Anton's Ideas

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/festivus-for-the-rest-of-us/”>Festivus for the Rest of Us</a>

the day I was elected ruler of the uiverse

WHAT A DAY !

Heavens that was close! Five recounts. Of the 17 planets we could contact eight had the Venusian first and eight had me first, and the final count was Venus. But they don’t count like we do so we had to have five recounts before they conceded and I was ruler of the universe.

It’s a great feeling, but fortunately a very humiliating one as well. The entire part of all reachable living people had at last come to an agreement to work together to keep all living beings able to devise a safe way of carrying on living. Planet earth’s major problem was still how to preserve the energy sources it had, how to stop them diminishing and how to ensure that all people on earth should have a living wage and that what food there was was rationed fairly amongst the 220 nations ruled by the United Nations. It was the plan which I had devised to do this that had led to the world choosing me as their representative in the ruler of the universe contest. I still don’t know how I won.

But I had been a leading planetanian since leaving Oxford University with a first in Universality and then a doctorate in the subject. As a Scots Australian I qualified to work in the top echelons of the UN and having working command of seven earth languages and four different planets’ method of communication I soon rose to the top in inter-planet conferences. But what were the problems facing me most urgently when I took the highest office ever created?

For a start four planets had problems exactly opposite to ours. They had a fuel and food surplus of 330% and were only too happy to come to some sort of an agreement with earth over how to help each other. Transport was the biggest difficulty as you can imagine. Then the newest discovered planet that we could talk to, Luvya, had a ratio of ingestible water and vegetation of 3-7 against the people. They were on the edge of starvation and had a population in which there were twice as many women as men. I could see my first job would be trafsering food from Pogo, a very comfortably off planet, to nearby Luvya as fast as possible. Again transport was the problem.

It was Hans Von Lederhosen, from the leading Austrian Universe study Centre, who solved this problem by devising ‘cracking’, a method of shooting bundles of matter through space at an unbelievable speed, unharmed, who went on to win the first Nobel Universe Prize in 2631AD. The ad was retained when it was dicovered that eleven of the planets were Christian. You really must read the story of how this came about. It’s the best true story you’ll ever read.

But I think I’m digressing. I’ve been asked to tell you how I would celebrate my election. I’m afraid I don’t think I would. Well, not in the sense the prompt setter means. I would certainly mark the occasion, but my emphasis would be on them not me. For a start I would introduce a new currency, the Universalis. It would be a seventeen sided titanium coin worth one per cent of a Uni, the main note in circulation. Don’t ask me how its relative value was worked out to satisfy each planet but a Martian called Klunk was the economist behind the scheme which won him the 2632 Nobel economics prize. I held up the first minted coin in my right hand as the orb of office was placed in my left which just about had the strength to hang onto it while I took the oath of office. “ I, Anton 1st, protector of the Universe, do hereby swear, by that deity in whom I believe, to devote my tenure of this office entirely to the good of all inhabitants of the seventeen planets that come within the boundaries of my jurisdiction.”

Not very long, I know, but mt left arm had nearly come off so it was long enough. There was to be a celebretory banquet, or street party as they are called on earth, in every planet at which at least one item of food from each other planet was part of the feast. Now for Lvyans, for instance, it was hardly a treat, but what mattered was that it made them feel part of a brotherhood and sisterhood of all living creatures everywhere and this bucked them up no end. Each one was also presented with a Unorbisate. The was a medal on a chain worn round the neck, or a suitable part of that planet’s inhabitants’ anatomy.

But for me, the best part of that day was that all my own family were present with me as I was invested protector of everyone. My wife Francesca could not keep back her tears, while my seven children, Maria 13, Giovanni 12, the twins Lucia 10, Violetta 10, Dido 8, Aeneus 7 and little six year old Edgardo, lined up three on each side of me at the ceremony. But it was not the pomp and glory of the day that I will always remember but cheeky little Eddie, whom I could not see, waving a banner saying “My dad can beat your dad any day. And now it’s official.” It had to be Eddie.

An elbow dug into my ribs, and the fingers of a soft, tickly hand awoke me fully. “What are you dreaming he’s done now, David?” Francesca’s lovely voice asked me as she kissed my neck.

“Oh I’ve just become ruler of the universe, I sleepily replied. “

“Oh poor everbody,” said my adorable Francesca as she could not stop laughing.

Anton Wills-Eve