Smoking Dead. S. Bonavida Ponce
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Corinne to be absent in this situation. Everyone knew the strong celibacy of the famous police force. An Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Policeman vowed not to engage in any sexual activity while serving on the corps. Add to that the fact that he couldn't record anything with his camera at all, and the only distraction for the camera operator was to paint her nails. A couple of former mounted policemen passed in front of them and greeted John Alexander.
“Hello Mountie.”
“See you later Mounties,” John Alexander politely replied to the former mounted policeman couple who had just crossed his path.
“Excuse me,” interrupted Corinne boringly, “what does Mountie mean?”
The former policeman smiled with a correction typical of the ancients.
“Mounties is what we call each other. The origin of the word was lost some time ago because of the Great Smoke, that cruel war against smokers that took place more than fifty years ago. Unfortunately, the smokers burned all the books and only the oral tradition remained.
“What about computers?” Corinne said, not without a certain reluctance.
“The computers of that time had great deficiencies. Since there were no humans to maintain their archaic data systems, they soon became volatile. In addition, they had different operating systems that were incompatible with each other. The few devices that survived the Holocaust showed unconnected, ambiguous or even contradictory data.”
“Didn't they have the SOS system?”
“No, citizen Corinne, at that time they didn't own our beloved SOS. Humanity was not as united as it is now and they only thought of their own.”
“Sorry,” Peter interrupted, “and, who gave them the necessary information about what a Mountie was?”
“With regard to your question,” the former policeman smiled, “the clowns gave us the answer, for they possess an astonishing collective memory, not in vain were from antiquity great travelers and great guardians of oral transmission. The word Mountie comes from an ancient group of clowns called Monthy Pailton. After the Great Smoke, and thanks to our heroic acts, the clowns decided to nickname us the Mounties, in honor of this group of ancient clowns. All members of the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police take this nickname very seriously. And after this subsection, if you will please follow me.”
John Alexander guided them through the first floor of the main headquarters. Very stripped-down offices governed the decor. The second floor, with large wooden beams, had a pre-smoking style. The Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police led them to a large room with many seats, in the middle of which was a gigantic round table with letters carved in an ancient language.
“It is English. I studied it,” said Corinne as she gladly patted her hands as she came out of her silence.
“This Corinne is a strange woman. Who learns English which is a dead language? She is ridiculous, being able to learn the Newspeak”.
“It says something like. T... H... E…R... F... O... R... C... E... What does it mean? Don't I know that word? Is it some kind of hair shampoo?
“What I thought. You have no idea about English. What a phony.”
“I'm glad you asked me that question. It's the old doctrine we follow in the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police. Jediism contemplates The Force, an energy underlying every being or object in the universe.
“Oh! Yes! He really knows English. Now you have impressed me Corinne.”
“I didn't know that the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police followed a religion,” struck Peter in amazement, “especially when years ago it was mathematically proven that God doesn't exist.”
“But The Force is no God, citizen Peter. The Force unites us all.”
“Like string theory?” Peter asked.
“Like Paterson nail polish?” Corinne continued.
The Ex-Former policeman looked at them very seriously.
“Much more. Infinitely more. The Force unites everything. Even the Force itself is united by itself of how strong it is.”
“Unbelievable, more than string theory,” exclaimed Peter.
“Unbelievable, more than Paterson nail polish,” added Corinne.
Peter and Corinne looked at each other with a certain skepticism, although this initial reaction soon disappeared before the voice of John Alexander, who possessed a surprisingly captivating voice. Both Peter and Corinne had fleeting daydreams about the entity appointed by the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police, although their personal ramblings differed greatly from each other.
Peter mentally ratified the words of his former teacher Paquita Johns. He could never have been an ex-cop.
“Look at him. How he arches his legs as he walks.”
Corinne, for her part, thought that the members of that police force were very boring characters, not one of them had deigned to look, albeit out of the shadows, at the deep neckline she carried for that occasion: “Are they blind or dumb?” thought the disillusioned Corinne.
And again, being moved only by the most atrocious boredom, Corinne in the middle of that room again asked a question.
“Why were the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police the only police force that survived the Great Smoke?”
John Alexander took a penetrating look into Corinne's eyes.
“By a simple rule not possessed by the rest of the police forces of that time,” John Alexander knew how to use silences well. “It was the only defense corps that banned smoking.”
A prolonging “wow” arose from the throats of Peter and Corinne.
“All the old police forces allowed…” John made another deliberate pause, “smoking among their ranks. Poor puppets of disease. All these entities were struck down by the Great Plague. All but us.”
John Alexander stared at them.
“Please follow me. I have one last surprise for your documentary.”
Peter and Corinne went down to the basement. A place carved in stone with strange marble columns that joined the floor to the ceiling. Many galleries with different tunnels made their way from the center of the room to which they had descended by elevator.
“Do you have a 3D documentary screening room down here?” Peter's astonishment was genuine.
Meanwhile, Corinne showed her particular face of disenchantment at the prospect of being a passive spectator. She was still enormously bored with those former policemen and her nail polish was running out.
“No, citizens, still better,” continued John Alexander with a laugh. “They're in the information room. The Stone Room. Paper is an extremely volatile material, as our ancestors discovered for their misfortune, as well as a powerful food for compulsive smokers. Computers are also really fragile machines, no matter how much we improve, in the face of a new catastrophe, their circuits and lack of energy would turn them into useless material. Humanity cannot rely on paper or silicon to preserve its legacy, our valuable historical heritage. So, what is the only thing that lasts? The only thing that survives the passage of time?”
Peter and Corinne didn't know what to answer.
“The stone. A robust material, highly resistant, which also has the attraction of being in large quantities on our planet. Since we won the war, the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police has been carving the history of mankind into stone. These stones contain in newspeak and pictorial drawings the history of humanity since the Great Smoke. This will survive a catastrophe. The disease of smokers, the Great Smoke, the rise of clowns to power, the contribution of the Ex-Former Canadian Mounted Police. All that and more is carved here.”
Peter looked around, trying to write down what he had just heard.
“And