“Exactly.” Says the woman. “A highly overrated organ, the spleen. Seven hundred pounds. But of course you can earn dramatically more money with the donation of limbs…” Don sees disheveled men at nearby desks signing forms. Hurray, they’ll be able to afford a ticket to their underdeveloped homeland. Home, just get home, even if you have to hop off the plane on one leg. They let themselves be weighed and measured. Blood pressure, IQ. What’s the IQ for? Doesn’t matter. “Can I go out and have a smoke?” asks Don. “I’m a bit unsure about the limbs, I mean, I still need a hand to hold the cigarettes, after all.”

“Um, yes,” says the woman with the thinning hair, “you’ll need to abstain from nicotine and alcohol prior to the procedure.”

“Pills I can keep taking, yeah?” asks Don. “Downers and whatnot?”

“Of course,” says the woman. “Everybody takes pills.”

“Okay, I’m going think it over while I have a smoke,” says Don, leaving the room. There are about forty doors off the corridor. Don opens one cautiously. Everywhere the same. Homeless, vagrants, youths sitting at desks giving information about their superb organs. In front of the entrance another panel van pulls up. The night is mild. A warm rain falls. Don leans against the wall of a building, looks into the sky, the moon is not visible. She’s young. She’ll die of lovesickness. It is the best time ever.

EX 2279

Repeats the sentence and tries to make sense of it. It makes no sense. One can’t speak of a better or worse time without having studied the numbers. EX 2279 studies numbers. Check, correct, for most people the time is better than a hundred years ago, insofar as more people are doing well. Education, mortality rates, etc. Of course, as far as nature and the environment. Well, doesn’t matter. EX 2279 carries on with the rescue of the planet.

Switches off the fracking equipment.

The cryptocurrencies and their consumption of terawatt hours and so forth. Clean up—

++++++++++[>+>+++>+++++++>++++++++++ <<<←]>>>>+++++++++++++++++++.——————.<+++++++.>—-.+ + + + + + + + + + .———. <+ + + + + + +. > + + + .—-.<+++.>++++++++++.+++.——.———. ←—————.>++++++++++++++.————-.—-.+++++++++++++++++++.←——.>————-.——.++++++++.+++++.

THE FRIENDS