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There only were two choices: holding on to his billions while spending two decades in a federal prison or risking his life, hoping he'd be rescued but not recognised and starting from scratch.
He put on his life vest, said a little prayer and jumped overboard as his yacht darted away.
When he came to it, he found himself surrounded by buckets of fish and four strangers.
'Where am I?'
'On a fishing boat.'
'I was thinking more in terms of geographic location.'
'We're just off the shore of Stakur.'
He had heard of Stakur before, better known as the Geek Island, which was renowned as a hub of creativity, innovation and technological advances.
'My boat sank just off Rhode Island,' he told them. 'Fortunately I was the only one aboard.'
'Let's get you somewhere to freshen up then,' another man told him, and they escorted him to a hotel after one provided him with dry clothes from his car.
He filled in the registry as 'James Freeman, no fixed abode, Rhode Island, United States.'
'How much can you pay?' the receptionist asked him as he handed him the key.
'He has nothing on him,' one of the fishers explained. 'We just rescued him after his boat sank.'
'Fair enough.'
The others waited for him in the lobby as he took a shower and tried to think of a plausible story to tell them afterwards.
When he returned, they took him to a restaurant where he got to know his rescuers. Barefoot Mouse was a tall native man, Federica a heavily tattooed Latina, Thad a bearded black man and Bo a lanky white man with large glasses.
'There's a ferry to New York at 3 pm,' Thad told him. 'I'll get you a ticket, and you can repay me when you're back.'
'I'm not sure I want to go back,' Caspar said. 'I've nowhere and nobody to go back to.'
'You're homeless?' Federica asked him.
'Yes, I'm afraid so.'
'Then how come you had a boat?'
'It all started last week. I was begging outside the Capitol and interviewed by a film crew when a congresswoman passed and gave me a $1,000 bill.'
'A $1,000 bill?' Bo sneered.
'Yes, one from 1928. It's a collectors' item; I got $4,000 for it and decided to buy a boat so I wouldn't have to spend the nights outside anymore. Apparently I should have consulted an expert before paying for it.'
'So what do you think you'll do?'
'Is it difficult to find work and accommodation around here?'
'Usually not. What's your profession?'
That was a difficult question. Caspar hadn't worked a single day in his life, so he tried to think of a type of work that required no or minimal skills.
'I used to be a bartender,' he said.
'I could talk to the hotel manager,' Bo replied. 'I'm sure he could fit you in somehow.'
Ten minutes later Caspar had a job as a bartender and got a small advance to buy the mere essentials. Accommodation and meals would be deducted from his wages.
As the fisherfolk returned to their jobs, he went to the counter for a drink and spotted an attractive young woman with a feathered hat who watched a video on her phone.
'That's a beautiful hat,' he told her. 'Is that an ostrich feather?'
The girl looked baffled and took a moment to process what he had said. Then she replied, 'Oh, you want to have sex with me?'
'I didn't mean to...'
'Just let me finish my coffee and we can go to my place.'
Afterwards he went to town to buy some essentials such as clothes and toiletries. The streets looked quite different from those in the States; every house was built differently, with some unique examples, such as a dome-shaped mansion or a cottage resembling a mushroom.
In the evening he started his first shift and was soon visited by his fisher friends.
'Can I have a Negroni, please?' Francesca asked him.
'I'm afraid I don't know how to mix cocktails.'
'I thought you worked as a bartender,' she replied.
'I did, but it was just a simple bar, they didn't do cocktails.'
'And obviously it wasn't an Irish pub,' Thad sneered and pointed at a foam-filled glass standing on the counter.
Caspar looked at Barefoot Mouse and asked him, 'I kept wondering about your name. The barefoot part is self-explanatory, but why mouse?'
'I'm quiet,' the giant replied, and Caspar realised that this was the first time he had heard him say anything.
'Your town looks really strange,' he told the others. 'Apart from the unique buildings, I noticed a complete absence of posters and billboards. Why is that?'
'We are not easily manipulated,' Bo answered. 'Advertising on Stakur would be as effective as fishing for tuna in a lake.'
'But what about introducing new products that you may not know of?'
'We do have the Internet here. If we are looking for something, we will find it.'
'Also, this is the first town I've ever seen without homeless persons on the streets.'
'In this country we have sufficient resources to look after our people.'
'And what about churches? I haven't seen any of them, either.'
'There are very few religious people on this island. And those who are take the ferry to New York to attend services.'
A young gothic couple entered, a native man and a Latina, and the man looked familiar to Caspar.
'Hi Talli,' Thad shouted across the room to him, 'great speech on freedom of speech!'
'Thanks,' the other replied, 'I'm glad somebody liked it.'
'Isn't that your president?' Caspar whispered to Thad. 'Do you know him personally?'
'No,' Thad replied.
'Then shouldn't you address him by his title?'
'He is one of the people who govern the country, and I'm one of the people who feed it. Nobody here is more important than others.'
'James?' Bobby, the Asian-Stakurian bar manager, called Caspar. He didn't react, even when he called him again.
'Are you hard of hearing?' Thad joked. 'Your manager just called you twice.'
Caspar realised that he had to train himself to respond to the name he had assumed.
At one of the tables a man appeared to be equally close to the two women accompanying him. Caspar was curious and asked, 'Who's that?'
'That's the harbour master with his wives,' Thad replied.
'Polygamy?' Caspar was surprised. 'Is it permitted the other way as well?'
'Sure,' Thad replied. 'I have two husbands.'
A person in a dress was sitting on a couch, surrounded by reporters.
'Is that a man or a woman?' Caspar asked.
'Neither,' Francesca said. 'They are Kim who has been the housekeeping manager of this hotel. But I imagine they won't be needing that income much longer since they invented the Hiker's Flask, a miniscule atmospheric water generator built into the cap of a bottle. Hikers, mountaineers and so on can hang it around their necks, and it extracts water from the air as they walk. That way they don't have to carry around a lot of water, especially for longer excursions.'
The following morning, after Bobby had given him a lesson in cocktail mixing, Caspar decided to go to the beach. At a restaurant he ordered breakfast and sat down in the large outdoor area overlooking the sea.
A man at the next table was reading The Voynich Manuscript.
'What a beautiful day,' Caspar said to him. 'Is the weather always this nice around here?'
The other looked up from his book and smirked. He took out a device, started typing and then played the message: 'I think you'd be a better fit for the Small Talk Diner on Tesla Lane. That's where weirdoes like you hang out.'
This got Caspar thinking. He was accepted by the others, but he didn't really fit in. But then again... nobody on Stakur fitted in. There was nothing to fit into.
In the afternoon he decided to check out this place. Maybe the Small Talk Diner was where he could find some normal people.
As he entered, he saw a semicircular counter to his left, a large mahogany table to the right which was surrounded by white people and four smaller tables in the corners at which natives, Latinos, black people and Asian-Stakurians were seated, respectively.
He approached the mahogany table and pointed to an empty chair: 'Excuse me, is this seat taken?'
He was examined by the others, and the lady he'd addressed said, 'No, go ahead.'
But before he had pulled out the chair, his other prospective neighbour asked him, 'Before you sit down - you're not a Catholic, are you?'
'Of course not.'
'All right then.'
'You're not from here, are you?' Caspar was asked by the man at the head of the table.
''No,' he replied and repeated his boat accident story.
'And you have no intention of going back and rather stay here with those people?'
'Well, at least here I got work and a roof above my head within an hour of my arrival.'
'What's your name?'
'James Freeman.'
'I'm Stuart Duncan, Ambassador of the United States to Stakur. I'm glad you found us, I'm sure you'll get to know the others in time. William here,' he pointed at a man who sat opposite Caspar, 'has a similar story to yours. He was homeless in Seattle and came over here for work; however, he took the ferry and not the boat.'
The others laughed.
Caspar felt that being a menial worker with a history of homelessness would affect his social standing. He would have loved to tell the others that he was an important billionaire, but of course he couldn't do that.
He had seen how some people from the other tables went to the counter to order, so he assumed that this was a self-service restaurant. But just as he was about to get up, a young waitress behind him asked, 'Can I get you anything, sir?'
He sighed with relief. He had just escaped a faux pas by seconds.
Talking to his neighbours, he found out that most of those present were not originally from Stakur, and that very few of them had come voluntarily. Some were sent here by their companies while others had fallen in love with Stakurians and weren't able to lure them away from their island.
A businessman to his right was talking to his neighbour about a contract for harbour maintenance that had been put out to tender, and how helpful it would be to know how much his competitors asked for in order to underbid them.
'Didn't you mention that your badminton partner works at the Harbour Office?' Caspar asked.
The businessman laughed, 'This is not New York.'
'Come on, everybody has a price.'
'Not on this island. As soon as you ask someone for a favour, they call the cops on you.'
'Mr Freeman,' the ambassador called him as an elderly couple joined the group.
'Yes, Your Excellency?'
'You mentioned you're from Rhode Island. Have you met the Evertons yet? They're from Newport. He's the executive manager of the fidget toy factory.'
'No, I haven't had that pleasure yet.'
He was introduced to them and asked to share the latest news from their hometown.
As they talked, Mrs Everton uneasily glanced towards the corner. 'That black man is staring at us. I wonder what he wants.'
'He probably wants to sit at our table,' Caspar said and laughed with them.
At the weekend he visited the market on Einstein Square and had a chat with his fisher friends.
'It's almost Easter, and I still haven't seen any decorations. Even if people here are not religious, I'm sure you hold on to traditions.'
'Very few people on this island do,' Barefoot Mouse replied. 'Tradition means living in the past which hinders progress; on Stakur we shape the future. As they say, tradition is peer pressure from the dead.'
Suddenly an angry mob descended on them, carrying posters and chanting 'No murderers on the market!'
The fishers stood back as they knocked over their carts, and an agitated woman screamed at them while excitedly flapping her hands. 'Fish are living creatures like you and me! You have no right to kill them!'
Barefoot Mouse anxiously trembled, and Bo rang the police: 'I'm afraid the vegans are at it again.'
'So there are bullies on Stakur,' Caspar gleefully smirked.
'There certainly are,' Francesca replied. 'But when that happens, it's always about others' actions or opinions, never about their identities. Nobody here is being bullied for who they are.'
One evening a woman ordered a drink and asked Caspar, 'You don't have children, do you?'
'No, thank God.'
'You're a lucky man,' she replied and went on a rant about how her children demanded a reason for everything they were told to do and appeared to question her authority. Then the conversation went on to their favourite TV shows and musical genres.
'You seem quite normal,' Caspar told her, 'not like the others around here. Have you ever been to the Small Talk Diner? There are more people like us.'
'I was there once because someone recommended it when I said I miss the sense of community, but those people are too extreme for my taste.'
'Too extreme?'
'Yes, I strongly disagree with a lot of their attitudes, and particularly with the segregation.'
'Segregation? Sure, it's only natural that people hang out with their own, but I wouldn't call it segregation.'
Later another woman sat at the counter. 'Can I have a straight whiskey, please?'
She downed it in one gulp and ordered another one. She looked distressed, so Caspar asked her, 'Are you okay?'
'No,' she sobbed, 'I'm not okay. My son has just been diagnosed with collectivism.'
'With what?'
'Collectivism. It's a disorder that causes a person to identify with a group - in his case with white evangelical Americans - and absorb all their expectations with no sense of individuality. He is so easily influenced by others in order to fit in, keeps hanging out at the Small Talk Diner because it gives him a sense of belonging, as he puts it, and tries to get a visa to study at LSU. We don't know what to do.'
'Sounds pretty normal to me,' Caspar replied, and the woman sobbed even more.
'You have no idea how bad it is. The psychologist gave him Ludwig's Neurological Spectrum Test, and he answered the question about a fire breaking out at the university and his professor and fellow students running towards the flames with "I follow them. I'm sure they know what they're doing."'
One morning there was a knock at Caspar's door. As he opened, two police officers handcuffed him and told him, 'Caspar Vanleg, we've a warrant for your arrest.'
When he entered the courtroom for his extradition hearing, he saw his fisher friends in the audience.
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I only wish I knew who turned me in.'
'I did,' Bo replied.
Caspar looked baffled. 'But I thought you were my friends.'
'We were,' Francesca assured him, 'until we realised that you enrich yourself at the expense of others.'
'There's nothing wrong with using loopholes in order to save money.'
'I saw the documentary,' Bo told him. 'There were no loopholes, you committed tax fraud.'
'But that’s a victimless crime.'
'A victimless crime? By refusing to pay your taxes you are denying food to starving children, education to underprivileged students and shelter to the homeless of whom you pretended to be one, to name just a few victims. What had you planned to do with the money you saved, anyway?'
'Invest it.'
'So you just pile up money that doesn't serve any purpose other than boosting your overblown ego?'
The policemen dragged Caspar to his chair.
This story is based on the scenario of a society whose majority are on the individual end of the neurological spectrum (such as autistic people), rather than on the collective end.
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