Once upon a time, there was a greedy Baron who wanted to make a lot of profit (even though he was already very rich).
In the pretty town, there was an old store that had been there for decades and that everybody loved. It was a very big place, and it was like a magic place, because whatever you needed, the store had it (and if they didn’t have it, they knew where to order it, and the employees helped you with a smile).
It was a very well-located store, and the Baron and his friends wanted to have access to the spot in order to be able to sell their own commodities.
Since the Baron and his friends didn’t care about the store and its employees and its patrons and its long tradition in town, they sent someone to make an offer to the rightful owner of the store.
Was the owner greedy, too? Was he tired? Was he tricked?
The story doesn’t say, but the Baron’s man bought the store and promised to keep everything as it had always been.
Over the next few months, the new owner, the Baron and his friends lulled everybody into believing that nothing had, indeed, changed.
Then, one day, the new owner made a public statement – an apology, really – in which he admitted that he hadn’t taken good care of the buildings and they were now very unsafe, and the store had to be closed for a bit of time… Just until the necessary works were finished, really, and then the store would open again, as beautiful as it was on its original opening day.
Massive sales were planned, and the employees were offered the possibility to retire early or to be given work in the other places owned by the new owner, the Baron and his friends (that was true for all the employees – except the ones who didn’t have permanent contracts and who were thrown out to the wolves in the woods).
The patrons, in shock, watched as their beloved store closed its doors. A few believed the new owner, but others felt the change and they just knew…
Years have gone by now.
Half of the store as been sold to the Baron, who shared it equally between his slaves and his friends.
Now, that particular half of the store is a skeleton that makes all the patrons and town-dwellers think of the good old times.
The Baron must be quietly laughing as the second half of the store is waiting to be recycled into more portions that he can negotiate and sell for very high prices.
What makes this a sordid tale is that the recycling plans officially declare that no place should be kept in one state forever, and things must evolve in a town (and after all, there are other stores in town… but none like the one that was killed for greed). Such a declaration would be right if the change hadn’t been ordered out of pure voracity.
On my way to work, I walk by the old store and its ghosts, and I always hear former patrons comment to friends on the closing, on the killing (for that place had a soul).
For greed, a place that was working perfectly well has been annihilated and the people in town are left running to several stores in order to try to find what they’d have found in one place before – and the employees of the other stores were all trained in goals and constantly have toothaches that prevent them from ever being agreeable.
Things do change, but sometimes greedy people hasten the demise of perfectly good things for no valid reasons (because the Baron shall not take his money with him when he dies).
The old store shall always be missed, and the old patrons will never go line the Baron’s pockets with their money. Mind you, there might be something karmic in that, and I’m almost tempted to throw a Voodoo doll in the mix – it can’t hurt, right?
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