The End Of The World Part Deux

"This is the way the world ends:

not with a bang, but with a re-boot."


"You gotta big nose, Kid!"

Sammy Tulip was not in a good mood. He
woke up with a splitting headache for no
known reason. He was interviewing a twenty
two year old sword swallower for a circus gig.
Sword swallowing was not something that
young people usually took up, so, there had
to be a major problem with the kid, but Sammy's
philosophy was that there was a place for
everyone on the planet...it just needed finding.
Sam had a heart of gold....just ask his ex wives.
Woody Allen made a movie loosely based on his
character....(no, not "Crimes and Misdemeanors", 

the other one). Sam should have been retired for
ten years, but he  understood he was the last of
his kind. There would be no more show biz
hustlers to take raw talent from, say, Lincoln,
Nebraska, and turn it into a brilliant sellable
commodity. The human element was gone now

that corporations sent scouts to school plays to
root out the next  entertainment nugget: malleable
teens whose parents were only too  willing to see
them get rich and ruined.  It was a fool's gold rush
that  only seemed to quicken over time.

"You maybe gotta try something else. Look, there's
big money in eating hot dogs. If you can gulp down
a hundred in five minutes, you could make
thousands in one contest! Think about it. Call me
next week."

The young, handsome sword swallower closed the
door quietly behind him. Sam looked at  "the
paper". He had only one copy that was months out
of date by now. He found that the news didn't
change that much, and  that all he really needed in
the morning was a reminder. 

Sam looked out the fifth floor window of his office
at the busy city scene. This was his city, where he
grew up. He knew every corner, every dive, every
special address. It wasn't that the city had
changed that much... cities will be cities. But lately...
say the last ten years...change had taken place that
was subtle, incremental, insidious. It was as if
someone had changed the curtains in the room,
but only slightly, so that the feeling in the room was
"off" somehow...disturbingly un-pinpointable,
unnatural. At times when he walked the street, Sam
had the uneasy feeling that the whole thing had
become ludicrous. That the city's life, his life, 

continued, but that it could all end any second
based on the whim of some idiot throwing a
switch.  And it felt like the whole city...maybe
even the  world...felt it too, and that all
interaction between  people felt hollow as a
result....not manifest, not visible, but sub-rosa
as in the wane smile of the attendant as he
gives you the stub of your ticket. 

If somebody wanted to be a god-damned
sword swallower in life, why shouldn't they be?
Sam had really helped a few make it....not big,
but they made a living. He thought he should
help people because he had the ability to do
so and it just seemed right. It had given him
satisfaction  in his life, if anything had. 

But now there just wasn't much of a way to
work the system. He knew it was true in the
entertainment biz, and he speculated it was
probably  true of other aspects of the social
contract. Regulation was expected and
understood in all aspects of life; from getting
into the best day care to getting into the most
prestigious social club at Harvard. There were

always the exceptions, and they could still
become famous via YouTube. But risk management
had taken over society like ice-nine, and humans,
though not yet usurped by robots, were more and
more acting like them. Sam had to retire, not
because he didn't still want to help humans, but,

rather, that he couldn't find them.