26 On Death and Taxes

At long last, the old tax collector had made his way to the front. And now he was able to seize the moment of exhausted silence, and say, Speak to us of tax evasion.

To which the prophet was heard by some in the front row to mutter under his breath:
What the fuck?

And the tax collector said:
You are old, but so am I. I was but a babe in my mother’s arms, when many years ago, you boarded a ship from this very dock, and left town in a hurry. And in the years that you lived here, you sure as hell didn’t pay any taxes.

And verily the prophet said:
It seems that rather than steering towards equilibrium, Adam Smith’s invisible hand tends to tip the scales, in favour of the greediest and the most ruthless.

An economy where all currency is created as a function of debt will collapse in the end. Such a system is geared to generate “wealth” without producing value. It can sustain itself only as long as it can suck valuable goods and services from elsewhere.

Such is the parasitic nature of empires.

At this the miserable boat people let out a communal sigh, and the boat itself creaked and groaned in pain.

And the prophet continued:
And in the end, everything will revert back into the hands of the bankers who have decreed for themselves the power to issue debt notes.

In short, dear friend, the system you represent is a sham. The money you seek to collect from me will soon cease to have value. When every last note has found its way home, back to the bankers, there will be no one left to honour the debt on the basis of which these worthless scraps of paper were printed in the first place. And your masters, the bankers, will be forced to relinquish their stranglehold on humanity.

This then appeared to be the absolute end of the evening, even as the tax collector prepared to make a public arrest. But what No-one realized was that at that moment, in the center of town, the large clock struck twelve, and due to a millennium bug, would not stop ringing.

And at that very same moment a deafening roar was suddenly upon them and a tsunami washed over the crowd, sweeping everyone off their feet, save for the prophet and his son, still clinging to the drum.

At first it was supposed, that it was the apocalypse that was now upon them. Then, quickly it was realized, that it was merely the migrant ship, which had finally broken in half and sunken like a stone. It was amidst this general confusion, that prophet and son made their getaway. Two hundred screaming boat-people sans boat were dog-paddling in the harbour. And some of the people from Orphalese were also swept out to sea, while others were swept right back in, with the next wave.
This second tidal wave took the rusty old drum with it, and No-one heard his father mutter to himself:
As the rising tide bids me leave you all, I shall not tarry.

And so they surfed the wave all the way into the town square, briefly getting tubed in the middle of Main Street.
But they had not counted on the tenacity of the tax man, for though hard to hear, and slow on his feet, the man was also a phenomenal swimmer. The clouds had by now completely lifted, and by the light of the moon and the stars, the old man was able to keep the bright orange drum, with it’s cargo of fugitives, locked firmly in his sights.

When prophet and son finally landed in the main square, where the clock tower was still striking midnight, the tax collector was not far behind. And when the dissipating wave finally ebbed into the gutters and back out to sea, the two old men crashed heavily to the ground, tax man on top and prophet underneath.

And bit by bit, the crowd began to re-assemble in the town center, as more and more people got washed along Mainstreet, and caught sight of the curious pair. For if there was one thing in the world, that the people of Orphalese could truly not resist, it was the spectacle two ancient men, engaged in a fistfight over a one hundred year old tax issue.

In the end, beat up and exhausted, the old timers called it a draw. And so the tax man suggested a truce, by uttering the following words:
Did you not once say: “And if this day is not a fulfillment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day.”

You have a good memory, conceded the prophet.
And then it was No-one who spoke:
Suffer not yet our ears to hunger for your voice. Tell us something, anything, of the meaning of life, so that these people here (a broad sweeping gesture) shall not return to their homes empty handed and starving.

And patiently the prophet raised his voice one final time:
My dear son. The meaning of life? Tell me, dear people of Orphalese, have I tonight spoken of aught else? But let there be truly no cause for suffering, for the meaning of life can be summarized in four simple - 2