Dr.
Chapman was going over his video log. He
asked the computer to repeat what it currently had in its databanks about their
influence on the Earth culture so far…
Computer’s Voice:
Acegum was their product, it was a wonder compound
that used ‘sticky-gum-technology’ to clean women’s facial complexions and
hair. Dirt and oils just naturally
bonded to the facial cleansers and hair shampoos made from this compound and
then simply washed away after the lather phase of the cleansing process. This compound was introduced to Earthlings by
a race of beings called the Cyberians.
However, instead of putting some of the monetary proceeds from sales
towards charitable causes, they built weapons of mass destruction with them. Stacy Malone was a college theatre major who
was a murder victim of one of their weapons of mass destruction. She was killed with a retractable dagger that
sprayed poison into her system. She died
instantly both from the wound and the deadly poison. Now, the Cyberians have lost one of their
cells in each of their bodies. It’s kind
of like the missing-man flying formation that jet-planes fly where one out of
the jets leaves formation and flies off independently. They are each missing a cell and therefore
will experience severe lethargy sometimes.
Enter Clarity, a clear-thinking author whose blood samples contribute
healthy cells into the Cyberian cell pool.
Essentially, her blood helps them move forward. She is self-publishing a book on
budgeting. The book centers around meal
plans that are organized through
leather-bound-tri-panel-folding-dinner-menus.
She creates representations of these dinner menus on graphical computer
software akin to a word processer mixed-in with a graphical interface. In this way she can create themes to her
menus with pictures, graphics along with the actual names and explanations of
the dishes. She can also organize her rolodex
recipe boxes and countless cookbooks based on these menus. They are fun ways to organize what her family
loves to eat and plan a meal budget accordingly. During weeks when her budget is tighter than
other weeks, she might be relegated to serving a couple of different variations
of healthy vegetable bisque soups. Clarity
will get very creative with her menus that have now evolved to encompass all
three meals of the day – breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Dr
Chapman was very pleased with the way that the computer voice Eden had assessed where the Cyberians’
position was situated in the young civilized Earth culture. Through research, Eden the ubiquitous computer voice told him
that that murder victim Stacy was slated to have had a son in the near future,
who was to be the one to unify all of Earth.
Therefore her murder, had an intense backlash that resulted in one less
cell in each of the bodies of the Cyberian population.
“Acegum
is our saving grace…” Chapman told his second in command, “…without it we would
have no way of compensating Clarity for her healthy blood samples.”
“Her
name is so appropriate also, her healthy cells give is the clarity and momentum
to move forward in our daily lives,” Sub-Commander Oliver replied.
“….yes,
and she thinks that it is all for cancer research…In some sense that missing
cell in each of us, makes us susceptible to cancer, so yes, her contribution of
healthy cells through her donated blood samples is truly justified.”
“…very
good sir, I will direct research and development to step up the creation of
more Acegum,” Oliver said on his way out of Dr. Chapman’s hidden office cubicle.
In
the meantime, one of Clarity’s pet projects was to help a family in which one
of the family members had lost his job and was involved in a drunk-driving
accident. She was helping them to put
the pieces back together in their lives.
Dr.
Chapman, by this time, was aware of all of Clarity’s blogposts and he asked the
computer voice Eden
to relay this one to him, one more time….
Computer’s Voice:
Clarity’s
Budget Blog #63
Out of the blue, 3 different cars were
side-swiped. The first car was backing
out of its driveway, when a red convertible sports car was barreling down the
nearby neighborhood, leaning right and plowing into the right side passenger
door. Then, it backed up hitting the
left driver’s side door of a parked car at its rear right. This drunk driver was in obvious denial and
just could not believe all the damage he was causing, because he managed to
back up into another parked car, scraping the left passenger door of it, before
passing out at the steering wheel.
A few minutes later sirens could be heard approaching
the disasterous scene. Edward, the name
of the man who had done all of the damage was out cold, wreaking of
whiskey. Apparently he had been out
drinking all night because yesterday that morning, he had lost his high-income
job! It had been heart-wrenching news for
him who was the father of four teenagers, to learn that at the moment, he could
no longer support all of them. He was no
means a top wage-earner, but Edward had done alright for himself. Edward’s story was the front page news bright
and early the next morning.
Fortunately no one was hurt from all of the car
scrapes, just of course Edward’s state of self-perception. Many people distanced themselves from Edward
and his situation. I read on in the newspaper to make sure that the family that
was backing up from their driveway that unlucky morning had walked away from
the accident unscathed. After that, I
took an interest in what would happen to Edward, because he reminded me so much
of my own husband Gary. Apparently I
wasn’t the only one, because the local public access news studio followed
Edward as he was admitted into rehab.
Weeks later, the same news crew filmed him as he took computer classes
at the local community college to improve his job skills.
Apparently there are independent aptitude tests that
you can take to see how much of the computer concepts you have a grasp of. To publicly see Edward go through this,
brought a tear to my eye because he was acquiring a lot of computer
knowledge.
His next step was to go to a job agency – yet he took
his time about it, because it seemed he wanted to re-assess the gift given to
him by God to bounce back. What I saw in
Edward was that though calamity befalls everyone, the key is to be able to hold
your head up high and bounce back. Human
resiliency is such a fascinating trait and it could clearly be seen as Edward
marched up the job agency stairs to meet up with their representative. He turned a negative into a positive.
Financially, I wanted to help so I graphically created
a menu for his family, had it printed and bound with a
beige-leather-backing. I had heard that
his whole family loved seafood, so in the dish entrees, I made sure to include
lots of shrimp and fresh fish dishes, even lobster for special dinner occasions.
I swirled on lots of whimsical graphics and made the
menu especially appealing to his wife.
Included with this package gift contribution from me were boxes of index
cards of all of the recipes that comprised the menu entries. I had eight menus printed up, each of them
variations of the original Specialty-Seafood one. I dropped it off a their front door one
Saturday morning. Edward himself
answered the doorbell and was so appreciative and gracious in response to my
gesture of kindness. To this day, his
family and mine exchange Christmas cards every year and his passing troubles
remain a reminder to me of how just resilient a human being can be.
Dr.
Chapman was fully satisfied that he was abreast of what had been happening in
Clarity’s life…
***************************
As
the conveyor belt hummed along producing haircare, skincare, cometics and nail
enamel products, with of course the ‘sticky-gum-technology-compound-acegum’ as
their prime active ingredient, he looked back and assessed that although the
global unification of Earth as one people was slightly derailed by one of their
weapons of mass destruction, causing their whole Cyberian race to become
wayward, their investment in the author Clarity and the book that she was
writing on food budgeting through the compilation of her blogspots, put them
back on track, giving them the momentum to survive.
Meantime,
back at the Acegum website, testimonials poured in about their growing beauty
product line:
“…These
shampoos and conditioners have really gotten my hair back into shape. It’s now become voluminous, shiny and bouncey…”
“….There
are no comparisons with the leading brands when it comes to Acegum’s skincare
line….they are miles ahead of the competition….”
“……I
am astounded at how clean my hair feels after each washing, there is no milky
residue to weigh it down….”
“….You
can rest assured that I will be trying the rest of Acegum’s product line
including their nail polish, because it will just glide on nail beds and adhere
to its surface as if it were baked on!”
The
Cyberians knew they weren’t perfect.
They had yet to contribute to a charitable cause, but that was because
of the anonymity that they faithfully stuck to.
Thank goodness that they did have funds to help Clarity pay for
self-publication in exchange for her ‘well-meanining-cancer-research-blood-samples.’ In Dr. Chapman’s mind, there was still a
balance in the continuum…
