11/06/2024. It Doesn't Matter. It's Over. Excerpt from my novel "The Reality Mechanic." Oddly appropriate?

Gordon Povich and Charlie Hartley of late had become chums, and after the therapy session they decided to stop over at the Tip A Few Bar and Grill for a couple of brews and mull over the world’s problems.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s over. The ruling class has established their twenty-first century, state-of-the-art feudal system. Nothing we can do about it now.”

Gordon laughed. “Man, you are soooooo wrong. You got it all ass-backwards, man. You see Charlie…now listen close...WE, Charlie...yeah, we...because we’re all part of it whether we care to see it or not...are simply the best organized and most industrious brutes in a world of brutes; brutes of all races, colors, and creeds, brutes all by their very nature. Would all men conquer if they could? Of course they would! Does might make right after all? Of course it does! Not in any ethical sense of right and wrong, of course...no, not a right in that sense, of course; but all that’s just part of the charade, part of this ceremony of innocence we call civilization. Ethics?” He laughed, but quickly grew serious again. “But, I’m talking...of a horrible, a horrible right!...to survive!: to more than survive, to dominate with no compromise, you hear me?...because when all is said and done, domination and control of the weak by the fit is the inevitable consequence of the struggle for survival; and, in fact, must be the final argument in a senseless, indifferent universe of brute matter. Isn’t that the dirty little secret? And isn’t that what the last twenty stony centuries have been about? And won't it continue that way into the next century?” He gulped his beer as though his certainty demanded the act. “You're Goddamn right it will, partner.” [1]

Charlie grunted and stood up. “I think I’m going home. This isn’t fun anymore.”

“Hey! How can you argue with success, man? Look out the window. This is the land of plenty. You should thank your lucky stars that some very bright very ambitious people had the balls to take what they wanted and left some for the rest of us.”

Charlie turned to Gordon and maintaining calm, said, “In the first place, Gordon, I’m not arguing with you. But in the second place...listen to me! You know what the very bright, very ambitious CEO of Cancer Incorporated is saying to all the happy cancer cells as they roll the corpse into the crematorium blast-furnace? Do you? He’s saying, ‘Hey, look around! This is the land of plenty! How can you argue with success?!’  That’s what the very ambitious CEO of Cancer Incorporated is saying as they roll the corpse into the crematorium.” 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that...that...we’re all just part of the damned carbon cycle. We’re organisms...that’s about it. I don’t believe in fairy-tales. We breed, bleed, and die like any other organism, and the nastiest, most virulent strain…ha! WE!, yeah, we, Gordon! because we’re all part of it, whether we care to see it or not…are gobbling everything up…a kind of vermin…a swollen, ugly, stinking tumor, saturating itself in the paraphernalia of power and greed…stuff stuff stuffing the sorry-assed hole in its soul like some…some adolescent bulimic until it vomits up the Goddamn apocalypse!” Charlie shook his head and turned away. “Well, that’s about it. It’s obvious.”

“Bah...it’s all about order, man. It’s all about control. Amen.” Gordon lifted his glass high.

“Yeah, well I think your order is getting a little out of control.”

[1] Gordon’s above speech is a variation of a speech by the character Edwin Fleece in my book Tuna in Pooderville: a screenplay.