THE ABACUS OF MAMMON

Once upon a time there was a planet.

Here the sky glowed orange, violet clouds spilled over the mountains, and a turquoise moon rose in the evening. Everyone drove hovercrafts. The cities, constructed almost entirely of glass, stood elegant and immaculate above a desert of pale sand. All skin was blue, all eyes green, and every hand waggled seven lanky fingers. But the defining characteristic of this civilization—its organizing principle, the very engine of its economy—was not the pursuit of money but rather the creation of poetry.

Each morning the planet’s citizens woke to another day of the Grand Quest. Astral broadcasts delivered the latest news—the outlook for inspiration, the estimated global metaphor tally, the recommended number of couplets per stanza, the discovery of a rare form of virelay. Wealth and status were distributed according to artistic merit. The author of the latest cosmic epic lived in a domed penthouse atop the highest tower in the capital. Those unlucky souls whose meager talents produced only limericks or the odd satirical epigram were forced to subsist in cramped apartments or dingy grottoes. Fortunately, one could achieve a respectable middle-class existence with a steady output of conventional free verse—and this was the lot of the vast majority.

The Oggs, for example, were a typical family, though happily their fortunes were rising. Mr. Ogg had carved out a niche for himself in the villanelle market—more lucrative than free verse—and his enterprise had been rewarded with a luxury dwelling in one of the posher districts. His wife dabbled in greeting cards, jingles, and nursery rhymes but spent most of her time looking after their son, Mammon. She doted on the boy, naturally, but Mr. Ogg had lately begun to regard Mammon with concern—perhaps even with reluctant suspicion.

Yes, Mr. Ogg was at last forced to admit the ugly truth: Mammon just wasn’t right.

It all started on the boy’s twelfth birthday. His mother—who, in Mr. Ogg’s opinion, spoiled Mammon rotten by indulging his every foolish whim—presented him with an abacus, ledger book, ink stylus, and single volume deluxe edition of the current tax code. Mr. Ogg remained implacable as Mammon lifted each item from its box but recoiled when he saw how his son’s eyes twinkled with glee. For months afterward, Mammon spent hours poring over imaginary budgets, correcting balance sheets, calculating interest, combing the tax code for loopholes. The ubiquitous clicking of glass beads from the boy’s abacus filled every room of their dwelling.

Mr. Ogg bore his disappointment stoically. Sometimes, seated in the cockpit of his hovercraft, he pondered his fate, fiercely resisting the temptation to bitterness. It was true, of course, that a financial subculture still existed—but this was a seedy, marginal affair, a relic from a barbarian phase of history now centuries in the past, a haven for feckless, disreputable types who couldn’t hack it in the modern world. In spite of their absolute irrelevance, they even maintained a ramshackle stock exchange, banking system, tax collection agency—and communicated with one another through fringe-group newsletters. It was all just an elaborate game of make-believe! Mr. Ogg boiled with fury. He simply couldn’t bear the disgrace of having sired a future accountant. Obviously the blame rested squarely on the ancestral line of his jingle-writing wife. Some mutant bean-counter strain had wriggled its way up from her gene pool to implant itself in his only son. O the ignominy!

At last the evening arrived when Mr. Ogg, pulling into the hoverport, resolved to take action. Later that same night, as the Oggs gathered around the dinner table, Mr. Ogg surreptitiously sized up Mammon, winked at his wife, then casually asked the boy about his day at school. Mammon, unaccustomed to such questions from his father, gawked at Mr. Ogg with alarm but answered diffidently enough. “Fine, I guess,” he said.

“Are you going to the poetry reading tomorrow?”

Mammon shrugged, looked down at his plate.

“Well, don’t forget to take your weather pod. There’s a heavy synesthesia front moving in.”

“I’m not going,” Mammon mumbled.

Mr. Ogg glanced again at his wife, who now looked back at him with a steely glare.

“I didn’t hear you, son,” said Mr. Ogg. “Please speak up.”

“I said I’m not going.”

Mrs. Ogg broke in sharply. “Pass the jelly beans, dear,” she said. “Mammon, do eat your jelly beans. They’re good for growing boys.”

Mr. Ogg handed the bowl across the table to his wife, who ladled beans onto Mammon’s plate, then smothered them in fudge gravy.

“I’m still interested in Mammon’s plans for tomorrow,” said Mr. Ogg.

Mammon lifted his head and sneered defiantly at his father. “Maybe I’m going to play basketball.”

“Basketball is for sissies!” Mr. Ogg thundered, then caught himself and struggled to regain his composure.

Mrs. Ogg slapped the table with her palm. “Enough!” she shouted. “Honestly, honey, what’s got into you?”

“I’m simply trying to determine whether our son has chosen to doom himself to a life of poverty and failure.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs. Ogg scoffed. “He’s only twelve!”

“Basketball is awesome!” Mammon shouted.

“Don’t use the word ‘awesome,’ son,” said Mr. Ogg. “It’s completely meaningless.”

“But, Dad, I don’t care about words!”

“Yes, I know. You’re a numbers man. That’s what we’re really talking about here, isn’t it?”

“You’re the one who started this conversation,” said Mrs. Ogg.

“Accounting is in my blood!” Mammon cried. “It’s what I was born to do!”

Mr. Ogg trembled with indignation. “Look, Mammon, this CPA business might be all right for a child. I understand that it’s enjoyable, now and then, to indulge in a little fantasy. But a time comes in every man’s life when he must face facts. Son, in the real world, we all have to write poetry for a living!”

Silence fell. Each member of the Ogg family regarded the others warily. Just audible from the next room, the astral projector announced the day’s estimated verse rate—of which every citizen could be proud.

At last Mammon spoke. “Dad,” he said calmly, “I’m not as dumb as you think I am.”

“Prove it.”

“Once upon a time,” said Mammon, “there was a planet. From pole to pole, this was a world steeped in soot. Boulders of basalt lay strewn across vast wastelands of ash. Cold wind blasted howling through jagged canyons where twisted, skeletal trees gripped the scarps with black roots. A thick shelf of clouds, gray and bleak, hung perpetually in the sky, blotting out all trace of the celestial canopy. Volcanoes notched the horizon like sinister teeth. To the luckless inhabitants of this planet, day and night were unknown—for they lived in an endless twilight.

“Yet it had not always been so. Originally, the planet was a paradise, though none now living could remember it. Nevertheless, memories of these times had been preserved across generations, and the young still heard legends of things that seemed impossible—tales of seasons, rivers, wildlife, birdsong. But they heard most often of the sapphire mines, sprawling caverns beneath the planet’s surface that once had been filled with jewels. As soon as these deposits were discovered, the ancestors had recognized their value. Before long the activity of the entire planet centered on the extraction, cutting, polishing, and sale of sapphires on the intergalactic market. Spectacular technological advances followed, along with more sophisticated economic and political practices. Armies of accountants were enlisted to keep track of the vast wealth raining down, as it were, from the stars. Everyone—even the miners—grew rich.

“Then at last the inevitable occurred. The momentum of their enthusiasm proved unstoppable, and it wasn’t long before the ancestors had hollowed out every vein, digging deeper and deeper through the plundered caves until they arrived at the final sapphire—a perfect blue sphere lodged in the exact center of the planet. Here they paused. Each miner felt in his heart a twinge of dread, a knowledge—though none could remember being told—that to remove this stone would bring certain disaster. A minority of honest voices spoke the warning, but in the end the hammers fell. Immediately, an icy gust roared though the cavern, extinguishing the miners’ lamps. By the time they’d clambered back to the surface, bearing the last sapphire aloft like some exotic primordial egg, everything had changed. The miners emerged into a new world—a darker, desolate, hostile world—a world they themselves had just brought into being.”

Mammon gazed at his father.

Mr. Ogg shifted in his chair.

Mrs. Ogg beamed.

Mr. Ogg whispered to his son. “I thought you were only twelve,” he said.

“Going on twelve-point-five!” cried Mammon.

“Well, my boy, sarcasm in one so young is truly unbecoming. Dismissed.”

Mammon scrambled away from the table, leaving Mr. Ogg to face his wife in calm, loving silence. Then he stood and turned away and retreated to his study. When he’d settled himself at the desk, Mr. Ogg paused, plucked his stylus from its mount, rapidly scribbled a half dozen lines onto his tablet, then returned to the top to scan what he’d written—and as he did so, murmuring through his teeth, the steady rhythm of his words merged with the distant clicking of tiny beads.