Categories
Fiction

The Red Shells

Premise: The slave trade, but the British are crabs, pre-Revolutionary Americans are snakes, and Africans are mice.

The Reds transported the Snakes of Europe to the shores of America. With their claw hands, they took £s as tax and exchanged for tea. The first snake Congress met.

“In our triangular trade of tea and mice for silver and cotton, we pay one tenth in tax to the Conch and one tenth in shipping fees to Barnacle Shipping a claw monopoly maintained by the Conch. A total of a fifth of our bounty.”

The mice holding snakes nodded in ascent. One of them spoke, “That’s one less field mouse for cotton, less one tenth the profit; and one tenth in trade for the necessary tools to cultivate the land; effects felt across all states and industries.”

“Although I find the practice of mice holding abominable, I am yoked to agreement,” a furnace dealer said: “I’ve shed not once this year for overwork.”

Meanwhile back in Britain, two crabs of the Conch court have tea. A painting from the Netherlands is hanged and various vases from the Orient are displayed.

Categories
Philosophy

Aphorisms

Favoritism – Just knowing another is enough to favor them.