The newspaper came every Sunday with no exceptions. Alley Clarke retrieved it every Sunday with no exceptions. This was the way Sundays were.
Until the day the newspaper didn’t come.
Alley Clarke lived in a common split-level house on a common symmetrical street in a common boring town. She went to a common high school and attended common classes and ate lunch in a common cafeteria.
Her Sundays were always very common, and so were every other day of the week. Except Thursday. Alley’s Thursday’s were very uncommon. And she loved them.
But the day the newspaper stopped coming, she knew the world had changed. Her instructor had always said it would. She just hadn’t believed him.
Trevor, her fellow apprentice, had believed their instructor. He practiced his Job every day. Alley hadn’t practiced. Alley had been a disappointment.
Alley’s Job entailed voodoo. She hated voodoo, but she was good at it. Once the world changed, the people would need to be re-programmed. Voodoo was the easiest way. Magic, as Trevor saw it, was just a precision science. Alley believed it to be a gift. A privilege.
Trevor’s Job was Creation. Once the world changed, it would need to be re-designed. The globe would be Trevor’s canvas. He would create new cities, new farmland, new rainforests and new prairies. ‘
Their instructors Job was Rulemaking. There was a book. A blank book, and he’d shown it to his apprentices many times. He told them it would one day be the new Constitution. The new Bill of Rights. The Book of Law for all of humanity. And he would get to write it.
Alley believed in magic. She believed in voodoo, and creation, and potions. She believed in spells. She believed in curses. But not until Sunday did she believe the world would change. Not until the day the newspaper didn’t come.
The Global Time Clock, more commonly known by the trio as the GTC, had been ticking away for the last 2000 years. Ten more years passed, and it kept ticking. The instructor checked it every day. The world would change on the day it stopped ticking. Finally, it did. The ticking stopped. The newspaper didn’t come. The world paused.
The instructor, Alley, and Trevor began to work. Alley traveled. Trevor traveled. The instructor sat at his desk, composing the Rule Book. They worked around the clock. Magic people didn’t tire.
Alley traveled with two clay dolls, one male and one female. The dolls were generic, until she found a person to re-program. Whether they were frozen, sipping a mug of coffee behind a desk in an office, or still in bed at the time the world changed, Alley would fix them to be accustomed to the new world once the trio’s work was done. Alley would press their thumbprint into the clay, and wrap a hair around the neck. After the dolls were personalized, she re-programmed them. And moved on.
Trevor traveled with his digital grid. Upon arrival in a city, the city would be visible on the grid, and therefore be subject to change. Trevor preferred to delete the city entirely, and start from scratch. Creation was his specialty.
It took 1032 days to re-make the world.
They were all in the instructor’s kitchen when he pressed play. The GTC began ticking again, and the population, by law, began living in a war-free world.
That was Sunday the newspaper came.
And the headline was “World Peace.”