Cirfão

Sun played with the clouds and shined down on the panes of glass. The design studio had sleek features and advanced tech. On one such monitor, a dollar sign showed.

“Exactly, that’s what I was saying. You just move that over. Enlarge,” Eugene Sola pointed out. “Double it, though.”

“Double it?” Kurt Cooke asked.

“The vertical strokes. They need to be doubled.”

“Why?”

“The dollar sign is about showing the US, not the Spanish dollar or peso. They use the single stroke. America is all about the doublestroke,” Sola explained.

“How does it matter?” Cooke queried.

Sola smiled. “It’s simple for us to just view the dollar sign as if it’s just another symbol of corporate greed. That’s not the problem. Government greed is the problem. People associate this beautiful sign with corruption and evil in the private sector.”

“I see. We add the second stroke and that cancels out centuries of oppression and enslavement and genocide.”

Sola kept his cool. “What are you sitting on right now?”

“What am I what?” Cook asked.

“I’ll tell you that chair is four thousand dollars. This computer and monitor are eight thousand dollars. You’re in a multimillion dollar office space in the heart of Wilmington. It is because of this wonderful symbol that we are able to enjoy all of this. That ‘S’ and double lines describe the best in America.”

“Hmm. I’ll change it, then. But let me ask you this…without the extra stroke, would it not be the sign of the dollar?”

Sola exhaled. “It is common nowadays for people to drop the stroke. It still represents the US but you have to second guess. When you see the second stroke, there’s no doubt that it’s from the United States.”

“I see.”

“If you make sure that double stroke is over that ‘S,’ you’re securing the idea that this is a productive nation not built on genocide, enslavement, or vice, but on ideas. These ideas have launched man to the Moon and back. We’re fortunate enough to live in a country that is hands off and lets the individuals do their own things.”

“I’ve only considered this place a nation of degradation and that we should try our level best to get out of it,” Cooke countered.

“How dare you? All of the material wealth is just an expression of thought. Look around you. Everything came from an individual brain who produced something of value and traded it. Without that double stroke ‘S’ there’s just figures on sheets and screens. Millions of people are pouring into this country because it has always been a haven for the downtrodden and the rich and everyone in between.”

“So how do you account for the mass shootings, the domestic terrorists, the scandals….”

“All of that is due to the absence of the dollar sign. All of that means that criminals, a very small part of the population, seek only to destroy their own lives.”

Cooke raised an eyebrow. “Their own lives?”

“Yes. They of course disrupt people and disregard their rights but it begins with the individual. They destroy their own identity when they choose to besmirch others. That’s the idea of irrational self interest.”

Cooke sighed. “I’m starting to get it. The dollar is the leading symbol of a continent that had been conquered but then transformed through struggle and change to be a nation worth celebrating. I get what you’re trying to say but there’s still blood red on that Star Spangled banner between the white stripes.”

“Yes, this country has had its trevails but don’t discount the fact that it is the noblest nation in all of human history and will continue to be even when we colonize the Moon and Mars. Use the Cardo and make sure it’s in white.”