The Black Tub

"Sorry?” said Aira. “I am sorry, I am not in a state to clarify things at the moment,” Aditya said, turning away. Aira took a step forward and turned towards him, trying to face him. Aditya spoke again before she could speak “Tell me what is the problem you were talking about. The thing about the earth.” “But...” said Aira. “Please,” he said looking into her eyes. As Aira hesitated to speak, he looked around and pointed to a log saying “come” and walked towards it. 

She followed, and after moments of hesitation, she sat down on the log and opened her fist to make a projection on the ground. She opened a video. “It all comes to one square foot. Everything is gone.” said a middle-aged man, nearly in tears. “Stop selling this false dream. The government is a puppet,” he said, stiffening his body and eyes reddened. “Millions of us. Millions of square feet,” he said. “What is this” Aditya said, touching on the screen to pause the video. “This man had invested in the Mars Infrastructure Equity. A lot of such instruments were available then and people invested there with long-term plans of moving there.” “Moving to Mars?” Aditya interrupted. “Yes,” she said and continued, “all these investments were accounted in MTins, Bytes, Gazilons...” “In what,” said Aditya. “Oh, in the Mars currencies. There were many virtual currencies that came up. The early investors bought property there in small parts like a few square feet at a time or part of a Bubble at a time. You saw the euphoria that those early Mars visitors created. Let me show you what happened as a result.” She opened an app and set a date range. “Is this...the stock market...” Aditya said, examining the graph that opened and zooming into the dates. “Yes, just pick up any stock there, the graph is the same,” she said. “This is...almost like a straight line up. Exponential,” he said. 

Aditya took a long while and looked back at her saying “isn't this fantastic?” “Ah yes, everybody seems to make a lot of money. A lot of Mars money,” she said. “So,” he asked, “did... a depression follow?”  “Sure enough, it did.” she said and continued “If there is one thing that remains unchanged with time, it is The Investor Behaviour. As always, in the bull market, rationality was staked for greed. People went with the flow and invested mindlessly.” she said. 

“When is this clip from,” asked Aditya, pointing to the video he had just paused. “This is from 2203,” she replied. He opened the app again and set the dates to 2203. “This is...” he said, surprised, and changing the dates further, he said, “this is a tub” “The Black Tub,” Aira said and continued “That’s what it was named. The fall was exponential. The whole decade was stagnant there, at the rock bottom.”  “I don't get it. Was the mars mission aborted? But... what you showed me last was the whole glorious journey and progress to Mars. How then...did such a long depression come about?” She replied with a quip “Oh yes, the Mars mission was quite a glorious one. It did go on. Never stopped.” “Then...what triggered this recession?” he said frowning. “Haven't you guessed it yet,” she said and Aditya looked up to her, wide-eyed, thinking