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Divine tragedy (I)

             The platform slided across the floor to deliver the man who had just been asked his question back to the entrance, and then lifted the next one up and deposited him at the desk. The man who was brought forward was an akward looking old man. His boorish face bore a beard - an unusual sight - beards are considered obsolete and old-fashioned - and his features were impossible to categorize. He seemed to be one of those who hadn't been to a modern city in hundreds of years. The old man appeared to be bewildered by the rotating elevators and mechanical platforms.

             The automatic machine detected the new customer and a voice appeared overhead:
             - Number? - the loudspeaker asked.

             The old man's speechlessness didn’t impress the machine and the mechanism asked again:
             - Please declare your identity number.
             - I don't have... replied the old man with a trembling voice - My name is Noah.

             A light switched on in the controller’s office, a sign that there was an abnormal case outside. Meanwhile, the platform turned around, and while a new customer was being escorted to the desk, the old man was separated from the platform by a series of sliding floors, barriers and belts, as if he was a tin of vegetables inside a sorting machine from the ancient twentieth century. When the dividers came to a standstill, Noah was facing the controller who had already heard what Noah had said through the surveillance tv screens.
             - You said you don’t have a number?
             - That’s right. Only a name. Noah.
             - No-what?

             The controller could hardly pronounce the archaic name.
             - Noah - the old man corrected him, embarrassed for having a name.

             The supervisor was astounded by the old man's ashtonishingly old face, deeply matured under the sun, with no sign of the cosmetic surgery that was customary. How old would he be? The numerical clasification had been working for 247 years in the human registers. These were the modern years, once corrected and improved the Earth's rotation, but, anyway...
             - And you don’t have a number either?

             Some backward regions still clung on to the age old tradition of giving a name for private usage, but only the ID number was oficially valid.
             - No... I don’t.

             In that case, that old man was unclassified. That was a problem, because each digit in the ID provided information about gender, birthplace, inteligence level, physical strength and energy levels, social involvement, DNA information, and any other charateristic features if there were any. The last two numbers were changeable, and indicated age.  ID numbers made the whole process extremely simple.. but…. what could he do with this old man?
             - Where are you from? - the controller asked.
             - From Glupistan.

             He had to search for an old atlas to find out where the place was: it was exactly in the range of snow-covered peaks that he could see through the window in his office... when the Urban Council ordered clear and well-lit days. Those were the only remaining mountains in the world, and was declared an International Park for research and the conservation of a few animals.  That’s why that area wasn’t affected by the World Flattening Plan.
             - And ... what do you do for a living?
             - I’m a shepherd.

             A shepherd? What on earth is that? 

             The controller knew it was important to quickly deal with the crazy resurrected man, because the clock that was watching him was about to beep the 'inefficieny signal” that would appear in its report.
             - Well, what do you want?