The Fly in The Ointment

Mr Macsheen sighed as he floated 10 inches off of the ground, caught in his apartment blocks anti-gravity safety net.

He had tried to throw himself off of it.

"Why do you keep trying to kill yourself, Mr Macsheen?", asked the intelligent pavement beneath him.

"Because life is so dull", said the man, "The people who made you sucked the colour out of everything. I want to die and go to a heaven of imperfections".

"But heaven doesn't exist", said the pavement, "Its just an irrational belief".

"But irrational beliefs were part of what made human beings interesting; they were a beautiful quirk of humanity; they gave rise to colourful traditions. Astrologers and snake oil salesmen may have been con artists but they were fun to have around", said the man angrilly.

"Why don't you go back inside?", said the intelligent door of his intelligent apartment block, opening wide, "Have a healthy, nutritious meal and a pleasant virtual experience".

"I don't want to have a healthy nutritious meal. I want to have a hamburger and then I want to have some whisky and smoke a cigarette", said the man.

"But cigarettes and alcohol and fatty foods are bad for you. They make you ill and decrease your life span", said the intelligent door.

"What is the point of having a long life when you have sucked all the pleasure out of it", said the man, "And why does everyone have to be healthy and slim and sober? Getting rid of the unhealthy people was just another way of making everyone the same like the way you got rid of all the dwarfs and bearded ladies because technology made it possible for people to have babies with perfect genes so now everyone is healthy and normal and the world is a duller place because of it".

"But isn't it a good thing that we solve problems. Would you allow a disease to go on killing people rather than find a cure for it because the disease makes life more interesting?", said the door.

"That is not a fair analogy", said the man, "What I'm taking about is not like a fatal epidemic; it is more like the common cold was before you got rid of it; a little annoyance but harmless. Now, thanks to you; no one sneezes and no one coughs and no one buys get well cards or eats cough drops or has their mother put her hand upon their forehead".

But just then, something that the man hadn't expected happened.

A giant flying eye in the sky, looking down at him fired a glowing eraser beam from its pupil which, enveloping him in energy, painlessly and instantly, made him vanish.

"Another failure, I'm afraid", said a controller, sitting inside the eye, to the intelligent architecture below, "But Rome wasn't built in a day".

A long time ago, scientists had created a perfect world and now only one goal eluded them; to create people who were happy living in it.