There was a lot of Hysteria in the air. People were waving their arms and pointing their fingers. Everyone had gathered to scream and yell. The police had come. The roar against this one man was now insanely loud. The hysteria was palpable in the July heat.

Sir, it seems apparent that all of your neighbors want you to leave.

Not all of the neighbors.

It’s not all of the neighbors?

No. It’s not 100%. In fact it’s genuinely not even close.

Do you mean that all of the neighbors…wait, something is going wrong with my brain. I walked into this melee and all I heard was universal screaming against this man.

Yeah, that’s the point. The entire gang was in agreement. You were just hear to the gang. You weren’t listening to the neighbors. The neighbors are quiet people.

So what do we do now?

Can I make a suggestion?

There was a moment of confusion. Neither the police nor the gang members knew what to do. He was trying to communicate again. They did not want to let him communicate or even agree that he could communicate. That was just not his class. He was an untouchable. He was a non person. He was our toy.

But then there was one voice, not high shrill piercing voices, but quiet rough voices from people who have a lot of free time on their hands. They said yes, you could speak. Like the president of the country promised, a man can do what he wants. If he wants to speak, let him speak.

Ok. Speak.

Can I have a piece of paper? And a pen. I just want to talk about this situation really quickly and I think I can help us all focus on the issue if I give you a visual reference of the argument. Not the details of who did what and why and when, just the pure simple logistics of the moment.

Now, can everyone agree that this whole rigmarole began with these three people?

There is a general murmur of agreement from everybody. But then suddenly, the black chicken cried out louder and all the other voices.

He started everything. He changed everything and he made us do what we had to do to fight him. This is our home and we have a right to live how we want to live. He is not of our people. He is the enemy. He is a criminal. He should be put in prison.

Here the crowd really wanted to go into a friend’s again and there were rumbles and grumbles and a few shots of she’s right and let’s just kill him and things like this. But then he quietly raised his hands and made a motion for silence from the crowd.

We’re going to do this in an orderly fashion, okay. But, what is said, is said. You all heard her. We can talk about my actions in a moment but for now, let’s look at this picture again. This guy here on the left is me and these two people on the right say that I instigated everything that has happened. This is what she has said, do you all agree?

Again the crowd agreed but not quite as vociferously. There is a gigantic difference between hearing a truth that requires you to be angry and burst into action and the truth that requires you to calm down and listen further.

So, everyone here is in clear agreement that I am the instigator of the action?

This time, it was not so much of a crowd talking but more individual voices. Generally the vote was that he was the instigator, there were a few people that talked about quality of life or who actually began the aggression but the democratic vote was that if she wanted to call him the instigator and he didn’t mind it one bit, there was no reason not to agree that he was in fact the instigator.

Good. Now, what did they do as a result of my instigation?

Here, there was actually a pretty honest list that came to light. There was all of that calling of the police and sending Quasimodo around town to tell everybody all of the dirty horrible secrets about him. 

That’s right. And there was the extra car driving and the extra running of gasoline powered motors. There was the Nazi talk and there was the invitation to former neighbors who now dwelt in town to come here and peck at me or use me as a real estate tool. And in doing so, you all have fucked up my life as bad as anyone has ever done to me, standard Russian disturb and dominate. And this week, I got the worst bit of covid I’ve ever experienced. And of course, in two years, they continued to back that God forsake in car up directly in front of my property and belch auto emissions from their tail pipes into my kitchen, my house, my land and into the sky so that everybody could understand the level of their seriousness and not wanting to be disturbed. Of everything, all of the disturbance, just to illustrate their own belief that they have a right to live undisturbed. Yes?

This was pretty much a quiet 100%.

They did it to make money. 

This was a shout from the crowds.

Okay. You can’t tear everything down and leave everybody running naked and bombed like they do in Ukraine. That’s not so nice. But if you have agreed to let me speak, I can perhaps offer some healthy alternatives that might make everyone a little happier. Look, I offered them right from the bigging that if they would do me this one favor of discipling their car use, I would be obligated to be a very good friend to them. I told them that I could see that they had a single daughter and a grandson and that perhaps the daughter might help me with the house, I could pay her some money and maybe I could talk to the grandchild and teach him some English or something like that. I didn’t mention that we could also work on their budget and lifestyle to see if we couldn’t find any other alternatives.

There were more murmers. They had all seen the films.

Do you want us to be vegan?

And here, our hero seemed to overload for a moment. How many words of explanation have already been written on the subject? How loud has the voice had to be to be heard? How homicidally insane were they to have chosen to ignore this? All he could do was rub his eyes for a really long time and then he just quietly nodded his head.

I’d be happy to make suggestions for you. Free of charge. Simply you practicing this will be payment enough for me. It might be easier as you transition to slightly less polluting people. You can call me a vegan Nazi if you want but I was just making quiet suggestions. I think if you looked at this through my eyes, all of this becomes a lot easier.