THE DAY THE BANKS STOOD STILL

                                     THE DAY THE BANKS STOOD STILL

                                      HARRY THOMAS DANVERS

 

                    When "les enfant de la patria" stormed the formidable fortress of the Bastille, where human vermin were detained, along with an occasional clerk, who had slipped astray of one swindle or another, it was declared a revolution and all the banks took cover.

                     They did not disappear, as many declaimed, for without banks, essentially there is no nation. Neither did they coerce to the demands of the populous, for they were drunk on wine, rather than power. 

What they did do was a mystery to all; for they seemed to pacify both sides in a simultaneous assault on both the good and the evil, which ostensibly, the banks represented. A few wars were fought and then all was forgotten in time.

                 When the revolution of the "indignant"exploded several hundred years downs the line, it began in Madrid and not Paris. The new vermin proved to be college graduates and many with more than one degree.

                   They were distraught, for their futures were all attached to the banks, who kept them on a short leash. They were educated hounds, who were not used to getting their throats scared, by tight fitting, leather collars".

                     It was a Mexican standoff, the likes of which, many proclaimed, had not been witnessed in modern history.

                      Or so it was reported, by those who had not been clubbed by an innocuous police force, who were orchestrated to contain the said revolution.

                        Both the Republicans and the Democrats agreed that it was all a hoax and further, that if the banks failed, so would the nation.

                       This was a prolix situation at best, so a lot of paperwork was shuffled under non-existent tables, until it was reduced to cellophane, which self destructed, under technological eyes.

                         There were no soup kitchens yet, for everyone believed in their Blackberries to free them from this desperate situation.

                        There were a few stagnant moments on the Stock Exchange, but the banks survived.

                        The world protestors dispersed, due to heavy rain storms. The banks, which were made of granite, remained. Business went on as usual and a wag prophetically remarked, when it all ended where it all began:

                                      "It was the day the banks stood still.