The Lepidopterist
So to day I met a girl She recited poetry at me. It made me realize that I hadn't written anything in a while. So, uh, here goes, I guess.
I sit on the fire escape, and eat strawberries while downtown burns. The riots have been raging for nearly three months, and noone seems to be sure what set them off. I've heard the gossip of course. Some politician kicked a homeless child of ethnic descent. Some sort of flash mob prank blossomed into arson and violence. Jupiter was in the fifth house of some forgotten constellation with no name. The Antichrist did it. Jews did it. White Supremacists did it.
I did it.
Noone knows that, of course. But it's true. I made them start it. I made those kids fight with the police officer. I made him shoot one in cold blood. I made the two hundred or so witnesses react with more anger than fear. Me.
I absentmindedly gnaw on one of the berries. a little pulp and juice dribbles off my chin, falls between my legs, and drips into the alley below. I listen to the sound of gunfire and sirens.
See, people are easy. You don't even need to pull the strings hard. And the strings are everywhere. You've heard the thing about the butterfly in China, right? All you have to know is which butterfly to frighten, and you can wipe out a city halfway around the globe. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Butterflies rarely effect anything, practically speaking.
My phone rings. Caleb again. He's worried about me. He lives out in the burbs. He can see the smoke. Everyone can see the smoke. They all think the city is lost. I tell him it is. I tell him it was always lost. He laughs, a sad little worried laugh. He asks me to promise that I'll call him to give him 'status updates'. I tell him I love him, and that I'll see him this weekend.
What I am now, I call myself a lepidopterist. If I get much better at this, I'll call myself The Lepidopterist. People may well refer to me as a super-villain. Perhaps a hero will arise to stop me. Then I'll seduce him, and just as we'd be about to consummate our new-found love, a car thrown by a freak accident across town will smash through his bedroom wall, and kill him on impact.
More likely, noone will notice the girl in the Frankenstein-style labcoat with the Butterfly net, because she couldn't possibly be doing all these things, could she? Clearly she's just lost her mind as a result of all the terrible things happening.
I'm out of strawberries now. I lick the juice from my fingers, wipe my chin, and sit in the cool evening breeze.
That's about all I'm capable of right now, and I don't even especially like it. I'm fucking exhausted
I sit on the fire escape, and eat strawberries while downtown burns. The riots have been raging for nearly three months, and noone seems to be sure what set them off. I've heard the gossip of course. Some politician kicked a homeless child of ethnic descent. Some sort of flash mob prank blossomed into arson and violence. Jupiter was in the fifth house of some forgotten constellation with no name. The Antichrist did it. Jews did it. White Supremacists did it.
I did it.
Noone knows that, of course. But it's true. I made them start it. I made those kids fight with the police officer. I made him shoot one in cold blood. I made the two hundred or so witnesses react with more anger than fear. Me.
I absentmindedly gnaw on one of the berries. a little pulp and juice dribbles off my chin, falls between my legs, and drips into the alley below. I listen to the sound of gunfire and sirens.
See, people are easy. You don't even need to pull the strings hard. And the strings are everywhere. You've heard the thing about the butterfly in China, right? All you have to know is which butterfly to frighten, and you can wipe out a city halfway around the globe. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Butterflies rarely effect anything, practically speaking.
My phone rings. Caleb again. He's worried about me. He lives out in the burbs. He can see the smoke. Everyone can see the smoke. They all think the city is lost. I tell him it is. I tell him it was always lost. He laughs, a sad little worried laugh. He asks me to promise that I'll call him to give him 'status updates'. I tell him I love him, and that I'll see him this weekend.
What I am now, I call myself a lepidopterist. If I get much better at this, I'll call myself The Lepidopterist. People may well refer to me as a super-villain. Perhaps a hero will arise to stop me. Then I'll seduce him, and just as we'd be about to consummate our new-found love, a car thrown by a freak accident across town will smash through his bedroom wall, and kill him on impact.
More likely, noone will notice the girl in the Frankenstein-style labcoat with the Butterfly net, because she couldn't possibly be doing all these things, could she? Clearly she's just lost her mind as a result of all the terrible things happening.
I'm out of strawberries now. I lick the juice from my fingers, wipe my chin, and sit in the cool evening breeze.
That's about all I'm capable of right now, and I don't even especially like it. I'm fucking exhausted