I don’t know what came over me. I was running through the streets screaming “Soylent Green is people! Corporations are people!” I never got to complete the syllogism which probably would have ended with “Therefore Soylent Green is a corporation.”
I would have but somebody threw a rock. It missed my head but I fell in the process of evading it.
So, there I was at 3:45 am, wearing a gym suit and sneakers, running though a densely populated city neighborhood like a modern Paul Revere. People need to be warned.
I was trying to be smart about it. Nowadays, people are distracted and attention is hard to get. The rock demonstrated I was successful in getting attention, but not exactly the kind of attention I wanted.
I sat at the curb to collect my thoughts and examine my wounds. Just scrapes and slight bleeding. The bigger problem was to move people to action.
Since people have become so cold, selfish and unfeeling, some experts recommend that a woman being raped should yell “fire” because that might get action from bystanders who could be concerned about being consumed by flames. I needed to personalize this new threat. A cultural reference to soylent green might perk up some B-movie buffs, but that would not be enough.
No, there wasn’t time. Most of the leading corporations were using a new “wonder substance” which slashed energy and production costs. It also causes deadly mutations which will end the human race as we know it. Sometimes corporations will voluntarily respond to a danger—they reduced the production of fluorocarbons; they took thalidomide off the market.
But this time they’re in too deep and they won’t do anything. Without this wonder substance, these corporations would fold, fire everybody and there would be nothing left except for golden parachutes for the executives. Big investors want their cut and they won’t stand for it.
Of course, the government won’t do anything. That would be socialism.
So a bunch of us formed an impromptu group (ka the Internet) which is trying to make a fuss in every city that includes headquarters of one of the offending corporations. But we’re not sure how to make this work.
Our ancestors came from the sea. I’m afraid that my grandkids will have fins and will return to the sea. Meanwhile, I’m doing what I can.