Animal Theater

For the Future

The first time I met Tommy I was pig drunk and looking for a place to lie down. I was homeless in those days and I wasn't allowed to sleep on my sister's couch if I'd been drinking. She had a little boy, Marc, eight years old, and she didn't want him growing up around drunks like we did. Tommy was sitting on a park bench in his usual getup, a candy-apple red suit and a yellow bowtie. This suit and his blue bowler hat made him look like a cartoon character on a poorly animated kid's show. He was an exceptionally pale man, short, and his age was hard to place. He could've been 45 or 70.

Even in Prospect Park he stood out, not that I took great interest or anything. I sat next to him and groaned loudly, hoping he would get nervous about me and leave and I could stretch out on the bench. Tommy didn't go anywhere, he just looked at me and smiled. "What happened to your face?" He asked.

I looked around to see if there was another bench I could sit on, but they were all occupied. I frowned at Tommy. "Ever heard of white phosphorous? It burns on contact. The dog-fuck traitors dropped it on my unit while we were sleeping, so yeah."

"Is that why you drink?"

"Nah," I said, "I drink 'cause people are nosy and I have to do something to keep myself from killing them with my bare hands." I coughed in his direction without covering my mouth. He just kept smiling.

"If you could do anything in the world, what would you do?" Tommy asked.

"I'd lie down on this bench and sleep for a coupla hours." I said.

"Oh, then I'm in your way aren't I?" He stood up. "What's your name, if you don't mind the question."

"Matthew," I said.

"I'm Tommy." He stuck his hand out and I shook it.

I was going to leave it at that, but he looked so strange I had to indulge my curiosity. "Well Tommy, if you could do anything in the world, what would you do?"

"I'm doing it." He said. He fumbled around in his pocket and produced a square card. On one side was an image of a seated man on fire, and on the other were the words: death is the only real change in the world.

I had to laugh. "I'm working on it pal."

"I can tell, that's why I gave you the card," he said. "The image is a pick link to some information about our society. I hope you'll be sympathetic to our mission."

"Hmm, I dunno but I like your hat." I said. He tipped his blue bowler to me and ambled on down the path. I put my head down.

The whole encounter was so strange that I might've thought I'd imagined it if it weren't for the card. I didn't think about Tommy again until I was getting my disability credits at the VA office on Bryant. I got my small-screen out to get the bump, and the square card was stuck to the back. I laughed again at the phrase 'death is the only real change in the world,' and thought about the pale man in his colorful suit.

After I got the bump I sat on the low wall in front of the office and scanned the image. It opened a pick screen full of white text on a black background. It read:

Every year many thousands of men and women commit suicide. For whatever their individual reasons, they decide that they cannot continue to exist. This decision comes both from a self-hatred and a hatred of the world. The desire to snuff out the self is just another form of the desire to snuff out the world. The destructive impulse is directed inward and outward at once.

What if the world was different? What if we were different? Change is possible in the world and in ourselves, the only question is, how far are we willing to go to achieve it?