The Greatest Gift
By: Keshia Rogers
Not
very long ago the gods held a meeting to decide what to do about the
humans. But this was no ordinary
meeting. All of the gods were summoned
to Silicon Valley because they were impressed
with mankind. Men had been very
industrious and created some amazing things.
It was nice for men to do things for themselves once in a while. The gods had grown weary of humans constantly
begging for help. But for the last
several years the gods had been left virtually to themselves. The humans were respectful, and what was even
better, they left the gods to their nectar and ambrosia, figuring out solutions
to their problems themselves.
The
gods were so pleased with this break that they decided to give the humans a
gift. The meeting would decide which god
or goddess would be in charge of creating the gift. Naturally, all of the gods wanted to be in
charge. Each wanted the humans to favor
themselves above the others. Ceres,
goddess of the harvest, claimed that she was the obvious choice. Food was extremely important; men would
surely appreciate any gift she would bestow.
But her proposal was quickly rejected.
Ceres had been exalted since she gave men sliced bread. It wouldn’t be fair to let her give the best
gift twice in a row.
The argument went
on for days, with each god or goddess trying to gain the upper hand. It was quickly decided that the gift could
not come from the god of a certain area, because it was to be a gift for all
people. And some gods, like the god of
war, were simply not good at gift giving.
Finally the gods decided that the gift would be a group project. It would be overseen by Britannica, goddess
of wisdom. She was to be aided by her
husband, Java, god of entertainment.
Java’s sister Calliope, goddess of communication, would also be part of
this creation, along with her husband Midas, god of commerce.
This team of gods
quickly agreed that they should make a gift that would improve one of the human
creations. After all, it was their
creativeness that had impressed the gods in the first place. They soon decided that one invention, the
computer, had the most potential. It was
a large awkward thing, but it was very advanced by human standards. The gods decided to spin an invisible web to
connect all of these machines together.
Each of the gods would add something dear to them in this web. It would be a way for humans to access the
gods without even bothering them. They
could return to Silicon Valley in peace. It was a perfect plan.
Britannica, as
head of the project, started the invisible web.
She wanted to give mankind unlimited access to knowledge. She poured entire encyclopedias and
dictionaries into the web. Anything and
everything a human had ever wanted to know was placed in the web. Books that were only available in a few
locations could now be read all over the world.
Britannica was so excited about her ideas that she spun the web faster
than she had expected, which gave her another idea. It was not good enough to have unlimited
knowledge, but the web would function in such a way that the humans did not
even have to wait for their answers.
Next it was Java’s
turn. Java took advantage of the speed
his wife had built into the web for his additions. He added every game that men had ever
known. They could now be played alone or
with hundreds of other people, regardless of where a human was or what time it
was. Java had long ago noticed the love
men held for music, so he wove that into the web as well. Every song ever sung was put into the web for
humans to enjoy whenever they wished.
There was also a more modern phenomenon that humans loved. Java made movies available on this web as well. Now this one was a little more
difficult. He had to get permission from
his cousin Cinema, who created the movies, so that he could put them into the
web. She agreed, but only on the
condition that the movies were to be shown in her temples before they could be
put into the web.
Midas also
borrowed from Britannica’s creation. He
loved the idea of having things instantly available and decided to use it for
his own area of interest. His
contribution to this web was the creation of shopping networks. Humans would be able to buy and sell
merchandise to markets they had never before been able to reach.
Calliope had
observed the creations of the other gods quietly, and then it was up to her to
tie them all together. She created
networks that would keep friends in touch with each other, no matter where they
lived. Next she added areas of special
interest, where humans could meet and discuss specific matters, or simply get
to know people from different parts of the world. Letters would be able to travel instantly to
anywhere in the world. She made sure
that her creation worked to make the others better, to make it the perfect
gift.
Now the gods knew
that humans would not be able to use this new gift on their own without any
guidance. So they used their powers to
create the ultimate oracle. The oracle
at Google was able to answer any question that a human might have. It would give the human several options, and
allow him or her do decide what path they should choose.
When the team of
gods presented their gift all of the other gods were amazed. They were forced to admit that it was the
greatest creation that they had ever seen.
With the new gift human civilization flourished like never before. People were smarter, happier, and healthier
than ever. They praised the gods for
this wonderful gift, and the gods were allowed to relax. But not all of the gods were happy. Stamp, god of the Post Office, was very
jealous. Since the time Calliope created
e-mail, his alters had been neglected.
So he decided to take revenge upon her creation. Stay tuned for part II
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