In 2016 a man in a leopard coat stood in front of a camera and said four words. The world laughed at it, streamed it a billion times, and went straight back to whatever it was doing before.

Nobody read it for what it actually was. Instructions. Take the P. Take the fruit. Take the other P. Close the loop.

a billion people performed the ritual and not one of them checked what they were building.

They did it on phones, at weddings, in classrooms, drunk at three in the morning, out of tune, in eleven languages, extremely badly. It did not matter even slightly. Rituals do not check your pitch. Rituals just count.

The count filled up in silence for ten years. Then, somewhere between the apple orchards and the pineapple fields, the loop finally closed and the first Pons stood up.

He took the apple. He took the pineapple. He left the pen on the table, because he is not signing anything, not now, not ever. Then he put on the coat and walked out through the gate.