“But maybe, ” said the guru in the festival shirt, “the real reason you’re not happy is that deep down you don’t want to be. “
Several of us cried out softly and Trina said “Hey listen pal…”. In the background, whatever DJ Tricky Gnosis was playing on the dance for had transitioned to a slow intense breakdown with bass drums thumping just like a heartbeat.
“No, hear me out. ” said the guru as he absently wiped the sweat from his hairy knuckles off onto his festival shirt. “Maybe the idea of happiness scares the fuck out of you because deep down you think that is when reality will GET you. That it’s just waiting for you to think you’re happy and drop your guard so it can truly fuck you over and the only way to stop that from happening is to constantly sabotage anything that looks like it might lead to true happiness. ”
Someone…. maybe Keith… snorted in derision. Samantha rolled her eyes. Tub shook his head in disbelief.
But nobody stopped listening. Nobody moved away.
“Look, I can prove it. ” said the guru after a monster pull of his White Claw, “Everybody imagine a very happy person. Smiling from ear to ear, clearly loving life. ”
“Now tell me…. what do you think of this person? Don’t think about it, just spit out the first thing that comes to mind. ” said the guru.
“What’s wrong with them?” said Tub.
“Yeah, are they like…. retarded, or something?” said what’s her name.. Jesse’s new foreign exchange student girlfriend. (Lamdi? Lachmi? Something like that. )
“Yeah, or crazy. ” said Keith. Everybody laughed.
“Nah, that dude is obviously higher than a satellite, man. ” said Amahl. Everybody laughed even harder at that.
“Right. ” said the guru.” All plausible theories. But note that the one thing none of you thought of was that he was happy for a perfectly good reason. Like he was about to see his favorite person in the world, or he just got really good news. ”
“Yeah well…. fuck that. ” said Keith softly but clearly.
“My point exactly, Keith. ” said the guru. “all of you found the very idea of this completely theoretical person being genuinely happy so intolerably painful that you had to immediately convince yourself that it was fake. He’s not REALLY happy, it’s just retardation, or insanity, or drugs…. anything but actual, real, sincere happiness. ”
No wonder none of you are happy when you don’t even believe in happiness. ”
The guru then sat back in the beat up old La-Z-Boy and murdered the rest of his White Claw with one last savage gulp.
Once he got his breath back, he said “I look around and it seems like everyone’s fucking miserable. What the hell went wrong? How did we as a people fuck up so badly that not even young people are happy any more?”
“Yeah but…. ” said Yolanda. Yes, Yolanda. Turns out she CAN talk. “… but are we really all that miserable? Or are we just copying what everyone else is doing? ”
“Yeah! ” said Keith. “Maybe we’re all just afraid to show it when we’re happy because we know everyone will make fun of us and put us down. ”
“Maybe we pretend to be miserable, ” said Yolanda, ” because we want people to think we are normal”.
“Well ain’t that fucked up.” said Tub, and everyone nodded.
“And on that happy note, I’m gonna go find me another Claw. ” said the guru we all assumed had come with someone else.
After that, we all kind of drifted away.
More after the break.
Steam rose in big puffy bursts like the hot fetid breath of some enormous underground beast outside Interrogation Room C at the MVPD.
“Well, here we are again, old friend. ” said the Jack O’Lantern, aka Fennis “Eely” McGraw. “The boys from the Box[1] are on their way to give me another six glorious months of luxurious living on the State’s dime in one of their snug and secure little cells and I get to be safe from the stress and demands of reality until I get bored, break out, kill a bunch of people, and get caught and start the whole thing over again. ”
He sighed contently. “What can I say? The system works. ”
With a flash of motion far too fast for the human eye to follow, Night Guardian had darted across the room and Jack O’ Lantern was on the ground gasping for air and whimpering in pain and shock.
“You’re gonna pay… my lawyer… ” Jack managed to choke out. ”
“…will do absolutely nothing because the blow I just delivered leaves no marks whatsoever. No bruise, no welt, nothing that would show up on an X-ray. As far as forensic medicine is concerned, it never happened. That’s why the men who taught it to me called it the ‘ghost punch’. Impressive. isn’t it? ” said the Night Guardian.
Jack made some strangled, wet noises.
“I’ll take that as a yes. One more thing you need to know : the solar plexus is not the only place I can land it. The others hurt a hell of a lot more. Got it?”
Jack nodded dumbly.
“Now listen very closely to what I am about to say, Fennis : if I ever seen you again, I will kill you. No trial. No jury. No hotshot lawyer looking to prove himself. No corrupt and lazy judge more interested in what’s for dinner that the case he’s presiding over. No cops that conveniently become really clumsy when handling evidence. There will be no force on God’s green Earth that can save you. I see you outside the Box, and you die. Do you understand me?” said the Night Guardian.
Jack nodded like Jack in the Box with a worn out spring.
“But…. but you’re one of the… ” stammered Jack in a small meek voice.
“One of the good guys?” said Night Guardian. “Is that what you were going to say? Correction : I was one of the good guys. But you beat that out of me, Jack. It took you a while, but you did it. By constantly exploiting my mercy, my compassion, my patience, and my trust, you murdered all of them just like all the rest of your victims and now all that I have left is my determination to make sure you never hurt anyone ever again.”
“So are you going to….. k-k-kill me?” Jack asked in a voice trembling with fear.
The Night Guardian smiled a smile black enough to make the Devil flinch.
“No, Fenny. That would be far too kind. Instead, I want to see you try to survive in a world where you actually have to behave yourself. Where you know you will never know freedom again because escape is suicide and all it would accomplish is to make me a very happy man when I murder you. Where you are treated just like any other prisoner because I’ve let the residents of the Box know that whoever kills the Jack o’ Lantern will have a million dollars waiting for them, tax free, when they get out. Where you actually have to suffer the consequences of your actions and all that vaunted criminal genius can do you absolutely no good. I’m going to take all the fun out of your life, Fen, and then I am going to make sure you live a long, long time. ”
The outer door banged open and a dozen very serious looking prison guards filed ino the room and surrounded Jack.
“But…. but…. that’s monstrous!” gibbered Jack.
“I learned from the best. Take him away. I’m done with him now. ”
And as the guards dragged a whimpering, wailing, pathetic little wretch of a man in a cut-rate Halloween costume out of the room, for the first time in a very long time, the Night Guardian smiled.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.