meltdown

They were launched into space, the words - hurled into the atmosphere like a meteor propelled by some almighty invisible slingshot. And up and up they went. They cut through the cumulonimbus that floated undisturbed below the deep cerulean. They sneaked at bullet speed past the birds that chased the south and the metal whales that had swallowed their krill and the myriad of suits, shoes and suitcases that came as a side dish. How fast the words flew! Almost fast enough that time passed by them in the opposite direction! They parachuted upwards towards empty space and surfed the satined surface of the satellite dish, ready to shoot themselves back into the world, raining hell on the millions of tiny targets that circled around the glove like tapeworms stuck to their hosts. 

“VELVET GROUP SPA. CONSPIRACY EXPOSED! SLAVE LABOR ALL OVER ASIA!!1111!!” 

Ten rounds, loaded precisely, the same that will fit on a semi-automatic gun. Ten rounds fired into a screen. And into another screen. And into a billion screens that lit up the same way fireflies light up the marshes during estival twilights. They sailed across the Atlantic and they climbed up the Himalayas, strolled around Times Square and raced against the Big Ben in its own turf. They swam against the flow of time zones and hit with a buzz on the pockets of every man and woman who gazed beyond the glass that one, hasty day.

“Have you seen that?” Screamed someone - or thousands of someones, into a phone. 

And somewhere, in a dusty old room, the computers heard. They heard the name and counted the reactions. By midday there had been four hundred thousand reposts. The words appeared again and again. Reshuffled, explained, analyzed, dissected, chopped and sewn onto other words. They had been repeated by experts and mad men and mothers that shot them onto dinner tables to make some conversation. By four o’ clock the pool of blood spilled by the bullets had grown so expansive and the sounds of gunshots so deafening that the computers forced themselves to repeat the maniacal cacophony. 

When the bell rang on the stock market, the following morning, the algorithms inside those computers had burst into flames and an invisible fire burnt through the Velvet Group. It melted the steal beams and ignited the papers. It ravaged the offices and destroyed production lines without setting off one single alarm. 

“We have tumbled thirty four percent. Investors are in panic mode.”  

“It will go away. We just have to be careful.” Said someone sitting on one side of a large oak desk. 

“I don’t even understand what’s happening. Everyone could clearly see this is nonsense.” 

“Well, that’s the thing.” and a cigarette was choked atop an ash tray. “Out there, it’s not even people doing the trading anymore. Most business is conducted by automated programs. They scan cyberspace looking for news, articles, trends, the like, then they plug that info into an algorithm that tells them whether to buy or to sell. It minimizes risks for everyone and keeps the broker’s hands free to do more lines or whatever.” 

“And how do we make it stop?” 

“It’s just an anomaly… like a glitch. It will correct itself, I’m sure.” 

Three days later, Velvet Group had lost 50% of its value. Millions of dollars were sucked out of this dimension and into a black hole, vacuumed by the computers to the surprise of hundreds of reporters who could do nothing but print their stupor into sentences for the world to see. “The Velvet Group Phenomenon shocks the world.” These sentences were in turn fed into the hidden circuits that again spat Velvet stocks in a never-ending cycle of crimson chaos. 

And the fire burnt, eating through desks and phone chords and Xerox machines. Fire of the reddest and most suffocating kind, it stuck to Velvet’s gums and melted its teeth and charred every cell in its body. One by one, then in tiny groups, men and women began marching towards the door, the first in a long line of victims of the cybernetic murderers that could not take their hands of the trigger. That hasty fire from hell! Fire that fries nations until those who inhabit it starve! Fire that ruins families and fire that throws people off bridges and windows! That one fire that smells just a bit different from all other fires, the scent of broken hopes and dreams more insistent on the nostrils. The fire that so many tyrants and sociopaths and those who work for them will dance to. The money burnt. And the money burnt. And the money burnt. And then it stopped, because there was nothing left to burn anymore. 

“Please. I have a family.” A woman begged, ginger hair frolicking on her head. Her eyes wet with desperation. 

“All of us do.” Said someone on the other side of the oak desk. 

“I just don’t understand. Everything was going just fine.” 

“We will never know. The stock market found an anomaly and got stupid. We tried everything we could do to avert the crisis but our shares just kept free falling. You know how much we are worth, as a company, right now? I tell you how much: not enough to buy this freaking desk. I will never know if someone did this on purpose, but I suppose we were just victims of it, of the market. God knows how many lives it ruins every day.” 

The woman began sobbing uncontrollably. 

“Relax. You have a great resumé. Strong recommendations. You will land another job and survive another day in this jungle.” 

It took a minute for the tears to dry and the woman raised her head, towards the other side of the desk, to find a grumpy old man, scarred by time and bludgeoned by the inevitability of chaos, trying to make sense of the randomness. 

“And what will you do?” She murmured. 

“I don't know. For now, just watch the dream my father and his father worked to keep for 50 years get trashed because of a post on some social network. After the doors close, I don’t know.” He took a few steps away from his desk and gazed at the city below, floating in the 39th floor. The city seemed so organized from up there, the life running through it so insignificant. The ground so welcoming one could be tempted to throw themselves at it, to just let go. “I don’t know. I really can't tell how much strength I have. I guess I’ll see as time goes.” 

Another word she dared not pronounce. Her eyes said goodbye on her behalf, humid and mourning, and she crossed the threshold out of the office. As the door closed behind her she could hear the screams, just like the ones she had heard all week, like a ghost that just wouldn't leave. He must have been speaking on the phone, for all she could tell. Or perhaps he couldn't get over his own shock. “Fucking slave labor fucking Asia! We don't even operate in Asia! Goddammit we are a software company!” 

Out of the empty hallways and into the streets she ventured. The city screamed, a mismatched choral arrangements of horns and sirens and the drumming of thousands of steps on the tarmac. She peeked downward, into the dark glass that came alive right before her, and stared into the fishbowl, the microcosm enclosed in that tiny window, the world she held on her hand. A handful of articles popped right before her, each claiming the inside scoop on that one company that had just been bankrupted by one social network post. Each one discrediting the other one. Each one trying to bask in the glory of claiming to be the only one who understood a truth that wasn't there.

“What really happened in the Velvet Group case. The inside scoop.” 

“Exclusive expert analysis on the Velvet debacle.”

“Did CEO set this event on purpose?” 

As she came to the realization that all those commenters would relish in the misery of thousands if it gave them a chance to seem more relevant, she realized the fishbowl seemed terrifyingly like a shark tank. The proving grounds of an eternal war of pixels fought by every man and woman against all others, all for that one fleeting moment of ethereal ecstasy where one feels superior to the rest. 

And forward she marched, crossing the street, sinking herself into the ocean made up by all of us, all soldered to our glass slabs like safety blankets, gawking into them in search for some lost purpose that will never reveal itself to us while chaos marches on, while the world keeps spinning aimlessly, while the fires still scorch the land.