Let it all sink in

A nightmare on All Hell to ’em Street

I had a dream. No! A nightmare!

I was on Elm Street. No, it was fiscal hell street!

The council had issued a decree that said we would all be taxed for every last drop of water that fell from heaven on our properties. Raindrops kept falling on my head, but now we needed to preserve them, to conserve them, to concentrate them and store them in great underground tanks. Otherwise we would pay. Even Michael O’Leary would have to pay for the rain that fell on his aeroplanes, which everyone actually liked, even if they didn’t like being taxed themselves.

Immediately, the free market forces were galvanised into action, and great water scoops went on sale at Brico, and Hubo, and Gamma. Gigantic upside-down umbrellas, great canvas funnels, customisable to the exact contours and dimensions of my back yard, front yard, side yards and roof. Even the chimney got its own mini-funnel, to conserve every last raindrop. Because, what fell on the ground was taxed. Meters and sensors were set up by the Secret Taxmen, with little lead seals hanging from them (from the meters and sensors, you understand), lest the householder be tempted to fiddle with the counters, to cheat the generality of the fiscal due they owed for selfishly burdening the public drains with the water that they so nonchalantly allowed to trickle unheeded into the commonality’s waste processing system.

“Your canvas is not exactly on the march line!” my neighbour snaps at me. “Don’t you be splashing your waste water on my driveway,” he growls. “I have friends in higher places than your funnel will ever reach, and I will sue you to a pulp!”

“To a pulp?” I reply.

“To the average consistency of mashed potato without additional grated cheddar cheese, then, if you prefer.”

“I prefer,” I answer.

Gosh.

“A penny per millilitre!” the taxman says to me, as he looks over the construction that Gamma has erected over my house. “A penny per millilitre—and don’t think we’re not counting them!”

On the next day comes a new decree from the council: every citizen is to report to the central hospital to have the volume of their lungs measured. We are to be taxed on the air that we breathe, according to pulmonary capacity, with annual returns required of all strenuous exertions, as recorded on our wrist-worn EDC. Not to test the reliability of the data transmitted automatically to the taxation authority, have no fear; but to test our honesty. Dishonest taxpayers pay double. “No, no sharp intakes of breath: that will cost you, Madam!”

Then, all of a sudden, I was awake. I was in my bedroom. In my bed. On my side of it. And it wasn’t wet (you never know with water beds). The dream—the nightmare—was over.

“Are you all right?” someone asked.

I told them of my dream, and they patted me on the hand and said comfortingly, “It’s all right, everything’s all right now.”

“It was awful, so unreal and yet so real,” I said. “Taxation on rain, and the air we breathe. Absolutely crazy. Thank God it wasn’t real!”

“Ha, you’re right. It does sound really crazy. Well, welcome back to the really real world. America has just invaded Venezuela, and is planning to capture Greenland. International law lies in tatters in Geneva and New York. Gaza will be Netanyahu’s Riviera, there’s been a coup in Guinea-Bissau, and a foiled one in Burkina Faso. The Canadians have pulled out of Norad, and the far right is on the rise in Europe.”

“Thank God,” I said. “Thank God everything’s normal.”

They said, “Would you like your overdose now, or do you need some time to let it all sink in?”