It Is What It Is

Long ago, beyond seven rivers and beneath mountains that glowed gold in the sunlight, there stood a kingdom called Verdantia. It was a land of emerald forests, singing birds, and trees so ancient that their roots remembered stories older than queens and kings.

One year, after a season of drought and worry, the Royal Council gathered in the Crystal Hall. The wisest scholars, the richest merchants, and the keepers of the forests all spoke at once.

"The trees give us oxygen," said one scholar.

"And without oxygen, nobody could breathe," said another.

The king stroked his beard.

"If breathing depends on oxygen," he declared, "and oxygen comes from trees, then those who own trees should be paid for providing it!"

The council gasped. It sounded clever.

And so the king created the Breathing Tax.

Every person in Verdantia, from the oldest grandmother to the youngest infant, would pay a tiny coin each day for every breath they took. The money would be distributed to the owners of trees according to how much oxygen their forests produced.

The king announced:

"At last, we shall properly value and protect the air itself!"

The people cheered. Heaven was here.

The Great Counting

Soon the kingdom became busier than it had ever been.

Every tree had to be counted.

New professions appeared almost overnight.

There were Royal Tree Counters, who traveled with measuring ropes and notebooks.

Certified Oxygen Estimators, who calculated how much air each tree produced.

Bark Registrars, who recorded ownership of every trunk. Leaf Auditors, who inspected forests for fraud.

Forest Tax Collectors, who gathered breathing payments.

Breathing Assessors, who regularly estimated how many breaths a citizen took.

Tree Boundary Surveyors, who settled disputes over roots crossing property lines.

Oxygen Bankers, who managed payments between citizens and tree owners.

Tree Insurance Agents, who sold protection against storms and fires.

Forest Appraisers, who determined the future value of woodland.

Breath Accountants, who helped families calculate their yearly obligations.

Anti-Fraud Rangers, who searched for people secretly planting unregistered trees.

Air Market Brokers, who traded future oxygen credits.

And Breathing Advisors, who advised people to breathe less or more depending on the cyclical needs of the Breathing Tax Economy.

The kingdom's economy blossomed.

Thousands found employment.

Carpenters built offices.

Printers produced forms.

Teachers opened schools to train oxygen estimators.

Merchants sold measuring tools.

Universities created departments devoted entirely to Atmospheric Revenue Science.

Money flowed through the kingdom.

The king proudly declared:

"Look how prosperous we have become!"

And indeed, many people became rich.

The Shadows Beneath the Leaves

But not everyone celebrated.

For every coin that flowed into one pocket, another coin flowed out of someone else's.

Mothers worried most of all.

Often, when a baby was born, the first question was no longer:

"Is the child happy and healthy?"

Instead people whispered:

"Can the family afford the Breathing Tax?"

Mothers counted coins while rocking cradles. They placed children to nurseries while they found employment as Breathing Assessors.

Some feared having children at all.

Fathers lay awake through the night calculating future payments.

Many visited apothecaries seeking calming tonics.

The apothecaries became wealthy too.

Soon there were Breathing Tax Worry Counsellors, Breathing Tax Stress Healers, Family Breathing Budget Advisors, and Infant Budget Breathing Consultants.

Bottles of lavender tincture and anxiety remedies filled market shelves.

Children heard grown-ups discuss air bills at dinner and silently tried to not breathe too much at night.

Poor families skipped celebrations so they could save for breathing payments.

Many were accused of not having worked hard enough to own their own private forest.

Many wondered:

"If the trees are already growing, why must we constantly pay to breathe?"

Yet few dared speak too loudly.

The tax had existed for too many years.

Entire careers depended on it.

Entire fortunes depended on it.

Entire universities taught it.

The Breathing Tax became as natural as sunrise.

The Breath Relief System

As the years passed, the kingdom realized that many families could not afford the Breathing Tax. No queen or king wished to be known as the ruler who let children fight to pay for air, so a social system was created. The poorest citizens received Breathing Assistance Grants from birth onwards. The Breathing System was now perfected.

The Quiet Revolution

While everyone celebrated the new jobs created by the Breathing Tax, few noticed the jobs that quietly disappeared.

The kingdom needed millions of Tree Counters, Oxygen Analysts, Breath Auditors, Forest Compliance Officers, and Breathing Tax Worry Counsellors. The pay was good, the work was secure, and ambitious young people flocked to these careers.

As a result, fewer became inventors, artists, musicians, ministers, teachers, healers, beauticians, tailors, gardeners, bakers, engineers, shipbuilders, craftsmen, and countless other professions that had once filled the kingdom with color and life. Mothers left their crying infants and toddlers and went to earn breathing coins.

Parents told their children:

"Why become a painter when the Royal Air Bureau is hiring?"

"Why open a beauty salon when Oxygen Accounting pays triple?"

"Why become a minister when Forest Compliance offers a pension?"

Year after year, more talent flowed into administering the breathing system and less into creating, teaching, healing, building, and inspiring.

The kingdom looked prosperous. Employment was high. Offices were full.

Yet some old craftsmen would quietly wonder:

"Has the kingdom become richer?"

Lisa and the Impossible Idea

Generations passed.

So much time passed that nobody remembered a world before the breathing tax.

Children learned in school that breathing taxes had always existed.

Ancient paintings showing life before the breathing tax were dismissed as impossible fairy tales.

Then one spring morning, a girl named Lisa was born in Verdantia.

She grew up.

She was curious.

And she asked questions.

One afternoon she sat beneath an enormous oak tree and asked a simple thing:

"Why do we pay to breathe?"

People stared at her.

"Because trees produce oxygen."

"Yes," said Lisa. "But the trees would produce oxygen anyway."

The listeners frowned.

No one had said such a thing before.

A forest owner answered.

"If we remove the tax, who will pay tree owners?"

Lisa replied,

"Why must every tree owner be paid simply because a tree exists?"

The crowd gasped.

An Oxygen Banker stepped forward.

"The entire economy depends on this system."

Lisa nodded.

"Many jobs depend on it. But does that mean the system itself is useful?"

The banker looked offended.

Without the tax, his profession would disappear.

A professor from the Royal Academy adjusted his spectacles.

"The calculations are very complicated. Only experts understand them."

Lisa smiled.

"Complicated things are not automatically useful things."

The professor disliked that answer.

A politician declared:

"If we remove the breathing tax, chaos will follow."

"Why?" asked Lisa.

The politician paused.

Nobody knew exactly.

But everyone had heard it repeated for years.

A worried citizen said:

"We have always done it this way."

Lisa looked around.

The oldest trees were far older than the tax.

"The trees did not always do it this way," she replied.

The Anti-Fraud Rangers protested.

"If the tax disappears, our jobs disappear."

Lisa answered gently.

"Perhaps your talents could be used creating new gardens instead of auditing breaths."

Some listened.

Others did not.

At last, when all the other arguments had been made, the Grand Minister of Forest Revenues rose from his chair.

He wore robes embroidered with silver leaves and carried a staff carved from oak.

The crowd grew silent.

The minister pointed toward the forests beyond the city walls.

"Young Lisa," he said, "if the breathing tax is removed, tree owners will no longer be paid for producing oxygen."

"That is true," said Lisa.

"And if they are not paid, they will stop planting trees."

"Perhaps some will."

"And if they stop planting trees, there will be fewer trees."

The crowd nodded.

"And if there are fewer trees, there will be less oxygen."

The crowd nodded harder.

"And if there is less oxygen, people will suffocate."

Now many people looked frightened.

The minister raised his staff dramatically.

"And if people suffocate..."

He paused.

"...we will die."

The crowd gasped.

Some fainted.

Others clutched their children.

A few newspaper writers immediately began drafting headlines: "REMOVE BREATHING TAX, EXPERTS WARN OF POSSIBLE DEATH"

The minister folded his arms, certain he had won.

"There," he said. "That is why your idea is impossible."

For a moment, even Lisa was quiet.

The argument sounded terrifying.

The minister finally concluded:

"Now you understand. If we stop doing things exactly as we do them now, something terrible might happen."

Lisa looked up at the forest canopy.

What if he was right?

The Most Common Argument

Eventually Lisa heard the same response everywhere.

At markets.

At universities.

At royal meetings.

At dinner tables.

People would shake their heads and say:

"Your idea is impossible."

"Impossible?"

"Yes."

"But why?"

“Because nobody remembers another system."

Lisa Thinks

One evening Lisa sat beneath the oldest tree in Verdantia.

The stars glittered overhead.

The wind whispered through the leaves.

She wondered why so many people defended a system that burdened most, parents and children alike.

Then she realized something.

Most people were not defending the Breathing Tax itself.

They were defending what they knew.

The Tax had become woven into their lives.

Removing it felt frightening.

Even if its removal could be better. Easier. Simpler. Perfect. Fair.

So Lisa began thinking about how she might persuade them.

What if she could show examples of trees growing and being cared for without taxing every breath? After all, most trees grew abundantly simply by nature. And more were planted by honest humans to give shade, fruits, wood, beauty, legacy or fresh air.

The old tree rustled softly, as if considering her thoughts.

And there, beneath its branches, Lisa looked toward the future and wondered which story would be harder to change:

The story people told about the Breathing Tax—

Or the story people told themselves about themselves.

The End.