READERS & AUTHORS CHAT📚
Topic: Is a “SAD ENDING” BRAVE OR CRUEL?
SCENARIO STORY: "The Quota"
The year is 2049.
Mira worked at the Census Office. Her job was simple: read the weekly report.
If a district used 2% more water than its Quota, the system picked a name.
One name. To "balance the numbers."
It wasn’t called murder. It was called Correction.
This Wednesday the system picked her brother, Tayo. 27. Unemployed 4 months.
The officer smiled and said: "It’s brave. He’s sacrificing for the 10,000 others in his block."
Mira had 24 hours. She also had siblings, relatives among that 10,000. It’s heavy but she does the needful.
She looked at the picture on her desk, them under one umbrella last rainy Wednesday.
Quiet. Normal. What used to be.
The rope was the end of it. He didn’t come home.
Let’s talk about it.
Team brave comment A
Team cruel comment B
Why your answer?
@thebookpolitics “Team B Cruel.
I don't think sacrificing an innocent person should automatically be called brave simply because it benefits a larger number of people. The real problem is the system that created the situation in the first place.
- @thebookpolitics Sometimes, the real solution isn't choosing who should die; to balance the score. it's fixing the system that keeps creating victims.
So if it's not cruel then it's cruelty 😌
There's different between let's fix this problem and asking your worker
" Who's dieing next" ko balance.
And I'm even thinking 🤔, this brother that is unemployed and want to be use to balance the score.
I think there's more to the clearing that the system is not saying.
Today is the unemployed
Tomorrow it can be ngozi father that gave birth to 7 children.
@thebookpolitics Hmmm team cruel
Bravery requires choice but i don't think here tayo had any as he didn’t choose.
The system chose him because he was unemployed and vulnerable.
And "balance the numbers" is just officials saying; we’d rather kill one of our own than fix the pipes, change the quota, or ask why we’re short on water.
The worst part is Mira. They made her complicit so the 10,000 would stay quiet. Crazy that even his own sister did it. That’s how evil systems survive.
That umbrella picture is what got me. "Quiet. Normal. What used to be."
That’s the real cost. Not just Tayo. It’s every rainy Wednesday after that.
@jhemye think we need to bear in mind that this is a dystopian world
the choice was on his sister tbh
@thebookpolitics Yeah I know and that’s the dystopia part.
They didn’t just take Tayo. They made Mira do it so the guilt and blame stays in the family.
If she refused then surely she would be next. And that’s how they control 10,000 people with 1 death.
@thebookpolitics would you be able to do that to save 10,000? If you were in such a world.
@jhemye 😁 let's ask @thebookpolitics
would you be able to do that to save 10,000? If you were in such a world.
Oya take the mic🎤
@yomijanet you people shouldn’t come for me nah 😂😂
im just a messenger
10,000 is a lot of humans
Oya how about the others that have been used to “correct” 👀👀
@thebookpolitics we’re not coming for you😂😂😂
But that’s exactly why it works, 10,000 is a lot. And mind you 10,000 today can be 10,000 tomorrow
@thebookpolitics Reminds me of a movie where owning/reading books is a crime. There were firemen but they don’t put out fires, they burn books.
And the whole point was: control people by controlling what they know.
@thebookpolitics talk ohh 😂😂
Like who sat down and said "let's call murder Correction and make it HR policy" Crazy 😂😂
Hmm, very sad society in this fictional story. i don’t see bravery here, all i’m imagining is the weight of trauma on the shoulder of Mira. But if the needful isn’t done, more harm will happen, right? it’s neither bravery or cruelty. it just “Is” whatever “It” is.