"Understand" - A short story by Ted Chiang
This is one of my favorite, most thought-provoking short stories I've ever read. It's beautiful and powerful, gets you thinking more, it's wildly entertaining, it's... I simply can't praise it enough.
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm
A big, big thanks to my friend Jay Winder for sharing that with me. His newest company is MakeLeaps, which makes better invoicing for small businesses. They have all kinds of demos and free consultations and things, so you probably ought to check it out if you're running a small business. Here's the MakeLeaps Blog as well, some good thoughts on there.
If you like this blog, I'd strongly encourage you to go read Understand ASAP. It's not too long, and might well be the best short story you read in years.