Nobody needs to argue anymore. There is no debate because everyone agrees. There is no discussion because everyone's views are the same. There is no war because there are no opposing beliefs to come into conflict. All ideas can coexist because all ideas are the same.

The streets here are always empty, but if you walked down them there would be nothing to see. All the land is flat and gray, and the sun beats down frigidly on the perfect, colorless houses. Underneath their sloping roofs a handful of people may live, men and women between whom there is no real difference. They sit in rows on long white couches, staring at the blank walls. They rise to eat and sleep as one, mindlessly gnawing the same food, restlessly dreaming the same dreams. No one tries to initiate conversation because all of them know what the others would say.

The houses lie in exact rows, six to each block of the wide and nameless streets. When you have seen one, you have quite literally seen them all. Only one building looks any different, and it lies at the center of the city, a skyscraper reaching up into the cloudless sky, vanishing somewhere beyond human vision. No one ever enters it, but if you did you would behold only one thing.

You would see a marble statue, miles high, of a young girl holding a lamp. A bronze plaque at the base of the statue would tell you about the girl immortalized in this sculpture. It would tell you of how she dreamed of changing the world the way all little girls do, of how one day she found a magic lamp and rubbed it like the fairy tales told her to do. You would read about the genie that emerged, how he promised to grant three wishes to the starry-eyed girl.

The girl's first two wishes, you would read, had not been very important. The third wish was the one that touched the world and changed it into a wonderland of dull houses hugging still streets. You would read of how the girl, after thinking for a moment, looked at the genie and said in a high, clear voice, "I wish..."

"...for world peace."

Copyright (c) 2000 by Beth Kinderman. This is my original work, so please respect it.