less is more. less is more. less is more. less is more. less is more less is more less is good.

minimalism is. . . was their next step. their ideal path, their modus operandi. it started, i think, i recall, with the glorious Apple. Apple was the one who’d introduce them to the sleek, the pristine, the perfect emptiness and nothingness that was minimal design. and they bought it. they’d buy it. they ate the apple. in the apple was a seed, of course, for there are no apples without seeds, and so spread a seed to sprout in the stomachs of the stricken. but why? what was the tree? a hint: it was growing.

they were hooked. it spread. the people began to . . . reduce . . . everything. their clothes shed their patterns, their foodstuffs shed their flavours, their paintings shed their paint. more. more and more of their lives were lessened to simple colours, simple textures, simple words and simple lives. you see, minimalism is defined by a distinct, an extreme lack in variance. less is more. less is more.

the government had taken note of this craze, of this stupor. and they knew, as representatives of their people, they needed to make a move. recently, the government felt the impact of the minimalist movement. it seemed, seemed as though no person had applied in years – the latest official member of any form of government, a receptionist for an out-of-the-way town hall – had just won Employee of the Year for the second time. the second time. the leaders knew – they were dying. they’d need a solution. soon. but how? why weren’t the people working?

they needed to get in touch with their citizens. simply walking down any street they knew already what needed to be done. for the people, all of them, hundreds of them, were dressed in monochrome; they didn’t talk, they didn’t look, they didn’t care. these people, they’d never think about the mess that is the world of politics. it’s too dirty. the only way this poor, this struggling government could achieve even a ghost of a chance would be to reform their system entirely.

and so they did! and it worked splendidly. they repainted and redecorated all of their buildings. solid white, with red, blue and yellow accents. they removed the grating textures like brick and replaced them with birch. with glass. they reformed their policies, their systems, everything. when they were done, the government’s inner workings were just as beautifully empty as the decor. finally, it paid off. the citizens started to work. there was no application process – they’d simply walk in from the street and start their day.

the government had taken a bite.

the tree pushed against everything that had been, its roots ensnaring anything, anyone that thought to slip by. the general public, like any good caretakers of a tree, knew that a tree would only grow as large as the space in which it’s contained. and that was that. their mission was to expand the tree’s living space – the less obstructive clutter, the more space for their lovely apple tree. less is more.

texture, it seemed, had been banned. a confusing statement had just come from the government and the city’s workers were hesitant. the roads were to be completely rehauled, everywhere. the gross, dirty sidewalk is to be immediately covered with something smooth, shiny, sleek. they had not said what. At this time plastic was in abundance and it was generally agreed upon as the substance of choice. white plastic was ordered and now manufactured in enormous, unfathomable quantities. the sidewalks were to be simplified. here’s the real shock: people from all over town hurried to offer help the instant they heard or saw what was going on. with their staff effectively tripled, the sidewalks were finished in to time. and now, to the roads themselves, you’d hear them say. the production of black plastic skyrocketed.

over the course of tens of years, each and every city in America has been covered in plastic. each and every workplace had been entirely rebranded and each and every person had started to wear pastels. the sun had decided to become warmer. problems were a thing of the past. problems meant dirtiness, they meant difficulty and they meant genuine sadness. so, when America was faced with problems they tended to react very badly. this may come as a shock to you, so brace yourself:

in the summer of 2142, the sidewalks melted.

this was immediately declared a national emergency and not one person had foreseen this disaster. every city in the country had been afflicted by this heatwave. the roads and sidewalks had gone from the smooth perfection of a toxic solid to the heaping, steaming, burning rivers of toxic fluids and a horrendous, opaque toxic gas. there was nothing to be done. generations of ill-educated folk had already plagued the government, run now by the mindless citizens from the street. everyone who knew what they were doing had died of old age. this catastrophe, this technicolor crisis didn’t last long, though.

America had fallen into pieces – melted, if you will. there was not a person who knew how to overcome the biggest of toxic, pollutant happenings to ever exist in this world. almost every American died that month, the rest managing to flee via now-poisonous runways or railways. and while it did last for over a century, Canada, with help from several other national agencies, managed to remove most of the plastic from the ground. the ocean would end up taking much, much longer to clean, but they finally managed, once and for all, to remove all of the toxicity left behind by America’s most memorable social movement.

nothing is permanent in this world, not even our troubles.

not even plastic.