Honest Society
By: Karthick Ragavendran
Tags: Government, Short Story, Corruption, Honesty

Vihan was getting annoyed waiting in the queue for applying his voter id. It has been almost two hours now. The guy who was recording people’s information was extremely slow and highly unskilled.

‘This guy must be somehow known to the councillor. That is how he must have got this job. Too slow. Corruption everywhere.’ Vihan complained.

‘Yes. He must also do something in return. Like pasting posters all over this area and polluting the already polluted.’ an old man standing before Vihan replied.

‘Or he may need to do some Gundas help too. May be he already did who knows.’ Someone else added.

‘Yes. The government is corrupted. You have to know someone to get things done here.’

‘Yes. If I know this councillor, I can come at night and add my application.’

‘If We give councillor five thousand bucks, We don’t have to wait in the queue. He will come to our home and hand over the ID.’

‘If we give the minister 5 lakh rupees, He will do the home delivery too.’

‘Yes. Everything is money here. Country has turned so bad.’

This was happening from the morning. Vihan was looking at a tree’s shadow for that he had to move 5 more feet in the queue. That felt like forever but the shadow never came. Probably the sun was moving in an unfavourable direction. The sun was also too harsh that day. He felt his shirt too wet. He felt bit dizzy. He looked above and his eyes went full white.

‘Welcome, Vihan.’ God welcomed.

‘Am I dead?’

‘No… You will be… back soon.’ God smiled like a good man.

The place was wonderful. It was a white marbled pathway in a garden. Both were looking at each other for quite some time standing there.

‘You can carry on your work God. I will wait here till… Huh… I go back.’

‘Huh… Okay.’ He walked inside a room there. Vihan was looking around. The sky was white. There was no sun. The lighting was so pleasant and soothing to the eyes. God quickly peeked out and asked ‘Do you want to have a look at my simulation lab? This will be interesting. I have never shown this to any human being.’

‘Okay.’ He went into the lab. God had a four monitor setup with almost a 8K resolution. ‘Wow. You can play videos games in this screen. This is awesome.’

‘No, This is for simulation generator. We can create a scenario and fast forward time to see how that impacted your earth.’

‘How many earths are you managing, God?’

‘Only one. You have a scenario?’ God asked. ‘Quick, they may bring you to life any time.’

Vihan thought. ‘What simulations you usually play here, God? Any examples?’

‘Examples… I once made every one in the world as the president of America. Most nuked the world.’

‘Oh… Okay, Let’s make every voters of my state as chief minister and let’s find out the honest people.’

‘Ahaan… Sure!’ God typed something quickly. ‘Ready.’ pressed a button and got the result immediately.

‘Huh… 30% are 25% corrupted. 38% are about 50% corrupted. 22% are 87% and remaining are 100%. Pure evil!’

Vihan’s eyes returned from a swirl. ‘Oh God.’ He shook his head. ‘Please run the simulation once again? Please? One more time. Just one more time…’

‘We wont get different results Vihan. People are people. But let’s do it.’ He ran the simulation. ‘Now the results are… Wait a minute! The same numbers. But one person! One person is completely honest! We have found your person Vihan. We have found your person!’ God held Vihan by his shoulders proudly and expressed his happiness. ‘We have found your chief minister!’

‘Thanks for finding him. Can you make him the chief minister?’

‘Yes. Hmm…’ God went into deep thinking leaving a formal smiling face outside.

‘Thanks God. Please do it.’

God kept looking at him cautiously. He had lost his smile.

‘What are you thinking?’ Vihan pleaded. ‘Please?’ Vihan started vanishing. ‘Look God, I’m going down! Please make him the chief minister. Now! Please! Come on!’ Fully disappeared.

God kept staring thinking deeply. He sat there for few more minutes. The computer got locked. He cleared his throat and said ‘Log in. It’s me.’

He opened the second simulation and clicked on the one 100% honest person. He opened that profile. The name was Vihan. ‘I see…’

He opened the first simulation, searched Vihan’s file and played it. Vihan was 100% dishonest in this simulation where he ended up accumulating huge amount of wealth all over the world trading most of his nation’s wealth and rights.

‘Now I understand.’ — ‘My Dad said never to trust a human being. Hmm…’ God went into deep thinking again. ‘I felt bored though.’

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