Casual Heroing

The smell of blood is something I will never be able to eradicate from my olphactory memories. And it’s usually associated with burnt, with something charred. But in this case, even though for a second I can feel the terrible smell of something burning, I quickly come back to reality and something meaty. When I look at the huge window of Marzallium’s Books, I don’t see the books. No, I just see a bunch of random meats placed on a counter and a guy at the counter.

I enter the place with a smile.

“Hello! Is this place new?”

“Hello! A Human! Welcome! Yes, I just opened last week!”

“Oh, what happened to the book shop?”

“My father unfortunately passed away. Thankfully, some people came forward and bought all the books in one big batch. And I thought that a good [Butcher] would be much more helpful than a stupid repository of books no one was buying, right?” the man erupts in genuine laughter as if he had not just said that his father died.

“Oh my, you have quite the selection,” I say while looking around at the few carcasses I can spot, badly chopped, with cut that look all but clean.

“Yes, and we just got some new cuts of beef as well! But I got them down in the basement.”

“Would you mind giving me a tour of the basement? I’ve always been curious of how a place like this works. And don’t worry, I’m here for business,” I say taking out ten gold coins and placing them on the counter. “I’m organizing a party, sort of. I need the best you can get me.”

As soon as he sees the money, the fake smile he had donned turns into genuine joy. It looks like not many people have come here for business yet.

Good.

“Sure! We have some prime ribs that you can—”

I turn off the buzzing noise in my head and I start pondering.

And not on what I’m supposed to do.

I know that.

I’m just wondering what information I need about the old man. When I think about the little volume full of poems, I almost cry. A tear threatens to escape my eye while I follow the idiot son of the one person I really respected in this town.

My father was not a present figure while I was growing up. But he instilled in me something, a lesson that I will never forget. Be good to those who are good to you. If your parents treat you well, treat them well back. He had not studied nor he had a culture; but he had principles and values. And the two values he passed onto me are good work and being grateful for what I got. When my father fell sick, I’d take over the shop without saying a world. Even when I had already some money of mine already, I would never forget what the man did for me. There would be no discussion, no arguing. He didn’t even need to call for help, I would just know that he couldn’t work in his conditions and take over for a while.

If there’s one thing that I will never stand is ungrateful people, those who believe that everything is owed to them and that they don’t owe anything to the world. Those, I want to see dead. Why? Imagine you had a sick father and you refused to extend even the most basic courtesy of respecting his wishes to him. Imagine that. Imagine that he had to work himself to literal death because no one would open the shop if he didn’t. Imagine an old man who’s all alone because of two idiot children and spends his last days without family around.

Sure, telling ourselves that books are good company is nice and all, but family is family. And without family, we shut ourselves off in a dark closet full of mold. The air slowly goes out and we die a slow and sick death. Science shows how we, as people, need to be touched to stay healthy. Without anyone around us to hug or kiss our head, we are something that even animals repudiate—we become the worst kind of Humans existing on cold Earth. And when we decide not to extend a hand toward those people in the dark closet, we don’t deserve to live. We don’t deserve to be. Because if you do that, you are refusing the most basic animal need a person has: the need to be touched, to be seen, to be spoken to, to be hugged and comforted, to be comfortable during his last moments, to cry on a shoulder.

I raise the gun to the neck of the kneeling giant who’s retrieving some fucking stupid meat from a hook and shoot. The bullet perforates his neck, not killing him on the spot, but leaving him to suffocate on the ground. Part of his trachea has been blown off. It was a shot from a close position, almost to the skin. It was easy to avoid the spine and incline the gun a little.

I hear the wheezing and the choking sounds even before he hits the ground prone, looking at me with wide eyes, trying to clutch at his own throat. I see the life of a worthless man, of a worm who never deserved anything at all, who should have died in the womb. I’m not sorry for him. No. If I had time, I would actually spend some time making him suffer even more. I can deactivate the skills bound to my guns and bullets, by the way. That’s the only reason his neck did not lose a huge chunk of flesh.

He’s trying to speak, probably asking for an explanation.

He doesn’t deserve one.

This man looks like another person who never decided to be anything, who always tries something new without sticking with it, damned the consequences. And the latest round of consequences is his father’s legacy disappearing overnight over the new whim he had.

I’ll share something with you all while we watch this man slowly suffocate, with a gun still trained to his head. You never know in a world with magic and whatnot. Right, I can just leave him here since he won’t easily rot, by the way. Or—

Let’s focus on what I want to share.

There was a dark moment in my past, a time I wasn’t the person I am right now, a time I was gripped by anxiety and nightmares in daylight. I was depressed, I was becoming a husk of the person I was supposed to be. I was good at whatever I did, but there was always something missing, even with my studies. Even when I graduated with honors, there was something missing. And the more I interrogated myself on the meaning of life, I simply despaired. Yes, despaired. I was lost. I was nothing. I was no one. I could not think of one thing that would make me happy, that would make me me. And I dug deeper and deeper in the hole, until one day I watched one documentary out of sheer boredom. I was meditating hanging myself with the strings that held off the ground some big pots of succulents I had in my apartment. I would look at those strings and wonder if they could hold my weight, and how I could make sure that I couldn’t escape their clutches, how I could die amidst silent screams, who I would disappoint, who would be happy about it.

So many questions, so many doubts, so many uncertainties.

But then, I saw a documentary on chimps.

And there was the boss chimp right there being a tyrant—

…

I’m watching in complete darkness a stupid documentary on chimps. They are showing a particular group with a chimp acting like a tyrant and taking advantage of his incredible strength to lord over the others. Nothing new. Another asshole. It’s yet another asshole.

I don’t know who I am. I don’t know why I did all I did until today. Was there even a point? Should have I chosen another path? Why didn’t I just go work with my father? I know how to bake baguettes, putain. Why didn’t I do that? Would have I been happier? Why should I go through with this job? Just because it pays a lot? And what for? What change am I bringing over the world, what person am I becoming while working it? Will I ever have self-respect for myself in ten years?

Questions swirl inside my head, they torment me and they have been tormenting me for months. I have a good job, I make more money than most people. Why am I like this? Why am I just suffering meaninglessly? What is wrong with me? Which part of the machine is not working? Can I fix it? Can I really do anything about it?

“The leader of the chimp fell ill, probably as a result of something he ate. And when he wasn’t at the top of the form, two younger chimps bashed his skull in with a rock.”

For some reason, whoever shot the documentary thought well to include the gruesome scene of two chimps killing another with rocks. But while I look at the scene, I feel a sense of calm settle in. It’s impossible to describe. It has nothing to do with the act itself, but more with the whole context.

I abandon the soft and warm blanket on the couch and I stand up, stretching out. I don’t do anything like laughing out loud or having a manic attack. I go to the kitchen and pour myself a big glass of water. For the first time in a very long time, I turn off the television, left alone with the silence. And for the first time since I have memory, I’m fine in the darkness and the silence—I don’t crave the loud sounds no more. I just soak in the silence, washing away the dark thoughts with the knowledge that nothing means anything.

We are chimps.

It’s so silly.

It has always been so silly.

We are no more than chimps. We are animals who evolved a bit too much and built a monster of a framework on top of our animal instincts. Then, when we go crazy, we blame ourselves, not the pillars of steel that are now rusted by the blood of entire generations. It’s not about the buildings, it’s not about the economy, capitalism or whatever. It’s just that we are cursed. We are cursed to live an existence that is made of inane laws we made for each other. But we are the same chimps that bash each others’ heads in when they need to. We are just afraid to follow what we were always supposed to do because now someone says it’s wrong.

We want to feel comfortable, but that never was how we were supposed to leave. We are supposed to be uncomfortable most of the time, or just accept that someone might bash our head in at any moment. We look for comfort among the structures, among the fake world we have built for ourselves. And maybe, if we are stupid enough, we look for comfort in the chimps. But the reality is that everyone is restless, that everyone should be restless. We are no more than chimps, and that’s as bad as the structures, the prisons we built for ourselves.

But if being chimps is bad and being Humans is equally bad, what is good? What is it that makes it worth it?

Nothing.

And so why do I feel like this, liberated?

I put the glass of water back on the table.

I guess because if nothing makes sense, I might as well do something worth my time and not overthink it. If everything is stupid, it doesn’t make sense to worry about making mistakes and thinking about what we are supposed to do. There’s nothing we are supposed to do. What we are supposed to do is a framework built by other people who were most likely wrong about it and that we just follow out of habit, but what we want is just bashing each other’s head in. And so, why worry? Want and moral constraints are equally bad.

The best shot is just looking for a cause just enough to die for.

I look at my laptop on the Ikea coffee table in front of my couch. There’s the 3D model of a gun I was studying out of pure curiosity. I always found guns and weapons stupid tools, something we should never have made. But now, I think that some of the wrongs in this world, or at least in this country, could be solved with a bit of gunpowder. Even if I can’t know what I’m supposed to do, I can still try to do something that will net a positive for humanity. And it’s better if I do something that no one else would ever think of doing, something so radical and crazy that makes the chimps go into hiding and the framework we built crumble. Our tyrannical system and our terrible nature will both succumb to the simple calm utilitarianism of doing a favor to humanity.

It’s that simple.

Or maybe…

There’s really not an answer to anything.