Work Text:
The only imperfection in my perfect world were the people around me.
I was raised in a mental ward. Clean. Free of disease, of blood, of every imprefection mankind knows.
Full of psychotic monsters that could rip their hair out, scream, and thrash like madmen, before falling silent as the sedatives entered their bloodstream for the third time that week.
For my entire life, I’d been convinced I wasn’t one of them. I was never the crazy one.
I was the one with the ideas. The ideas they wanted gone from this earth.
Apparently, I was a sociopath.
ASPD, they called it. Really, nothing but some stupid acronym. Didn’t matter in the long run.
The only thing that mattered was that I had an idea of the perfect world. A simple solution to everything. Poverty, famine, familial dysfunction. I knew it all. There was just one simple solution to everything.
When I first figured it out, I was astonished as to how simple it was. But when I presented my discoveries, people thought I was joking- mocking the Regimes of the past. When they realized that I, in fact, wasn’t joking, they sent me here. To a mental ward. At the ripe old age of 7.
I spent the rest of my childhood and teenage years in that ward, and even now, when I’m older and even more wise than ever before.
They say they’ll never let me out.
But one day they did. Perhaps it was fate tempting me. Perhaps it was a test. Perhaps.. Perhaps it was just luck. But whatever it was, they say it was “a miscalculation.”
I thought it was a gift.
You see, now I was finally free. To do things my way, to make this world the utopia that I never had growing up. I never wanted to see imperfection ever again, and I was convinced the people around me were just greasy filth.
Except for one. This boy I knew named Axel. He’d come into the ward about a few weeks after my 10th birthday. Apparently his father died and his mother didn’t know how to “get him to cope,” or whatever that’s supposed to mean. He was perfection. He didn’t cry and whine like a baby, or throw aggressive tantrums and mutter murderously under his breath. He just sat there with a sulking expression on his face all day.
And that face.. I’ll remember forever.
He was a troubled boy, no doubt- full of insecurity, fear, and instability in his family life, but he had a kind heart. Even the staff adored him.
Those staff were the bane of my existence, and the first on my list of people to get rid of to create my utopia. The stupid and the mentally ill could come later- but I needed to get my suppressors out of this world before I could continue.
With other children, usually terrified little folk that came in having lost a father or mother, or suffered a little too hard a beating, the staff treated them like little saints. The director, her name was Marge (typical), had a vase full of chocolate and gummy candy for them. But with me, their tone was harsh and cold. They barely even gave me room to speak, and when they did, said I was having an “episode,” or something along those lines.
They acted as if I wanted to hurt people for sake of hurting people. That I was just some remorseless murderer and that no more thought should be said about it.
No. I had a vision.
But ignore all that. I must have gotten sidetracked again. It’s hard not to when you sit in such a comfy armchair and tell the story of your life to individuals that would care enough to read.
I was always a fan of Karl Marx. Marxism. They like to say communism. But I wasn’t a fan of the idea that everyone deserved everything. In my world, everyone was equal as long as they were good enough. Perhaps that’s a belief I acquired along the way, and perhaps it wasn’t.
Anyway, my personal belief is that people are disposable. What’s the point of birth and death if not to dispose of people? Did our creator really care enough about every single one of us to individually put us on this wretched planet? No, I don’t believe so.
That’s why life has no significance to me. Because it’s so easily taken.
Have you ever seen someone with cancer try to fight for their right to live? I’m not talking about medicine, my friend, I’m talking about trying to fight the disease. But they don’t. Someone else must do it for them.
If you’re not willing to fight for something you claim you want that badly… do you even want it at all?
So now comes my own manifesto. My words. My voice.
I’ve built multiple models of a perfect city. A small, enclosed space where only the best of the best reside. The smart ones with the capability to invent and to surpass the “laws” of physics and biology. On the outside, live all the others. Awaiting their execution for not meeting the Standard.
When this is first put in place, I won’t be one to be too harsh on them. After all, I believe I’d be a benevolent and kind ruler.
You just can’t know too much. How am I to design a perfect utopia around… people who know too much of the struggles this world faces? My first target was the mental hospital.
Another theory of mine was that the patients were more sane than the doctors and nurses there. They followed such a strict routine, worked such long hours and always had a peculiar, stoic expression across their faces. They definitely knew too much.
I placed an X across the map on my table, right where the ward was.
And it’s just a few patients. Ending them wouldn’t hurt anybody, would it? Yeah. Not really.
I place another X over the patient ward.
Nearby was a hospital. Sick people disgust me. They’re all ridden of disease and hardship. They’re all either old hags or flu-ridden children. X
A bank. Those people know too much about financial struggle for comfort. I can’t have people in my utopia who know of the struggles of society. What am I? A charity? No. X.
And so I went, crossing out every institution in this wretched city. Banks. Restaurants. Hospitals. Shopping malls. Grocery stores. Taxi drivers. They all knew of hardship. Hardship I know damn well will destroy my utopia.
And I kept crossing out. Until there were only apartment buildings and homes left. I guess there will be no jobs in my utopia. That’s alright though. I can provide them with all they need.
But this whole “apartment” thing… it’s almost the psych ward all over again, just without the doctors. Tiny, cramped homes… stacked on multiple floors, with doors that all open to a hallway with stairs that were the escape into freedom. No. Everyone in my utopia must have a home.
But there’s not enough space for everyone left to have a home. The jobless population was quite high.
My first thought was to get more land, but that meant eradicating the people outside my perfect city. And I didn’t want to kill more people than was absolutely necessary. After all- I’m not like them. I’m better.
But then, a realization came to me. I could build as many perfect, uniform houses as possible… and put the perfect people in them, and I’d have a perfect world.
Hm. Strange.
What should the new standard be? Intelligence. Yes.. intelligence. I only want the smartest people in my world. I’ll check people’s IQ. Anyone below 150 shouldn’t be allowed in.
I search the database on my computer. Nobody who works. IQ above 150.
Search results (1)
Bizarre. So, who would be the perfect person in my perfect world?
Axel Semoustage- 32 years old. Unemployed. IQ: 159.
I checked the picture. It can’t be the Axel, can it?
It was. Dark brown hair, crystal blue eyes. His hair was messy, even in the government photo- and he had a tired, empty expression on his face.
This was the kind of person I wanted to avoid.
No. No.
No…
My plans… my work… my time.
Everything I put into this damned utopia…
I… I hate the truth. I hate it. I hate it with all my heart. I hate it so so so much.
It hurts to breathe.
It hurts.
My magnum opus…
The one thing that brought me joy.
Damn this world! Damn it with all the damns I can give! Why must people be so foolish, so different, so strange and detached and bizarre and… why are people so horrid.
I hate the people around me. They’re all mindless imbeciles who only know how to run their mouths.
They’re only mindless imbeciles who know how to run their mouths.
I closed my notebook and sat for a moment, wondering where I went wrong. I stared at the map full of ugly red scratches.
Maybe this plan was what I wanted all along.
To be left alone with the one person I wanted to see. To be left alone in an empty city, despite the ever-present blood on my hands.
But I’m not an aspiring murderer. Murder is bad. Murder is evil. I don’t believe I’m doing something bad by taking something from someone that they didn’t want in the first place.I think I’m the correct one. They’re wrong.
And then my caregiver came in, and seeing my tears, she wiped them away with her little handkerchief.
“There, there,” she murmured, before reaching into her pocket and grabbing a cerulean, bulbous pill. “Take your medicine and be off to sleep.”
I place the pill in my mouth and swallow it wordlessly. Minutes later, as I feel the effects of the drug seeping to my head, I relax, and all the Xs and numbers fade away.
Maybe it’s my world that will end up crumbling, not theirs. But they still deserve it.