The Economist: A Story About Our Backwards Little World

Editor’s note: read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.

Plop.

This should be interesting.

I flip out my cellphone, pausing with my finger hovering above the speed-dial. To speak or not to speak?

You see, I’m not really here. Well, I am. I am in the same way everyone else is. We’re all sitting here, and they all know I’m fake and I know they’re all fake. Be they bankers or robbers, it’s all the same.

You start to develop a little perspective in a job like mine. You start to realize that everything has that little bit of meaning behind it. A copy of *The Economist* isn’t just a copy of *The Economist*. It says something else. It’s a symbol. It’s my job to read those symbols.

I’m a quick learner, by the way. Always have been. Combine observing with patterning and analogizing and you get me. And I can be a fair amount of trouble if we want.

So what’s the situation here, then? I look around—I’m already gathering information. I already know.