The Squares Will Hang You Up Sooner or Later
“The arc of the universe bends towards mediocrity!” proclaims Martin Luther King V with a bitter smile, banging his fist on the bar as he slurps the dregs of his fifth bowl of pitot. I finish my second bowl and motion to the waiter for another round. My flight leaves in 2 hours. I still have a little time.
It’s sometime in November, 2085. We’re sitting in the European quarter of Ougadougou, down the street from where Martin V omnicasts his talk show, “Still Vibin’”. Last week, it became the number one most watched programme on Earth. But Martin V is tense and tightly wound, shifting about in his seat and compulsively cracking his neck, frantically searching the room with dilated, sleepless eyes, worried that someone might recognize him and give him shit. He’s aged a lot since I saw him eight years ago. The surgery and pills have kept his handsome face free of wrinkles, but you can always see it in the eyes. They are the eyes of an old, old man, bloodshot and jaundiced.
“Kelis is pregnant again,” Martin continues. Kelis is Martin’s middle wife, the youngest of the three, and I can tell he’s not pleased. “20 children - can you imagine? It’s too much responsibility, Mike.” I sip my pitot and nod. We both know I can’t offer any advice. I’m a frontiersman after all, a man of no family and no honor. In fact, Martin is taking a huge risk by just being seen in my company, so I take the confidence of his domestic worries as an even greater compliment. But there’s something else on his mind. A deeper, more haunting thought-net he was caught up in. I figured I knew what it was. It was something me and Martin V used to refer to back in school as “THE problem”.
Martin turned to me and whispered, “Perfect love could save the world, Mike, if it weren’t for one thing.”
“And what is that one thing, Martin V?”
“Human love.”
“Human love? What do you mean?”
Martin sighed, “Didn’t the plantation owner of Old America love his own children even as he whipped and raped his slaves? Didn’t Hitler love Ava Braun? Human love is the one true enemy of Perfect love, because it is irrational, selective, jealous, possessive, and small-minded.”
I nodded quietly, and Martin V stood up and tossed a 20 spot on the counter. He continued, “But you know if I had taken the other route and become a master of Perfect Love, Mike, you better believe they would have hung me up a long fucking time ago.”
Martin V patted me on the back and stumbled out the door, bearing the weight of the world on his hulking, masculine frame. I finished up the last of my pitot, paid the tab, and headed out for my transport to Alpine 5, Martian Satellite. A few minutes later I was buckled into my seat. The thrusters fired and my skinflesh lurched, and I felt the familiar, cool thrill of space travel shoot up my spine. As I watched the Earth recede out the aft window I was overcome with a incredible sense of freedom. I was lonely, cold, and a little sad. But free…
