Bassim
VIP Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2008
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Bosnian
- Home Country
- Bosnia Herzegovina
- Current Location
- Sweden
Would you please correct my mistakes in the fifth part of my short story?
After a long while, Mr Antonov said, “Before I dropped off psychology course, we had learned about the psychologist Ivan Pavlov and his experiments with dogs. Ever heard of him?”
Turtle gasped. “Never. Studied law only because they had the sexiest girls you could imagine.”
“Pavlov used dogs to prove his theory of conditioning. When he gave food to a dog, he saw it was salivating. He noticed that it was enough for the dog to see an empty food dish, or hear the steps of Pavlov to salivate. Then he used metronomes, lights and bells as stimuli. Even without food, their presence was enough for a dog to start to salivate. A stimulus elicits an automatic response. Both stimulus and response happen naturally. They are unconditioned. But Pavlov proved that any object or event can be used to learn the dog to associate them with food. Even when the food is not present, the dog will still salivate. Because this behaviour was learnt, he called it conditioned. I think we can use his method and condition people in Frommia and Galia to love coffee instead of tea.”
“Interesting. But how are we going to do that?”
“First we will impose a complete blockade and arms embargo. Let them use up their ammunition until they can only hurl stones at each other. And let them also starve. When they become hungry, they would think only about their stomachs. Then we will send them packages of food and other help with coffee in abundance. They will learn to associate good things with coffee, and they will gradually forget they ever loved tea. And of course, we will whisper a word or two in their leaders’ ears. They either will change their narrative or be replaced by the new leaders. But the most important is that the media know nothing about it. When the war disappears from the news, people will turn their minds to other topics, like animal rights, climate change and sports. What we are going to do is the largest scientific experiment ever conducted in the history of humankind. A nosy parker is the last person we need.”
“You are a wise man!” exclaimed Mr Turle.
“It's vodka. It’s makes you think.” He swigged again from his flask.
Just as Mr Antonov predicted, after a while, the two countries ran out of all ammunition. They tried to procure it on the black market, but the joint American-Russian forces managed to intercept almost all shipments on land and sea. Fuel supply was cut off, and the airplanes, tanks, personnel carriers and trucks were buried in deep mud. Both Mr Topolovski and Mr Uzunov were enraged and tried to encourage their armies to fight on, but their communications were jammed and their letters never arrived to their destinations. But even if their messages had come through, they would certainly have changed nothing. Ordinary soldiers had had enough of war. They and their families were hungry. Nobody cared about tea without or with milk any longer. Their only thought was where to find any kind of food to fill their empty stomachs.
When Mr Turtle and Mr Antonov received the information that people in the both countries had eaten almost all grass, leaves, mice and rats they could find, they decided to send large shipments of food aid to both countries. Hundreds of trucks, trains and transport airplanes carried their loads to the miserable, famished people, who could hardly believe their eyes when they saw such abundance. They kissed and hugged the drivers, pilots and escort as if they were aliens coming from another planet. People opened the packages with glints and twinkles in their eyes, like children opening Christmas presents, and they ate until they could eat no more. They rummaged through the packages for tea bags, but they found only instant coffee. They were disappointed, but they took out the coffee, and when they made it, they agreed that although it was not as good as tea, they would drink it anyway. The sweet warm liquid ran down their throats and filled them with contentment. Caffeine stimulated their brains and invigorated their bodies. After the time of misery and depravation, they felt like humans again. They drank coffee several times a day; with their meals; with their families and friends; and when they were alone. The more they drank it, the more they wanted it. Before long, the majority of them never mentioned tea any longer.
Around the time when the first help was arriving in both countries, their leaders received letters from the American and Russian presidents, with the detailed instructions how to change their policies if they did not wish to lose their job. Tea belonged to the past. Coffee was the future. If they did as told, there would be prosperity and success in each country. The US and Russia would spare no effort to help the two suffering nations to become ones of the greatest in the world.
Not long after the first letter, the two leaders received another letter each, telling them that the peace agreement would be signed in Italy. The communications between the two counties were restored, and they talked to each other like two lost friends who had not spoken for years. Both presidents got as a present a sophisticated coffee maker from Russia and the US, and they could spend hours discussing brewing, roasting and grinding of coffee. They learned about different sorts of coffee beans and questioned each other as students do, to see who had memorized more sorts of coffee. They reeled off Sumatra, Java, Mocha, Santos... as if they were experts. If someone had overheard their conversation, he would have certainly got an impression that the two leaders did not care about anything in this world but coffee.
TO BE CONTINUED
After a long while, Mr Antonov said, “Before I dropped off psychology course, we had learned about the psychologist Ivan Pavlov and his experiments with dogs. Ever heard of him?”
Turtle gasped. “Never. Studied law only because they had the sexiest girls you could imagine.”
“Pavlov used dogs to prove his theory of conditioning. When he gave food to a dog, he saw it was salivating. He noticed that it was enough for the dog to see an empty food dish, or hear the steps of Pavlov to salivate. Then he used metronomes, lights and bells as stimuli. Even without food, their presence was enough for a dog to start to salivate. A stimulus elicits an automatic response. Both stimulus and response happen naturally. They are unconditioned. But Pavlov proved that any object or event can be used to learn the dog to associate them with food. Even when the food is not present, the dog will still salivate. Because this behaviour was learnt, he called it conditioned. I think we can use his method and condition people in Frommia and Galia to love coffee instead of tea.”
“Interesting. But how are we going to do that?”
“First we will impose a complete blockade and arms embargo. Let them use up their ammunition until they can only hurl stones at each other. And let them also starve. When they become hungry, they would think only about their stomachs. Then we will send them packages of food and other help with coffee in abundance. They will learn to associate good things with coffee, and they will gradually forget they ever loved tea. And of course, we will whisper a word or two in their leaders’ ears. They either will change their narrative or be replaced by the new leaders. But the most important is that the media know nothing about it. When the war disappears from the news, people will turn their minds to other topics, like animal rights, climate change and sports. What we are going to do is the largest scientific experiment ever conducted in the history of humankind. A nosy parker is the last person we need.”
“You are a wise man!” exclaimed Mr Turle.
“It's vodka. It’s makes you think.” He swigged again from his flask.
Just as Mr Antonov predicted, after a while, the two countries ran out of all ammunition. They tried to procure it on the black market, but the joint American-Russian forces managed to intercept almost all shipments on land and sea. Fuel supply was cut off, and the airplanes, tanks, personnel carriers and trucks were buried in deep mud. Both Mr Topolovski and Mr Uzunov were enraged and tried to encourage their armies to fight on, but their communications were jammed and their letters never arrived to their destinations. But even if their messages had come through, they would certainly have changed nothing. Ordinary soldiers had had enough of war. They and their families were hungry. Nobody cared about tea without or with milk any longer. Their only thought was where to find any kind of food to fill their empty stomachs.
When Mr Turtle and Mr Antonov received the information that people in the both countries had eaten almost all grass, leaves, mice and rats they could find, they decided to send large shipments of food aid to both countries. Hundreds of trucks, trains and transport airplanes carried their loads to the miserable, famished people, who could hardly believe their eyes when they saw such abundance. They kissed and hugged the drivers, pilots and escort as if they were aliens coming from another planet. People opened the packages with glints and twinkles in their eyes, like children opening Christmas presents, and they ate until they could eat no more. They rummaged through the packages for tea bags, but they found only instant coffee. They were disappointed, but they took out the coffee, and when they made it, they agreed that although it was not as good as tea, they would drink it anyway. The sweet warm liquid ran down their throats and filled them with contentment. Caffeine stimulated their brains and invigorated their bodies. After the time of misery and depravation, they felt like humans again. They drank coffee several times a day; with their meals; with their families and friends; and when they were alone. The more they drank it, the more they wanted it. Before long, the majority of them never mentioned tea any longer.
Around the time when the first help was arriving in both countries, their leaders received letters from the American and Russian presidents, with the detailed instructions how to change their policies if they did not wish to lose their job. Tea belonged to the past. Coffee was the future. If they did as told, there would be prosperity and success in each country. The US and Russia would spare no effort to help the two suffering nations to become ones of the greatest in the world.
Not long after the first letter, the two leaders received another letter each, telling them that the peace agreement would be signed in Italy. The communications between the two counties were restored, and they talked to each other like two lost friends who had not spoken for years. Both presidents got as a present a sophisticated coffee maker from Russia and the US, and they could spend hours discussing brewing, roasting and grinding of coffee. They learned about different sorts of coffee beans and questioned each other as students do, to see who had memorized more sorts of coffee. They reeled off Sumatra, Java, Mocha, Santos... as if they were experts. If someone had overheard their conversation, he would have certainly got an impression that the two leaders did not care about anything in this world but coffee.
TO BE CONTINUED
