Tony Young greeted his fellow workers on his way to the office. Everyone smiled nervously and yawned while doing so. He grinned, recognizing the symptoms – Monday Fever. As he entered his office, his secretary, startled by his early arrival, tried to tidy the mess he left before the weekend. He smiled again. ‘Any messages?’ ‘Yes, you have one on your table. It’s about that new cult that spread in the east. Well, it got here, too.’ ‘Oh, god, more loonies’ the smile disappearing from his face. He read a lot about that group; a closed club that spread like cancer. Every day more and more people joined their ranks, and the most surprising aspect of it was the variety of people that joined. From every social class hundreds, and thousands joined; homeless, businessmen and there was a rumor that a congressman was hooked, too. Another surprising fact was that no money was requested by the cult, none at all and that alone alienated it from the other cults. No one knew what that cult was about, it was extremely secretive, and to everyone’s surprise, there were no dropouts. There wasn’t a single human being that quit the cult, out of sheer thousands. The ‘normal’ people started to panic and the police was considered as a course of action, but it was against the constitution. As long as it didn’t break the law, the cult was legal. Narcotics were mentioned by oppositionists, but were strongly denied by the cultists, which was confirmed by police investigation. Now it got to Tony Young’s hands, head of the social department, psychologist, Ph.D.
George Manson opened his eyes leisurely. He inhaled slowly and exhaled even more slowly. He felt good after a ten hours’ sleep in that new, comfortable bed. He turned and kissed his wife’s forehead. In his eyes’ she was the incarnation of perfection itself. He dressed up, ate his breakfast and met his early waking son. They hugged affectionately, greeted each other and then went each to his work. The boy was on vacation from school, but he always woke early to continue his reading and to finish up the school’s project. Mason, on the other hand, drove to a more serious and demanding job. First, he went to the research center to run some more tests. He entered the guarded white building, showed his ID and went to the test laboratories. One of the subjects arrived already. Mason wore his white robe and his serious face and entered the room. ‘Hello. I’m Dr. Manson. Please follow me.’ The young subject accompanied him quietly. They entered an extremely small room. Manson gave the subject a form to fill and left him. For the next two hours, the subject filled what was the notorious most boring form devised by the human mind. He did that under close observation, of course, for no doctor cared about the results of the test, but the way the subject filled it, and again, Manson was surprised at the calm manner the young man sat there alone for two hours. After another three such subjects, Manson went to his office to analyze the results. Formulating the equations, entering the data, and analyzing the graphs were worth the six hours it took him. He was closer to the breakthrough they asked from him, then he expected. Manson drove home relaxed, and spent some time playing with his kids and talking to his wife. Three hours after the surprising conclusions of his work, George Manson, head of the research Center, psychologist, Ph.D., went to sleep, expecting tomorrow to be another exciting day.
Tony Young worked full time on this cult issue. The Mayor pressed him real hard and the count stood now on just below one percent of the adult population. The worst part was that most of those who took part in the cult remained in their old jobs and, frankly, just improved their productivity. The fear was that the cult was trying to gain control of the city and perhaps the county. Young interviewed few known cultists and all he got from them was that the idea of the cult was so simple it was staggering and so revolutionary that it overwhelmed the participants themselves. But the main idea was that those who were in the cult whole heartily were just happier and more productive people with no side effects – beyond losing some friends whom opposed. No one can compete with that. Young worked all day every day for the last week and almost didn’t see his family. His hair grew just a bit more grayish and he stopped grinning. The cult problem was going to rise in the congress and he knew a lot depended on his department’s findings. Young found just one thing wrong with this cult, beside its epidemic proportions; a lot of junior executives, pupils, students and lowly workers lost their jobs or quit due to ‘inconvenient hours’. That in itself was bad, but the worst part of it is that most of them got better jobs after they joined the cult. Many became businessmen, partners in major corporations or free agents. Young couldn’t make heads or tails of it and the press were banging on his front door. Suddenly, the secretary entered with a young man. ‘What is it? I don’t have time?’ ‘Excuse me. I’m George Manson and I’m a cultist.’ ‘Unfortunately, so are many others’ replied Young, surprised, though not impressed. ‘I know. I’m their scientific leader. I’m here to make a confession, to reveal our secrets.’ Now Young was impressed. He heard rumors about their leader, a genius psychologist that started the masquerade. ‘What makes you betray your own people?’ He asked. ‘I’m not betraying them. I’m here to convert you. I heard you were conducting a massive research about us so I’m sure you know enough to start with. And I’ve also heard you were an open minded psychologist, specialized in the behavioral approach.’
‘I see you’ve made some research of your own. On me.’
‘Yes, you’re going to be our first public converted.’
‘What makes you so sure I want to join your ranks?’
‘You talked to several members, haven’t you? You saw they were content, even happy with their new lives. You must have asked yourself why is that.’
‘I must admit that had indeed troubled me. No narcotics can do such an overall change and last for so long. Except by spiritual conversion, nothing can be so complete, but most of the people who converted were reasonable, even educated and scholar. What is your secret?’
‘It is much more harmless than narcotics and much simpler than God. Have you asked yourself what people really want? Why do they always desire more? No, it isn’t money, nor love. They lack time. The wild life always leads to a shortage of time, the berserk search for money is just so you’ll have enough and retire young. No one has enough time.’
‘Now you’re going to tell me you have an immortality drug.’
‘No. You misunderstood me. The search for is not for mere time when you are old. The time is needed when you are young, when you are in the wild goose chase after fortune, fame and glory. The time is needed in our day-to-day life. We can’t add more days to our life, but we can extend the day itself.’
‘What are you talking about? You can’t extend the day, it’s fixed.’
‘It’s fixed out there, in nature, but not in our mind. We today have the technology to control the light\darkness cycle, and it is about time we implement it to our benefit. The change must come from within first, and when it does, we will feel better. The secret of the cult is that we live in a twenty-seven hours day.’
‘You were right’ Young said after two hours of debating and conversing the issue. ‘I’m converted.’ He shook Manson’s hand. The data was there, purely scientific conclusions of the simplest kind. The change in the day’s cycle was the answer to almost every problem human beings have in their day-to-day life. ‘This Manson should get a Nobel Prize for this‘ he thought to himself.
‘What’s our next step?’
‘In a few days’ time, we’re going to step forward and raise this idea to the nation. No one knows it yet, but the president is converted, too. He’s still too afraid of the public opinion, but now that you are with us, we have passed our final test. We are ready to change the world.’
And so, after two weeks, the world set its watch to a new era, and the human race returned to his natural cycle.