An entry in an almost forgotten website, built with old
technology, went mostly unnoticed at first. It was the late
summer of 2017.
He did actually get a few snide remarks about not having any
real idea, it was even "marked for deletion" (a warning that was
rarely realized on that website),
and he also got a few
downvotes, but that was it.
Ten years later he was dead, at the age of 64, considered quite
young even then, as many others around the world were trying
to cope with the disease he had described.
This gray dust-like growth could not be removed from the
toilet. It was inside the ducts where the water came out (and
would turn greenish once it got dense enough). It stuck around
the water-tube making grayish streaks which he and his wife
tried removing by scrubbing with acids or alcohols, boiling
water, steam, and oil-removal materials, all to no avail. It
found its way up into the flush tank. There were spots of gray
in the water everywhere.
This continued for a few years. He was quite sure that they had
the same problem back in 2010 and maybe even earlier.
But then he noticed something else. A similar gray dust was on
the walls, especially in the corners. It was on the toilet pipes
exterior. It was on the plastic bottle of (organic) cleaning
material they kept in the room. And it was on the window sill.
He had this crazy idea, that this dust was actually a living
organism. That it even had an intelligence of its own. That
somehow these dust specs could communicate with each other,
perhaps very slowly, but could reach far out building up a giant
network, and that they would have an intelligence of survival,
and chemical knowledge received from human extract and from
living cells that reach the sewage.
In the post, he jokingly wrote how they would be a very
advanced intelligence, the kind that knows how to make peace
around the world and stop all violence between all species.
They wouldn't be
just another evolutionary quirk, caring only for themselves or
their symbionts, but rather have acquired the ability to predict
and therefore respond to the world in ways that could change
the future.
It was first stumbled upon, by a scientist with the pen name of
Mao Tze-Flamm in February 2029, just one year after the
passing of "The Discoverer" (as fondly known in the open-
schooling 3D media). By then the "Toilet death-ring" was a well-
known phenomenon, and people in what was left of "the
democratic countries" were collaborating to try and fight it.
Tze-Flamm wrote an article in the Intelligence-Tested Network
on the Sublimin, and it passed with high colors. His main claim
was that many of the phenomena observed in the failed
attempts to control or contain this new type of organism, in
fact, did show signs of intelligence and that perhaps if we
humans showed the gray matter signs of empathy, perhaps we
could receive theirs'.
During the weekend, Associated Press picked up the story, and
it "went viral" on all the Sublimin open-news outlets. A week
later everything changed.
It started off with a group of "Truther's Daughters" who began
making "viral videos" (an old form of media to communicate
movement in 2D), in a way that got through the IntliTest
Network, but then people began responding intelligently, with
serious answers. It seemed as if something had happened to
humanity. Some subtle but noticeable change.
Perhaps it could be defined as seriousness. All the usual
stupidity, joking around, trolling, violence, hatred, irrelevant
and uninformed discussions around the topic ceased. Even the
Truther's Daughters seemed to be getting back to their senses.
The change of mindset wasn't easy. Obviously, pacifism wouldn't
work in a violent and competitive world, but the gray matter
was showing us the way. It had to do with persistence and
silent preparation. It had to do with networking and
communication. But mainly it had to do with knowing the
objective: life and cooperation.
And that is how the human race almost came to its end.
It turns out that inteligence itself is counter-productive. They
should have seen that, already back in the 2020's and 30's.
What was left of the "democratic countries" was in a constant
decline, although they liked claiming that others from other
cultures are joining them. What actually was happening was
that they were being taken over.
By 2036, almost everyone was living with The New Intelligence.
Life: Animals and humans, plants and even the inanimate
world, were then living in a comfortable type of harmony. They
knew, of course, that it wouldn't last, but they had achieved it.
Without war. There were still the cockroaches and worms, but
once people deeply understood them, (or as they called it
then: "Deeped" them) all the enmity was gone. There were
enough resources on earth for the life of all living beings,
testosterone was replaced with a safer hormone, and there was
no reason to kill anymore.
Then, in February 2041, on the anniversary of "The Discoverer"
the 2nd Great Depression started. This time it was
psychological, and the NewIntely new in advance that it could
not be stopped.
There was only one way to save humanity, and life itself. The
humans knew exactly what to do. By that evening, they got rid
of all the gray matter in the bathrooms. It was simple (now
that they had the intelligence). It turned out that what killed
the gray matter was purple cabbage juice with a drop of sugar
on it.