Flossing

by Michael Miller

Remember, the first rule of surviving a shipwreck is to establish a banking system! This satirical fictional diary recounts how the author and his fellow stranded businessmen survived being shipwrecked by building a highly complicated and dysfunctional economy. They subsist on what little fish they can catch with fishing lines made from floss. Problem is, not everybody has floss and those that have it aren't giving it away for free! In this thought experiment, an island becomes split into the Cartel which owns the floss and the Flossless, which rent it. This story was inspired by the market failures that led to the financial crisis of 2008. This diary explores how the society on the island evolves, but not how the people involved in the story personally grow. This short story has slightly more than 7,300 words. What happens when you take the bureaucracy of modern capitalism and apply it to a small island society?

21 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 30, 2014