“I can share this cocktail with you. It's strong, though,” I replied.
“Oh, really? That’s awesome,” he said in an astonishing way like no one proposed him a drink in his life. I felt so relaxed by his spontaneous reactions. It was nothing calculated as the average person tends to lash out at everything for no apparent reason. I felt happy for a moment, and I started talking with him in the same style. Nothing to worry about. He will not judge me, and even if he does, he can’t affect me in any aspect of my life. Long live the average person!
“Alright, here you go. Go slow…” he drank it like it was a shot, and I thought we’re going to need a lot more alcohol.
I signaled an everyday-looking, middle-aged woman serving as one of the flight attendants. I’m not saying an ugly one, but the ones they send to economy class, the ones that don’t have any connections to move up in their careers due to lack of luck. No one gets to choose their parents and the DNA they inherit. I asked her very politely, with just a touch of charm, to bring us five, small, mini-bottles of each brand of alcohol. She did in less than a minute. She even offered me an extra one from first class. I gave her a nice smile and a sophisticated thank you. She is a solid one.
I started mixing a high-end Zambrito for my new friend and listening to his stories about selling leather belts. That was his main job, although not his only one. He is also doing the night shift in fast foods, cleaning the ones that can’t afford AI humbots. By doing that, he could keep financing his belt business somehow.
I just stay there listening with my Zambrito in my hand. I’m finding this guy fascinating. He asked me about my work, and I said I’m a commander in the army. He told me that his cousin used to be in the army too, a sergeant. I asked why “used to be” and not still was. “Did they kick him out or something?”
He said they did after they realized that he faked his diploma to get into the army and that he never finished any school since his father was an alcoholic. Because of that, the kid had to leave the school to work and help his family at an early age. A sad story, but then I couldn’t resist throwing a bad joke on top of it.
“Did he start a belt business, too?” I asked, laughing. I thought that was the best joke I ever made. My new friend, however, took it very badly, and he stopped talking to me. I realized in the end, the average person has a heart too.
Oina sent us two cars, Yolp, the Second Citizen, had left already in the first one. Stressed and confused, he wanted to talk to Kadar as soon as possible. Probably, he is starting to panic, and that’s very normal due to the gigantic and historical meeting in which he will be assisting.
I went to the second car and asked the driver to go slowly. I’d keep her waiting a little bit, as I needed this small trip to see people in the street walking and doing their daily activities. That makes me feel good, especially when in the League. It feels just right as it is a very homogenized society. They look similar, and they look happy somehow. They look like true citizens –unlike the Amians.
Amians look like a boat just dropped them off on the coast before it sunk. They looked stranded with no way back and seem like they feel they are forced to stay and to struggle against one another, as every person hates the other simply because they don’t look the same. I never blamed them for their racist behavior, as it is just human nature as it should be. “Let’s leave the virtues for the philosophers,” said the soldier.
I finally arrived at the Royal Hotel, the top-floor suite. I opened the door, and she was there on the balcony, like a standing phoenix, like a diamond, like a ballistic missile. Oina…
I really think that we should stop taking ourselves so seriously, and by “we,” I mean Homo sapiens. Because right after good sex mixed with some high-end drugs, for a moment, everything is crystal clear. Suddenly, in a flash, the truth appears briefly. In that brief window of time, we realize that there is no good or bad, no saving the planet or the species, no virtues, no philosophical thoughts or existential crises – there is just nothing worth it in the end. The basis of our primal instinct is to reproduce and to be entertained. All our body and mind are built only to self-duplicate like a virus, and in-between that, to be entertained. We are so much into that, as they are the rarest activities that make us feel that time is on hold.
After that small “window of truth,” as I call it, everything returns to normal as the Little Guy in my head wakes up and starts telling me his stories, his shames, complexes, and his plans and others nonsense that we describe as life. Nature plays her movie of the special one, as the Little Guy keeps reminding me how so unique I am to keep me alive. He is afraid that I may commit suicide if I find out that life is only about reproducing and goofing around.
That awareness is without a doubt a mistake in our evolution. Nature kept arming the human’s brain to confront all sorts of dangers until he became too conscious, to the
