A Fable for the New World

Day 1,473, 02:33 • Published in Belgium USA • by MaryamQ

Once upon a time, in an almost forgotten era of the New World, there was a young and hopeful eCountry. It wasn’t very big, but that didn’t matter. It had an active community of people who cared. Sometimes they didn’t agree; sometimes things even got a bit heated; but they always found a way to solve their problems and move on.



Over time, some of the citizens of our little eCountry became bored. They started looking at the neighboring eNations with envious eyes. Almost everyone else seemed bigger and stronger, and they also seemed to be having more fun because of it. Some of the citizens moved away to see more of the New World. Others stayed, but they started to become discontented with one another. One day, nobody remembers why or even how, Somebody decided to draw a line through the center of the country. On one side, Somebody said, the people were known as Us. On the other side, it was Them. People had trouble remembering who was supposed to be Us and who was supposed to be Them. Eventually, each side assumed it was Us and the others were Them. To add to the confusion, the people who lived near the line were not sure on which side they belonged and kept moving back and forth. These people gave up trying to figure out which side was which and just always considered themselves part of Us.



People started finding reasons to dislike people on the other side of the line. Some of Them had a warped sense of humor. Some seemed to have no humor at all. Some had a lame avatar. Some had the wrong eFamily tree. Some were richer and stronger, so obviously must have done something bad to get that way. Some of Them didn’t agree with Us, which clearly made Them wrong and probably unforgivably stupid. It began to seem to some of Us that the only thing to do was get rid of Them. Not having any Q5 weapons at hand, Us picked up a few stones and started throwing. Naturally, Them was offended by this and threw some back. Eventually, as their aim wasn’t very good, stones started piling up along the dividing line. Sometimes the stones hit their mark, and someone on the other side would retire to heal or simply lie down and die. Some people escaped serious injury but decided to find another eCountry that was less dangerous to its own citizens. Still, the pile in the center grew higher and higher, with nobody able to pass from one side to the other. Always, even when they couldn’t see each other because of the high stone wall, people blamed those on the other side for what had happened. A few, very few, were able to see that the stones had been thrown from both sides, and even fewer remembered having thrown a few stones themselves. And so, our little eCountry remains to this day a nation divided against itself.



The story does not have to end here, however. I have discovered an ancient legend that says one day the people will realize what they have done. They will start to move those stones from the center and build a wall around their borders for their common defense. Us and Them, side by side, will work for their common good. They will start to forget their differences and even who belongs to which side. How soon will that happen? Nobody knows, but I believe it will. Do you?