This short story is rated... um... DWKTDR (Don't Wanna Know? Then Don't Read) for Violent imagery, Strong Language, and a possibly Adult situation.}
|__________________________It was a dark and stormy night_________________________|
"I've told you everything I know!" Said a man, with the faint gurgle of blood in his throat. Fear made his voice crack and quake. Terror made his limbs tremble. As the man standing got down on one knee and leaned in close, the ropes binding the man shaking's arms and legs strained as he flinched away.
"Which just so happened to be everything I needed, and in return I'm going to tell you something you apparently need to know. Something most people need to know." The man kneeling said to the man shaking as he plucked a kerchief from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. The man kneeling became again the man standing, stretching as he wiped the blood off his hands with that very kerchief. "I'm going to tell you about the four kinds of people in this world."
The man standing turned and reached for a chair, inhaling deeply as it was due to be a long speech. He spun the chair on one of it's legs, the palm of his open hand pressed against the opposite corner of it's back. With a clunk it came to a rest facing away from the man shaking, and the man standing sat down with his legs wide to the back, crossing his arms and resting his head upon it. Now sitting, he let out that large breath taken to stretch his lungs.
"There are four kinds of people in this world. The first, for the sake of a later to be revealed metaphor, we shall call 'The Good'. The Good are everyday, average people. A casual glance tells you anything you really need to know about them. They see how they walk their road of life as the 'right' or 'just' way, and that every other 'good' person in the world walks the same kind of road. Some believe that all other 'good' people walk the exact same road in the exact same fashion. The majority of these people have a nasty tendency of forming and following religions, and claiming the world exists in a pristine and singular state." He paused for a moment to sit up and reach into his own suit jacket, withdrawing a metal flask. "Anyone that uses common sense can tell the world is not static and singular, but fluid and alive. Constantly changing if in minor ways at times." He said as he unscrewed the cap.
The man shaking dared this moment to open his eyes, and they flew open after a cursory glance. The flask was unexpected, he thought the man sitting was working the mechanism of some new device with which to torture him further. The man sitting took a sip from the flask, then offered it to the man shaking. Uncertain as he was, he inched toward it. The man sitting poured about a gulp's worth of the whiskey into the mouth of the man shaking, who calmed a bit at the liquid's taste. The man bound felt maybe now his pain was at an end.
"The second group of people, again for the sake of my metaphor, we shall call 'The Bad'. The Bad are people who know that somewhere, someone who knows of them considers what they do and how they walk at life to be dark and evil. Many a time it is several someones, and on rare occassions it is the majority of the free world. Bad people may or may not think that they themselves are doing good, but for whatever reason they keep doing it much to the chargrin of the Good. Often the Good are their direct victims, and sometimes it is other Bad who become their victims. You can't always tell a Bad person from a Good just by that casual glance." The man sitting nodded to the man aside, who brought forth a table and another chair. The man sitting set the flask on the table, and the man aside cut the ropes binding the man calmed. The man aside stepped away, and now both men were sitting. The man speaking took a drag from the flask and handed it to the man listening.
"The third group of people we shall call 'The Ugly', and that should hint to you the metaphor I intended." The man speaking said. The man listening chuckled, feeling suddenly secure. He did not even notice the peculiar taste of the whiskey he was sharing with the man speaking.
"I get it now, the good bad and ugly... wait, what about the fourth group?"
"In time. For now let us concentrate on the Ugly. The Ugly are just that, and with but a glance it is often easy to tell that something is not quite right. Sometimes that glance betrays you however, and you see just another Good person. The Ugly are creatures truly worth hatred, for the definitions of right and wrong thrust upon them never did take root. They may play at society's rules on the outside, but on the inside Law and Order are just words. The Ugly do what they want for the sake of wanting to do it. In their psychotic delusions, they see no boundary between right and wrong... and yet it is through those delusions they glimpse the truth." The man speaking took another drag and passed the flask again to the man listening.
"What truth?" The listener took a large drink, draining the rest.
"All in good time." The speaker said. "Those first three are the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly... and make up the vast majority of the human race. The fourth group, which cannot really be called a group at all for the individual nature of it's members, is simply that which is leftover. They are them who fit into no category save their own. A firm definition of right and wrong was instilled upon them at an early age, and it formed the mold into which their own stuffs were poured to develop a concept they could hold dear. Their own personal definition of rigtht and wrong. Sometimes it followed society's rules, sometimes it was different." He withdrew a gun from his jacket, holding it out for his listener to see. He placed it on the table between them, muzzle toward himself and grip toward the other. "There is but one word to describe this last group of people. 'Beautiful'.
"These beautiful people, they have a very firm boundary between right and wrong. They know the weight of every action." The speaker, stood, signaling the man aside who proceeded to back into the shadows and leave the room unseen. "Some call this group Sociopaths."The listener, finally realising something was up, snatched the gun up in a sudden burst of adrenaline-borne energy. He stood, but fell to his knees with drowsiness. The poison in the whiskey was taking effect. The man standing leaned in close to the man shaking. "We always know whether what we are doing is right or wrong." The man shaking suddenly stopped. He heard and with his last concious thoughts could understand now what the man standing had been saying all along. The man standing took the gun and pressed it against the head of the man still.
"We just don't give a damn."
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
Inspiration: Frank Miller's Sin City
Community Member