Some bright spark in Mephoria long ago had the idea that perhaps the coin system was getting unwieldy, and that perhaps money could be almost made into a symbol, and instead of real money existing, people could trade in hypothetical money instead. Of course, this was not much of a change for the peasants, who dealt in none existent money all the time, hence the phrase, ‘Worth his weight in manure.’
For some reason, the idea of hypothetical money caught on. The idea was simple. Taking a wheelbarrow full of coins all the way to the market (which even the laziest of muggers and the most inept of bandits would be a fool not to pounce upon) to buy a new horse, or a crossbow, or an inflatable giraffe had always been a big nuisance. Why not simply take along a small trained parrot who sat on your shoulder and told the person you were trading with the amount of money you had. The trader’s parrot would add the value of the goods you had just bought onto the trader’s total funds, and your parrot would subtract that same amount.
Suddenly, the monetary system became a lot easier, although the first round of easily controlled Credit Parrots (who were too easily persuaded to change the total by several hundred at the most meagre flash of a cuttlefish bone) resulted in everyone becoming temporarily a lot better off until the new breed of Ironmind Parrots arrived from the Spiderfern Forests just below the Sparko Isles. The authorities reckoned that, since everyone was dealing in hypothetical money anyway, it did not really matter that everyone had generated some extra cash, and so they chose to do nothing about it.
There were several setbacks before they even reached this point, however. The most obvious one being, how was it decided how much money everyone had? Whilst the idea of starting every person on equal footing was applauded by many (mostly those who worshipped parsnips and sang songs about the holy plough) it had many dissenters too (mostly those with gold teeth, gold cutlery and, in several cases, gold wives), it was generally seen as too damn fair. The other problem that needed to be solved was what to do with all the coinage that would be left lying around. What was there to stop people spending that, on top of what the Credit Parrots said they had? Luckily one solution turned out to solve both problems. The idea was that every person had to buy a Credit Parrot, and the cost of that parrot would be different for each person; the cost would be exactly the same sum as the total money the purchaser had in their possession, a total which was then recorded on to the parrot to begin with.
For a while, everything went swimmingly, until certain opportunities arose. Some people tried covering small children in glue and feathers, taking them to the market and paying them in chocolate to pretend to be a parrot worth several million. It took several sharp eyed stall-traders before this scheme was eventually discovered, and the law came in to place that it was a shop keepers right to refuse to sell to anyone whose parrot could not hang upside down from the ceiling of a wire cage with its feet for more than a minute. Whilst this did somewhat lead to the current queuing problem, it has also meant a vast decrease in the amount of fraud.
The problem was, with all money becoming hypothetical, there was nothing to stop people spending into the minus. Considering there was nothing physical to lose, and it was not as if there were coins to be owed, it became generally acceptable to ‘Buy on the Parrot’, and purchase goods without having the required amount of hypothetical funds. It started, much as it always does, with people using this function of their parrot when they try to buy something worth 30 gold, and only have twenty nine. But when someone realised that no one was trying to stop them buying something worth 30 gold when all they had on them was an empty parrot, half a lemon and a bit of a headache, things went haywire.
People spent and spent and spent, not realising that at some point, someone would want their money back, hypothetical or not. There came a breaking point, known as the day of Red Parrots, where people’s parrots actually started dying from the sheer stress of trying not only to keep track of but also to comprehend exactly how much negative money they were responsible for. People whose parrots died found themselves without any money at all, and without even the ability to buy on the Parrot. These people became Parrotrupt, and it spread like a disease. (Zoologists across the land of Mephoria are still struggling to decide whether the situation really was down to the vast philosophical weight of the problem, or simply that they had picked a breed of parrots that, whilst very good at memorising things, were not good at maths, became easily stressed when pressured, and had weak hearts.)
After Red Parrot day, the land of Mephoria almost ground to a halt. Like a manure trader who forgets to put a peg on his nose, the people of Mephoria began to realise exactly why the old money system had worked so well, and why they had felt foreboding about the new system when it was first introduced.
Some people found it harder than others, and some people found their lives destroyed by Red Parrot Day. The poor did not really notice – it’s hard for people with no money to notice a difference. The rich never cared when the poor had no money, why should there suddenly be a panic when it was the other way around? But perhaps it was justified. Entire kingdoms went parrotrupt as their funds died overnight. Kings and Queens across the land woke up to find that they no longer had enough money to buy a thousand racehorses a day (or even enough money to buy a couple of hamsters every fortnight).
That was several years ago in Mephoria, but the effects are still carrying on. Those who had had so much hypothetical money that they had leant it to someone else panicked, and when their parrot looked like it was becoming sick, they brought a new one and demanded that those who borrowed their hypothetical money return it, and so those people found themselves with no money. The money leant could not be paid back quick enough, and the result was that payer and the payee lost everything. It was a grim time in Mephoria. Even the Rubber-Nose Moose ceased to make people laugh.
The end result is that now, everyone is poor. Kingdoms across Mephoria are recovering, but this in itself has created a problem. Soon it will be time to tell the story of the twin kingdoms of Irriphos and Betannaline...
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