Flash Fiction

In the beginning was the word. I discovered this word when I was researching ways of putting people under hypnosis faster. It was part of a PhD paper I was preparing. Anyway, this word really worked.

The special word seemed to act like a sort of login that immediately made the subject susceptible to suggestion and cut out the need for couches and long routines of preparation.

In the origins of humanity, if ever the human mind had been programmed, this would have been the programmers quick access system that gave absolute control for urgent program modifications.

I'll call the special word blabberpop. The word isn't blabberpop but, if I told you the word, believe me, it would be a really bad thing for the world.

Using this special word was as simple as this:

"Blabberpop. You will pick up any rubbish that you drop. Blabberpop."

The first use of the special word hypnotized the subject and enabled the suggestion to be effective. The second use of the special word unhypnotized them and then they would act on the suggestion at a later stage.

Anyway, I got to thinking about the wider possible uses of this and came up with a master plan which I set into action last month.

The idea was that I would use the secret word to tell someone to do a random act of kindness each day but also tell them to use the secret word themselves to require someone else to do a random act of kindness each day too. The special word would then be forgotten by both.

I thought the idea was brilliant. Doing random acts of kindness would seriously make the world a better place for everybody. I must confess the idea of promoting random acts of kindness wasn't original. There were already lots of sites on the Internet promoting the idea. All I was doing was making it, sort of, more efficient and mandatory.

The hypnotized command would effectively program people not only to do an act of random kindness each day but also to pass on the requirement for others to do random acts of kindness too.

So it was self propagating. It was truly a human kindness virus and I was very proud of myself for thinking of it.

That was last month.

I'm not so proud of myself this month because everything has gone horribly wrong.

The drive in front of my house is littered with several unwanted cars and a basket of stray kittens has just arrived.

I dare not go down into town for fear that I will be forcibly helped across the road by lots of strangers, whether I want to cross the road or not.

The Government Tax department has already contacted me three times this week asking me where the large sums of money from mysterious benefactors has come from. The clear suspicion seems to be that I'm involved in some sort of money laundering.

The same sorts of problems are already happening to ordinary people across the whole of the Western world, according to what I read on the Internet.

The human kindness virus has proved so virulent and so disruptive that, yesterday, in desperation, I threw it into reverse and started another viral command to counteract the previous one.

I used the secret word to tell someone not to do a random act of kindness each day and also told them to use the secret word in their turn to require someone else not to do a random act of kindness each day too. The special word was, of course, then to be forgotten by both.

Thankfully, I think it's working. Admittedly, crime statistics are up across the UK and America this morning, according to the News Channels, which could indicate perhaps it's working rather too well.

Hopefully, everything will soon return to normal.

So what is the moral of this story?

Well, personally, I still believe Random Acts of Human Kindness are a good thing but perhaps it's not such a good thing to force people to do them.

Perhaps the most fundamental human act of kindness is to leave people with their own freedom of action to do kindness as they will.

The End


http://www.onlineflashfiction.com/2007/11/human-kindness-virus-virus-short-story.html