Sauntering the Psychogeography

“So why do you want to kill him,” asked the Sasquatch. They were lying on the only natural tree left in the City. It was crooked like a finger bent both forwards and back yet strong like a brick encased in a tomb of cement. There was a hole in the center of it that, local legends claimed, was caused by time itself cursing the City for some decadence or hubris, it varied from telling to telling. On the other hand, those that believed such stories also thought that whatever was wrong with the City could only be solved by filling that hole as opposed to confronting the City’s several social and structural problems head on. As if material social progress is done by magic and not through the blood, sweat, and tears of normal people sick of the world they live in. (Many had tried to fix the hole, but each cork or filling simply slipped out.)

One could just see the tower of the Fuzon Corporation headquarters through the branches of the barren tree. It was the panopticon of the City. The tower was bland and dull and grey and boring and cruel and stiff and banal and tired, more so than the rest of the City. It was as if all the color of the City had been sucked out by the tower and sent to the outside world. At this point, it was almost supernatural how the vines and roots, which had consumed the rest of the City like lemmings at the bottom of a cliff, avoided the tower like a discolored strand in a nearly perfect blanket. The only significance of the tower in and of itself was its size. The shadow they called a building loomed over the City like a vulture atop a cliff. There were no windows bar the penthouse where the CEO lived in luxury unseen outside of white-collar prisons. Of course, it was too high up to actually be see what it looks like. Some claimed they could see the room’s sole occupant from time to time, though all they could say of it was that it was merely a speck looking out the window with envious eyes. Perhaps, some of the paranoid residents considered, he was slowly, but surely, drawing his plans against the world.

Billy had never been in the building before in his life. Every time he looked at the slab of unnatural brutalism, he thought it looked like the gravestone of the City waiting for it to die so its epitaph could be written. “Here lies The City,” Billy joked in that moment (without realizing he was saying this aloud), “For two hundred and forty nine years, you have kept us safe from the collapse of the world outside. You have been our angel, our love, and our hope. In your incompleteness, we have found ourselves fulfilled. Your kiss may have been deadly, your vice, which drenched the streets, inherent, and your neon women demonic, but this inland empire that you once were was a place where even Heaven itself can wait. We love you oh beautiful City. We love you and all your-“

“So why do you want to kill him,” asked the Sasquatch. Billy turned to the Sasquatch. There was a glazed look in his eyes; that of someone trapped in a cage called thought. They weren’t looking at the Sasquatch, not even beyond him. No, Billy’s eyes were looking at himself through the reflection within the eyes of the Sasquatch. The Sasquatch didn’t see this, more invested in the answer than anything else. He knew what the answer could be based on what little he saw of Billy, but he wasn’t completely sure what it actually was. To the Sasquatch, Billy tended to be a bit too guarded at times, obfuscating himself with lies and jokes to the point where it seemed that even he didn’t know what he was like. Besides that, it was hard to talk about the answer to such a question as murder. There was so much distastefulness to it, so much sadness. But then, even the most justified of deaths have a twinge of sadness to them. A love lost, a friendship destroyed, an innocent ruined, a world ended. To say that ending a life, even one as despicable as that of a billionaire who runs a company that utilizes dehumanizing tactics to keep their wage slaves from doing anything but obey and die, lacks some small modicum of sadness is to believe that it will never stop raining.

“You walk down Elm Street lately?” Billy finally replied after getting up from the tree and dragging himself towards the tower.

“No, not really,” replied the Sasquatch.

“Well, there’s a body there, about a few blocks away from the police station.”

“There are loads of bodies a few blocks away from the police station.”

“This one’s different. She’s standing up.”

“…How do you think that happened?” asked the Sasquatch whilst feigning ignorance. He knew the answer; he had seen those works of art from time to time in the City to know what it was. The Sasquatch assumed Billy did not know the answer. He merely deduced what had happened based on looking at the body for roughly five or ten minutes. (It probably would have been fifteen if Jonathan hadn’t interrupted.) No doubt, the Sasquatch thought, Billy was about to spin him a yarn about how this was all some sort of conspiracy by the CEO to take over the world. conspiracy theories had long gone past their expiration date in the Sasquatch’s book and it was a pity Billy fell down one.

“Some asshole probably shaped the body to stand up.” Billy was right in the sense that a car turns on because someone turns a key. There are details that are glossed over in that assessment, such as the existence of engines, the motivation of the act and how it relates to the nature of sentience within the City’s symbolic ideaspace that mystically willed the body into that form (as it did with all art within City limits), but that’s generally what happened. “Anyways, that’s not the point.”

“Oh,” said the Sasquatch somewhat surprised, “Then what is the point?”

“…The point is that she’s dead.” Billy said as if he was talking to someone who was being willfully stupid. “She died and it’s his fault.” He pointed up towards the tower in all its banal glory. Billy then went into detail about what specifically he meant by that statement, almost bursting into tears out of rage and sadness. It was the first time the Sasquatch felt like he actually saw who Billy was and not a performance to some invisible audience. He was silent for a short time.

“Did you know her?” asked the Sasquatch. Billy didn’t speak for a while. There were things he didn’t consider when making the decision to kill the CEO; thoughts that only danced within the subconscious of the mind like a devil on the tip of a sword. Each time the thought’s flesh was cut by the sword, more and more implications would dawn on Billy’s thought process. Would the City die because of this, Billy thought? The Sasquatch did say that billionaires did more harm than good, but this one held all the chains. His singular vision shaped the City into what it is now and kept it from falling apart. He was the Great Man of this City’s History. He then looked at what was being held like Atlas did the globe moments before shrugging and dooming humanity to the pit of space. In the end, Billy supposed that he should tell the Sasquatch the truth. What harm could it do?

“No. I didn’t.”

“Then why do it? Why kill him? Surely someone else could kill him. Mayhaps even someone she knew. You don’t have to kill every monster you see.”

“If I don’t kill him, no one else will. How long have you been in the City?”

“About a week.”

“And in that time, how many protests have you seen? How many howls at the expense of those who cause harm have you heard? What of the fists raised to combat those who wish to make others suffer for their own amusement? None. Nadda. Zilch! And yet, there are so many monsters in the world, so much cruelty, hatred, sickness-- I mean, you’ve seen the bodies, right? There are so many corpses on the streets that you could practically sleep on them. And yet, no one gives enough of a damn to bury them! No one cares to find out who they were or why they died. We all just act as if it’s normal, but it’s not! It’s not normal; it’s evil! No one could sensibly argue that evil is subtle in the face of that. And we do nothing in the face of it! Let alone something as obvious as those who are responsible of the death of some nameless girl who could only be identified by a fucking barcode.” Billy took a moment to catch his breath. “If I don’t kill him, no one else will. It probably won’t change anything either…”

The pair walked in silence for a long time. Not an uncomfortable silence or that of mere banality. It was the silence of thoughts and implications, filled to the brim with empathy and consideration. The wind blew cold and loud. The sun was covered by ash colored clouds. Their bodies still rank of smoke and death. In many ways by talking about his motivations, there was a pit of pessimism and despair Billy had stumbled himself into without even realizing. The wind blew harder as they continued onwards.

“Do you know how old I am?” the Sasquatch asked, seemingly non-sequiturially.

“Uh… 500?”

“5,295. I’m older than this City. I’m older than what most people knew of the United States. I might even be older than many of the people who lived in the United States before it was the United States. And from that… experience, I know people. You’re an odd sort, all believing that you’re the only lead in the story of your life because you see everything that happens to you and no one else. The truth is… there’s a lot you haven’t seen.

The screams of protest aren’t that different from the screams of suffering. There are those in power who benefit from making people like you think protests no longer happen… those that punish you for looking. Some, like you, look at the narrative those in power give you and conclude that only you can save the world. But the world doesn’t need to be saved. It’ll go on with or without your help. But at the same time, people need help: the poor, the sick, the unwashed masses. We all need each other. When walking to the building, how many homeless did you see? Did you see the blind man with pale blue eyes? Or the woman lying to herself that her baby is still alive? Or the kid who hasn’t eaten in over a week? No, I don’t think you have seen them. You’re right in that there are no subtle evils. What you call a subtle evil, I would call an ignorable one. We all have blinders to such things and it takes work to see. I don’t think those homeless would be able to see each other either. They’re too focused on their own suffering, and understandably so. They might care about the others, but that doesn’t mean they focus on them over their own situation akin to having their arms shoved into a wood chipper. Empathy does not negate blinders, even if the reasons are understandable.

And there are more who need help. While we walked to the tree, we saw a building burning brightly with flames of everlasting colors. It was too big for any one person to put out. The flames danced across each window to the tune of a discordant tango. The flames… their beauty and their terror mesmerized you. It was too big for any one person to comprehend or comprehend or even contemplate. So many lives lost to the fire. Why didn’t anyone do anything to stop it, you must’ve thought.

And yet, I saw people leap into the flames: people who knew no one in that building, people who were saved by others at the last possible minute by some freak pillar falling down. People who died just so some small kid, some old man, some bitter adolescent child who thinks the world is less than it actually is could live. They jumped into the flames not because they thought they were the only ones who would help; they did it because those people needed help.

That’s humanity at its heart. Not cruelty or love or any of the other things you claim are more important than that. At the end of the day, you just want to help. Sure, from time to time you misunderstand what will help the world due to your biases (be it seeing love between two people of the same gender as a sign of wickedness or those who believe in the “Wrong God” as needing to be corrected to help them to the “right” path). But your species still tries to help.

It may not be exclusive to your species, but it “defines” yours in the sense that isolation “defines” mine or marginality “defines” the Jabberwockies or uncanniness “defines” the deer. It may not be defining of an individual or even a group of individuals, but it alludes to the fundamental nature of our respective species. There are many deer and Sasquatches and other such beings that want to help. But for you humans, you have to help.

All we can do is help one another out. And I’m not saying killing the last billionaire will do no good. It’ll probably do a lot of good. But you can’t act as if you’re the only one who cares. There are more people in this world, more stories being told, than can ever fit within your philosophy. So go ahead, kill him. Shoot his brains out or bash his skull in. But don’t ever tell yourself that no one else wants to help.”

As if solely to support the Sasquatch’s rejoinder, the pair suddenly heard the sound of an explosion of anger and suffering. Someone was calling for help. Someone else was just crying. So Billy did what humans are wont to do. Sadly, they were too far away to prevent this story from being a truly happy one.

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