Douglas Brown | + Follow Poet |
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Good News

God finally hired a mathematician.
He had become weary of bad news,
weary of watching the news,
reading the papers.
He told the mathematician-
“Give me the real numbers,
Give me the truth.”
So, the mathematician spent
days and nights and finally
he was done.
He spread out his papers.
"There is good news," he told God.
"That is what I have been trying to say!"
God replied.
"Tell me."
"Okay, there seven point seven five three billion
people here on your creation."
God sighed. "Whew, that’s   a lot. "
"Yes, which actually works in your favor, sir."
"Good. Good."
"Okay, so let’s say each one of those,
even the babies who can at least smile
and the old who can as well
do five point four good things a day
that equals forty-one billion, eight hundred and sixty-five
million, eight hundred and twenty thousand good things
a day."
"Good things?" God asked.
"Yes, sir. Those are determined by a higher…
By you sir. But good. You know good."
"Ah, yes, of course," God said.
"These numbers are impressive."
"Yes, sir but they mean nothing."
"What!"
"I mean, sir, without being compared to anything
they have no meaning."
"You really are a mathematician."
"Yes, sir."
"So, I took all the crimes that occur daily
and then extrapolated how many 
bad events may occur daily from that number
and added a percentage to be sure
and then added the number of
bad news stories in all the media
of the world…"
"And?"
"And it comes to 
One million, one hundred and seventy thousand crimes daily
multiplied by six equals seven million and twenty thousand 
bad events a day."
Big smile.
"And so?"
"Oh, let me explain.
The ratio of good to bad is 99.83 %!"
God leaned back letting this sink in.
A big smile came over his face.
"This is good news!
This is Good News!"
God rushed off leaving the mathematician
with his papers.
"Well, I can think of one good thing I did today!"

Copyright © Douglas Brown | Year Posted 2022

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