The End of the Whole Mess

✍ Scribed by King, Stephen

• Year: 2011
• Tongue: en-GB
• Weight: 21 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

The story, narrated by Howard Fornoy in the form of a personal journal, recounts the life of his genius younger brother, Robert. Bobby, a child prodigy whose adult interests led him to study a variety of scientific disciplines, discovered a chemical that reduces the aggressive tendencies of humans and other organisms. While doing sociological research in Texas, Bobby used crime statistics to create a sort of topographic map which displayed a geographical pattern of violent crime. Examining the map, Robert noted diminishing levels of crime centered around the town of La Plata. When he arrives to investigate, he finds that this town has never had any violent crime. Bobby is ultimately able to determine that the cause of the non-aggression is the presence of a chemical unique to the town's water supply, a phenomenon that is mentioned in (but had nothing to do with the causations of) King's earlier novel It. Even minimal exposure to the chemical will calm down an angry person or animal, and Bobby has been able to isolate the chemical and reduce it to concentrated form.