-First line credit to Jordan Wilson-Kennedy
Once upon a time, I was happy. My
business was going swimmingly, and the advent of global warming seemed only to
confirm the fact that everything was going my way. Growing up, I had always
been haunted and enchanted by the sounds of the ice cream truck as it rolled
through my central Ohio neighborhood. I loved the announcement of the
high-pitched, whining jingle, and then as it got closer to my house, it’s
development into a full soaring melody of epic proportions, for the portions of
the ice cream that I inevitably bought were certainly mythic. I knew from an
early age that I wanted my life to somehow be involved in bringing that same
joy to others, so shortly after breezing through college with a Comms degree, I
used up my savings (which I had gathered from my work at the local ice cream
store) to buy a vintage ice cream truck, which I painstakingly restored,
including the record player. Ohio, famous for its unpredictable weather, could
rely on one constant: three months of unyielding, sweltering heat and humidity.
Armed with my knowledge of the area, a business acumen from goodness knows
where (my dad was a local garage mechanic, for which almost no business
knowledge was required).
For a time, things went extremely
well. One ice cream truck turned into two, those two produced more trucks, and
pretty soon the jingles of the Juchau’s Mobile Gelato truck fleet could be
heard in every neighborhood of central Ohio. The competition was at times
cutthroat, and I’m not always proud of the decisions that I had to make at that
time. But my ice cream was the best, I knew the market the best, and in my
eyes, the competition was only a drag on market efficiency. Economics of scale,
right?
The phenomenon known as global
warming, so dangerous to low-lying countries like Naru and the Arctic ice caps,
actually ended up to my advantage. As the slow march of carbon emissions slowly
smothered the earth’s atmosphere, wrapping the earth snugly in a solar blanket
of heat, the demand for ice cream only increased. While some countries
struggled to grow the crops necessary for survival, nuclear wars were fought
and waged, the pole caps completely melted, and levels of pollution hovered at
levels that threatened to wipe out the human race. But the demand for ice cream
stayed more or less near constant, and soon I was at the top of the ice cream
industry. I thought that I had it all, living in my air conditioned security
compound surrounded by the hired Moroccan guards who had immigrated to the
newly independent kingdom of Ohio after the Sahara had wiped out the entirety
of north Africa.
However, with time, my wealth, my
power, and my fame seemed more and more hollow. Was my desire to bring the joys
of a sweet, chilly dessert to the streets of my childhood really accomplished
through fighting wars with Kentucky to obtain the last stock of natural cows?
Was taking out rival company heads with robotic assassins really increasing the
value added of every drop of dripping vanilla ice cream? Was arming my ice
cream trucks with rocket launchers to take out rival trucks really bringing a
smile to every child’s face, just like Fred the Ice Cream Man had done to me
whenever he drove down Tenabo Avenue with Beethoven’s Fifth warbling out of his
mangled stereo?
- James Juchau
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