even existed? Some swam above, others below. Separate existences in a common world. What if the orange and white fish could have spoken to the little grey fish that always seemed to be drifting around amongst the various objects embedded in the sand? Wouldn’t each have had things to say, perspectives to share, which would have amazed the other? What was it like to look up all the time? What was it like to look down? But how could they communicate, even if they wanted to? How could they exchange ideas and insights and … OK, they were fish. You could draw the analogy too far. But as the fish were to the aquarium, so were people to the world.
But the name? Aquarium? Aquarium ? It was flat. It had no ring to it.
Then it hit him. Fishbowl.
Fishbowl.
Somehow, it was perfect.
Only one thing wasn’t. Andrei did a search and found that the domain name was taken under every suffix he might conceivably use: TheFishbowl was taken as well. So was AFishbowl. Now that Andrei had hit on it, he felt as if he had always had that name in mind. Nothing else could capture the concept he wanted to express. He had to have it, without paying the tens of thousands or even more it might take to buy it, and without waiting the weeks or months it might take to negotiate for it. He wanted it right now. He was ready to launch.
He went quickly back to the domain name search box and searched the suffixes again. Impulsively, he added a second ‘l’ to the name. Fishbowll . He did a search. No one had it! A minute later, he had registered it.
His fingers could barely keep pace with his mind now. They flew over the keyboard. He hit a key – and the site was live.
‘Check out this new website I’ve just launched,’ he wrote to his email address book. ‘Fishbowll . That’s right, you didn’t misread. It’s got two l’s at the end. If you like it, let other people know.’ He hit Send, then he shut down and looked around, alone in the common room. He jumped up and went to his room. Ben Marks was snoring. He opened the door of the other bedroom. Kevin and Charles were both asleep. He was too excited to stay still. ‘Anyone want to go to Yao’s?’ he yelled.
There were groans.
‘Come on. I’m hungry.’ He waited. ‘Guys. Come on! Yao’s! Noodles! I’m buying.’
‘Dude,’ came Kevin’s voice, ‘do you have any idea what time it is?’ There was a crash of something falling on the floor, then a rustling, and then Kevin’s voice again. ‘It’s six o’clock. I don’t think Yao’s is open.’
‘It’s a list,’ said Ben Marks that afternoon, after he had looked at the site.
Andrei nodded.
‘It’s a list,’ he said again. ‘Andrei, it’s just a list.’
‘It’s a list of just about everyone in the world,’ said Andrei, with only mild exaggeration.
‘I know. It’s amazing. I don’t know how you did it.’
‘Do you want me to explain the algorithms?’
‘Do you think I’d understand?’
Andrei gazed at Ben for a moment. ‘No.’
Ben laughed. ‘Look, what I don’t understand is, what am I supposed to do with it? How am I going to use it?’
Andrei looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘You can find anyone you want. Anywhere in the world. Anyone with any interest you want to talk about.’
‘Dude,’ said Kevin, waving an antique fly swat that had somehow found its way to the common room and now resided there. ‘I got eight hundred thousand names.’
‘Great!’
‘Yeah, but eight hundred thousand!’
‘What did you search on?’
‘Eggs.’
Ben laughed. ‘Kevin, you’ve got to get a life.’
‘I just wanted to see.’
‘But eggs?’
‘And you got eight hundred thousand people?’ said Andrei. ‘That’s awesome.’
‘The first name I clicked on was a guy in, like, Australia who’s got some thing about caterpillar eggs. The next one was some woman in Canada who has this thing about swan eggs. Then there was the guy with this very kind of waxed beard who did something with quail eggs. Actually, the beard was quite interesting.’
‘Eggs is too general,’ said Andrei. ‘You should have specified.’
‘Yeah, so that’s what I did next. Goose eggs.’
Ben kicked his legs in amusement. ‘Goose eggs! Kevin, what is this sickness?’
‘And what happened then?’ asked Andrei seriously.
‘Seventeen thousand.’
‘See?’
‘Seventeen thousand. Dude, seventeen thousand names. And they’re not ranked, they’re not ordered.’
‘You can search by country.’
‘At least let me know who’s hot.’
‘How am I going to do that?’
Kevin shrugged. ‘Do something with their