Old Nox And Dear Isl. Lessons About Change Procedures.

 

There was a loud, obnoxious man screaming at the gates of Shrinkonia. He demanded something. And now!

He stood there every day. Demanding. Yelling. Every day with a Wish dressed up as a Demand. Old Nox, short for "obnoxious" of course, was well known throughout the tiny mobile state of Shrinkonia. Nobody liked him. It was his town of voice. It was his attitude. But most of all, it was the fact the he appeared Every-Single-Day with something.

The louder Old Nox screamed, the higher the walls around Shrinkonia became. The more he demanded, the less the inhabitants did.

It was actually because of Old Nox that it was so hard to enter Shrinkonia. Not because people were scared. But just because Old Nox demanded something every single day.

Of course, this made Old Nox angry. The less his demands were met, the more demands he made. Ignoring the man, only made his voice louder. And this led to higher walls.

In the end, nobody in the entire empire knew what he actually was demanding. Nobody had bothered to listen to Old Nox. They were all to busy ignoring him, complaining about him and of course inventing immigration procedures to make it impossible for him to get through the gates.

There was the soft spoken woman that always smiled to the people of Shrinkonia.

She waved gently and offered them refreshments when they worked up a sweat in their cubicles. She made a nice casual chat once a week and was interested in what they were doing.

People were looking forward to seeing Dear Isl, as in Incredibly-Sweet-Lady, every week. She passed no judgements. She provided energy. And she could walk in and out Shrinkonia every time she wanted to.

Dear Isl was clearly the opposite of Old Nox.

Less noise from outside the walls made the walls lower and thinner. The appearance of stress from the outside, increased the walls around the empire.

It's a folk tale, so it's metaphorical, right?

Anyway.

One day, Dear Isl heard the Shrinkonians complaining, again, about Old Nox. And she said:

"You should take action, if it bothers you. If high walls don't help, why don't you silence him forever?"

Everybody liked Dear Isl, that's why they called her "dear" Isl, instead of just Isl. So, that seemed like a reasonable suggestion.

So they killed Old Nox.

His last words were: "But I just wanted to borrow some sugar."

At the reading of his will, it turned out that Old Nox didn't have any money left to buy even sugar for his coffee. All his money went to his ex-wife. All he had left was his house. His ex-wife had tried to get her evil hands on his house. But she hadn't succeed.

Until now.

Old Nox had forgotten to change his will. So Dear Isl, got his house.

There is a lesson somewhere about change procedures. And boundaries around projects.

Somewhere.
 

Bas de Baar is a writer who draws about people in transition. He loves to make visual maps and travel guides for the collaborators of our brave new world.