Gross Domestic Product
A trumpet blast, a fanfare of sorts, and a still shot of a deserted beach at sundown, the sole occupants being non-human—two empty beach chairs. Human footprints lead to but inexplicably not from these chairs. This mystifying tableau appears on the screen for about one minute before an authoritarian voice makes the following announcement.
Citizens, the Ministry of Public Works is happy to announce a 3.5% increase in our GDP for the fifth consecutive year. This unprecedented achievement is largely due to Project Pyrrhic, whose goal is to temporarily transform the nation’s landscapes for the edification of its citizenry and economic benefit. We know some of you have visited our Arid Zone this year, perhaps during your holidays, and taken in this splendid geo-engineered sunset, luxuriated on the faux-footprint-adorned imported sand—our coals to Newcastle approach—frolicked with our frisky robotic fish in the artificial sea we created from imported icebergs, and watched the rain fall through the “magic” of our cloud-seeding efforts. But all good things must come to an end, and as you can see from the vacant chairs, this landscape, the one you know as Narragonia, is now closed.
But this, too, is good news. As they say, “what goes up must come down,” of course. But in our great nation what comes down will immediately be replaced by something that will most definitely be going up. As you may have already guessed, this is just what our economy requires, because it means jobs, jobs, and more jobs, of course! From ribbon cutting to wrecking ball, your humble servants at the Ministry of Public Works are committed to increasing the GDP, as Poe might have said, “Bringing it higher, higher, higher with a desperate desire” to achieve maximum economic growth.
We want to take this opportunity to thank those of you who have offered to ameliorate the ecological damage done by the construction of Narragonia. We know that your hearts are in the right place, but regret to inform you that such a selfless, unpaid undertaking, though admirable, would, if realized, diminish rather than enhance our ultimate measure of progress—GDP. We would also like to announce Project Pyrrhic’s next endeavor—the construction of the John Maynard Keynes Memorial Pyramid, a massive structure whose location is yet to be determined but will most certainly be situated in the middle of one of our major urban areas. Of course, the Ministry of Public Works will have to exercise its power of eminent domain if some residents fail to see the utility of this project and, accordingly, refuse to move. As part of the Keynes Pyramid project, an additional but much smaller structure will be constructed—the sphinxlike Homo Economicus. Visitors to both sites will be afforded the opportunity to contemplate the meaning and implications of the concept of utility and the ephemeral nature of, as we are sure you will agree, everything. Visitors to the Homo Economicus site will have their experience enhanced by a loop recording of “The Grand Old Duke of York.”
Oh, the grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men,
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And marched them back down again.
And when you’re up, you’re up,
And when you’re down, you’re down,
And when you’re only halfway up,
You’re neither up nor down.
Jack Napes is an Irish writer based in Tokyo. His creative output is nearly all political and social satire. Jack is featured in the picture to the right and is the diminutive one, of course. He is the author of “A Visit to the Parasitological Museum” (Number Eleven Magazine), “An Immodest Proposal” (Dodging the Rain), and the poem “The Fear-Itself Litany” (The Corbett Report Subscriber Newsletter), as well as the novella Travels with the Tribe: Killing Gravity in Woke Times, which is available from Kobo Writing Life, as a digital download for about the price of a can of beer in Tokyo. Help him buy a six pack.