FIVE - STUPID PEOPLE SMILING

“How was your day Mr. Evans?”

“Have you ever considered the amount of effort that goes into dealing with stupid people Doctor?” Robert replied.

“Well, no one is stupid… silly perhaps, even thoughtless, but not ‘stupid’ as you put it,” answered Doctor Baron.

“I would have to disagree. Thoughtlessness and silliness can be explained, ‘oops I forgot it was your birthday today’, ‘sorry I had too much to drink and made a fool of myself’. But stupidity exists everywhere… and I find it difficult to explain.” Robert leaned back into his seat and sighed; another long day in a progression of long days, which could be counted in the span of years, had finally taken its toll on him.

“You seem exhausted,” remarked Doctor Baron.

“Do you rush in the morning Doctor, you know, not have time for breakfast, shower, jump in the car and make off for your day’s work?” asked Robert.

“I always make the time in the morning Mr. Evans, after all a good start to the day is important.”

Robert leaned forward in his chair, already bored by the advice he knew he would receive.

“A good breakfast, a relaxed start, time with your family, all these things should be savored in the morning, they enrich your whole day,” Doctor Baron continued, his hands knotted together, sitting upon his protruding belly.

“I hate hearing that.”

“You hate it because it’s the truth.”

“No, I hate it because it’s bullshit. The simple reason why I am rushed in the morning is because I spend every night trying to forget what has gone on that day, to fill myself up with something that at least makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something in the day, rather than wasted it, wasted it on stupid people,” argued Robert, leaning back in his chair now, satisfied that he had won a little battle with the man before him.

“Mr. Evans, you must understand that the exhaustion you are feeling right now is a direct result of your own bad habits, not those of other people.”

“Other people, that’s an interesting concept. See, other people can ruin your day, or at the very least ruin a part of it.”

“Other people can at times cause you difficulties, but if you could see things from their point of view Mr. Evans, I’m sure that you would feel less anger,” Doctor Baron explained, his hands still sitting upon his stomach.

“Really, this morning I raced out of home with barely enough time to take a crap, shave, shower, kiss the girl goodbye, grab the garbage and start the car, and still, it was ok, a repeated rhythm to the start of the day, I was ok with it, in truth I was happy, I’d watched a movie the night before, one I didn’t have the chance to watch at the cinema and I went to bed happy, woke up happy, started the car happy, cranked the music, I was in heaven. But the Idiot-Factor ruined this promising start.”

“Really, how so Mr. Evans? Please, do explain, since you are in such a mood to deliver sermons.” Hands still entrenched in position, a smug smile formed on the doctor’s face.

“I was driving along, in fine form I might add, you know what I mean, picking the right lane, seeing the opening gaps, it was great, when I came to an intersection,” Robert continued with excitement.

“I see, acting like a hooligan, were we?”

“No, just driving, and then I come up this slight incline, then downwards towards an intersection. The lights were green, so with cars turning up ahead I decided to change lanes to continue to go straight.”

“High order skills in today’s society,” mocked Doctor Baron. Robert let the words go as he continued his story.

“But something was wrong, you know how people always crawl forward to turn right? Well, no one was doing it and since the lights had been green for a while, I assumed something must have been wrong.”

“Was there anything wrong Mr. Evans?”

“I slowed down and saw that two stupid women were crossing the road at the wrong time and had literally, single-handedly, stopped all the traffic. They had made their way to the middle and stopped the cars turning right. Then they just stood there! I was looking at them, astonished, and as I’d slowed down enough, they saw me looking at them. And you know what they did? With horns blaring and drivers cursing and me looking at them incredulously? They smiled and waved. I could only think one thing - stupid people!”

“You must understand, perhaps the lights had changed on them, perhaps they appreciate the fact that they were putting other people out. Surely their smiles were a sign of contrition on their behalf for having slowed your journey.” The doctor’s eyes now closed, taking a deep breath, the first of many as he continued to lament the shape his afternoon was taking.

“No, it wasn’t, they didn’t register a thing, the smile, the wave, it is the stupid person’s response to a situation that they haven’t fully grasped. I’m not upset at them for having stopped my journey as you put it, I’m upset because if I hadn’t assessed the risk those two girls could now be smeared across the front of my car, and despite the possible end to their lives and the absolute anguish and torment they would have caused me, they would remain oblivious to it and as such they are stupid people.”

“You blame them for the potential result of an accident that didn’t happen? Really Mr. Evans, you need to assess your own role in these situations with a little more clarity.”

“More clarity?” Robert echoed the words in surprise. “More clarity Doctor Baron? That’s what I’m telling you, I seem to be the only person walking around these days who has any sense of clarity at all. It’s like those reality TV shows.”

“Reality TV?” The doctor frowned slightly, trying to see the invisible bridge that closed the gap between these two subjects. Like all the bridges Robert built, it took a moment to take in the path that led from one end to the other.

“Oh yeah. The celebration of stupidity. The elevation of normalcy and conformity to the point of art form. The opiate of the ever-stupid masses. You want clarity you take a look at one of them, any one will do. You’ll soon see what I’m talking about.”

“And what are you talking about? I’m sorry but I’m afraid I’m still not following the train of your logic.”

“Okay. Look. In this world we don’t celebrate greatness, we don’t celebrate achievement above and beyond the ordinary, we celebrate the mundane. The average. People race home at the end of the day not to see their loved ones, not to spend time doing something worthwhile. They don’t create, they don’t innovate. After a day of working at a job they probably hate to earn money they’ll probably waste, the most useful thing they can find to do with their time is watch TV. Television, Doctor Baron, they call it the opiate of the masses and that’s about right. Not just for the addictive quality but also for the equilibrium it brings. Pitched to the lowest common denominator it brings all the brain cells down to a nice even hum. A deadpan beat, like a life support machine finally being turned off. Making us all pale ghosts sleepwalking through our lives.”

“I’m afraid I just don’t see it. I’ve seen many worthwhile programs on television, documentaries, award-winning cinema…”

“Documentaries without reference to sources, where experts whose credentials are never listed tell you what they want you to believe. And people buy the propaganda. They even have news stories now with emotion-stoking-music played in the background as slow motion replays of victims play out across the screen. It’s not news – it’s a ratings game!! People aren’t given the space to think anymore, just enough space to be stupid.”

Doctor Baron sighed. He didn’t totally disagree with Robert, indeed many of his points were couched in validity, but his views kept tending toward the universal, unable to reconcile his observations within a greater context of varied human life. During a past session he had conflated global warming with a new adhesive being used on postage stamps; the only connection of course was that both annoyed Robert, both fed his rage.

“You were going to tell me something about reality television shows,” Baron prompted.

“Oh, yeah. Tawdry things, but the thing you’ll notice with them, the people in them, they’re all ordinary people. Dull, simple, slow moving ordinary people. And these are the people we celebrate. These are the people we watch. Just because they are on TV! And they do nothing! So, people watch people doing nothing, just as they themselves do nothing. It’s all a mirror for the uninspired to observe the uninspiring.”

“Perhaps what does not appeal to you appeals to others. You can’t impose your tastes on the rest of the world.”

“It’s not that. You’re missing the point again. Alright, I’ll give you one specific example. Big Brother.”

“The reality show?”

“Reality my arse, but yes, that’s what I’m referring to. I wish I could be referring to the works of George Orwell but I doubt the stupid people out there ever make that connection. Not that there really is a connection anyway. In his totalitarian nightmare it was the ultimate horror to be observed twenty-four hours a day. In our little capitalist freak show the stupid people actually compete for the honour to have it happen to them. Only in our society can you sell nightmares.”

“Alright, I’ll let that slide for now. Why don’t you tell me what it is about this show that aggravates you so much.”

“You’re missing the point again. It isn’t aggravation, it’s… I don’t know, disappointment? Confusion? You get masses of people watching this group of dull, stupid, boring arseholes locked up in a house together and acting like baboons. And people watch it. Every night they race home to watch people as dull and as boring as themselves doing things as dull and as boring as they do. I mean why not just literally sit yourself down in front of a mirror for an hour every night. At least you might learn something from that process. But no-one looks inward, no-one wants to see themselves. Unless it’s a flickering image on a TV screen, where the dull and the ordinary are made worthwhile. Where the mundane is celebrated as celebrity. Where stupid people revel in the idea that they can be famous too. If they’re ordinary enough. If they conform enough.”

“Aren’t you being just a little melodramatic there Robert?”

“No, I’ve spent my whole life being the one judged and have found that the reason I’m a social outcast is not because I’m uncool, or because I’m ugly, it’s because I don’t conform to the stupidity of the masses, I don’t partake in that opiate.”

“Robert, you seem to have placed everyone who is not accepting of you in the same basket; don’t you think that this is just an overreaction to the lack of strong relationships in your life?”

“Hey, I have had strong and healthy relationships with people, but it is the majority, like you, who demand conformity, who judge my likes and dislikes based on the great brainwashing mechanisms of our time. The sad thing is that the majority of people are lemmings, they hear and see like we all do, but they lack the capacity to think for themselves, to take information and dismantle it, to understand it, to think about it, to be critical of it. They just lack the ability.”

“I have to disagree with you Robert, people are not lemmings, they think, they feel, they are individuals.”

“Given the choice most would change what little parts of individuality they have to become what society demands. Socialisation is what I call it and unfortunately it prevents most from moving beyond its restrictions, as the whole process destroys a person’s ability to choose; life is controlled and in the end they are content, content with checking the list off, thinking they have led a fulfilling life, without ever living one at all.”

“This sounds more like your paranoia growing Robert.”

“The true tragedy of all of this is that when one of the smiling stupid people see me, they know I don’t fit in, not unlike you Doc. They look at me and they think that I’m the stupid one. They think because I choose, because I have made the choice, to live my life as I choose, that I am stupid. They look down on me as I look down on them. But what’s one grain of sand against the wave, huh?”

“No one can be an island unto themselves. We are all just drops in the ocean.”

“Yeah, the great Homo sapiens. What a species! You know something Doc, I sometimes wish I could kill the world. You know that? I sometimes feel such rage, such white hot crazy rage about this place, this ridiculous hypocritical world of violence, stupidity and despair that I truly, truly wish I could turn that rage into a fire, a purifying flame that would sweep out from within me and scour all the rampant stupidity off the face of this globe forever.”

There was a pause and Robert found himself looking into the suddenly alert eyes of Doctor Baron.

“What did you say?” the doctor whispered quietly.

“Hey, don’t take it the wrong way,” Robert smiled nervously, “all I’m saying is…”

“Let me ask you a question,” the doctor interrupted. “What if, hypothetically, there was a weapon.”

“Weapons,” Robert scoffed, “the paranoid creations of a hopelessly suicidal race. Did you know the children of Hiroshima are still born with abnormalities? Even after all these years…”

“What if there were a weapon,” Doctor Baron continued unperturbed. “A military device. An ultimate doomsday bomb. A death ray. Whatever. A weapon designed to destroy the human race. Nothing else. Not the trees, not the cats or the dogs or any other living things. Just humans. Just people.”

“It sounds like a most fitting invention for all the stupid people, and just the sort of thing they’d go and build.”

“Yes. Indeed. But every weapon needs ammunition, doesn’t it? Every bomb needs its combustion. If you can’t split the atom then what’s it all for? And what if this bomb, this ray, this device, has everything it needs except the gunpowder? Except the power source…”

“I’m sorry Doc, I just don’t see where you’re going with this.”

“What if you could be the trigger, Robert. What if your rage, your anger, your frustration… what if the white hot power of your emotions is all that it needs to end… everything? What if all you had to do was sit in a chair, wire yourself in and activate a mechanism… to end it all forever. What if you could? And if you could… would you do it?”

“Would I do it?” Robert mused on the question for a moment. “This is a trick question, isn’t it? You want me to say no, no, never, I could never dream of such a thing. Well buckle up Doc, because the truth is much scarier than that. The truth is, I would do it. If I could. All the people who call you during dinner to try to sell you on some scam, all the people who take up two seats to themselves on a crowded train, all the people who drive slow in the fast lane, all the old ladies who pay for their groceries in five cent coins while a crowd builds up behind them, all the bastard bureaucrats who make you line up for an hour only to tell you they can’t help because you’ve been given the wrong bloody form. All the soap operas. All the boy bands. All the teen idols. All the religious nuts peddling their beliefs door-to-door. All the companies that ruin our environment for profit. All the fast-food outlets. All the parking inspectors. All the lying politicians who argue about nothing and do nothing while the world burns around us. All the people who ride their pushbikes on the roads during peak hour. All the contestants on every reality TV show ever made. All the goddamn stupid smiling people that make this world such a godawful place to be in. If I could, I would. I’d end it in a heartbeat. If I had the power then I’d use it. I’d kill the world.”

Robert was breathing heavily with the emotion of his outburst. There was silence for a moment. Doctor Baron nodded to himself, as though trying to decide on something. He nodded again then opened his desk drawer and took a small white card out of it. He held it in his hand for moment, a last uncertainty, then he handed it to his patient. Robert stared at the card for a moment, confusion writ large upon his face, then his eyes widened in sudden realisation and horror.

“You can’t be serious,” he stammered. “You mean to tell me…”

“They knew what they needed. They gave me the specifications, asked me to keep an eye out.”

“You can’t be serious,” Robert whispered. “Nobody could actually be that stupid… Could they?”

“I thought you’d already reached the conclusion that they could Robert. I can’t help you now, not anymore. You know what you are and I know what you hold inside of you. How you use that rage is up to you. But if I were you, I’d at least give them a call. They’ll make it worth your while.”

Robert’s mouth hung open for a moment, then he simply hung his head in defeat. He placed the white card in his pocket and rose from his chair.

“Stupid,” he muttered beneath his breath. “Stupid stupid stupid.” Then he turned and left, closing the door behind him.

Walking on into the darkness of the stupid world.