was no longer necessary. In short order, the Moon became the Sun, and some time after that, the Sun the Moon. And then, everything was lost.

The Clerics looked to the system for help. Pulled up pages of weathered digital passages. “How could we have not seen this coming,” they said. “The potluck dinners, the after school lemonade.” Screams came from the mountaintops. Bullhorns of media rained down on the world, begging everyone to look up.

Some tried to remember, a few chose to forget. Some said past, while still others said nothing—most yelled future, and then things really moved quickly. The system grew, the cables lengthened, and the idea of a hole that had once been a cause for such common concern, was quietly erased from the memory banks.