The Best of All Possible Worlds

The Best of All Possible Worlds

Posted by A Great Liar

 “All that mendacity!” I exclaimed. “I am so sick and tired of it. Just about everywhere you go in this god forsaken town, two things you will always encounter; people and women.”

“People and women!” She asked. “What’s the difference?”

“Well, as people they represent a form of nuisance minus the sex appeal, so they can always be avoided without any significant degree of self application. But as women, hmmmm, you might forgive most of them for their human frivolities simply because they are beautiful.” Paused. “Well, to come to think of it, you might forgive just about anyone willing to share a night or two with you.”

“A night or two you say! Since when were you a one night stander, Lev?” She looked at me, amused. “I always took you for a dreamy type, a little shy boy with a streak for poetry and heartbreaks. If I count down the number of women you almost netted, and I do mean almost, you made quiet a career out of heartbreaks.”

“That’s so nice of you to say.” I winced. “Sometimes I just wish I could shoot myself.”

“And go straight to hell?” She chuckled.

“Yes.” I replied. “Can’t be as bad as they say. After all, we do live in a country that suffers from major social calamities. Starvation, poor sanitation facilities, badly constructed roads, cops who act like blackguards most of the time, clergymen who never tire out of telling us how irredeemably sinful we have become, and national leaders who make the Sicilian Mafia look like Santa Claus. In short, the citizens of this country die more deaths than one. I mean, isn’t that what being in hell is all about, dying without an end.”

“Sometimes you contradict yourself. I mean, here you are, talking like an infidel with a beard on your face.”

“Beards are overrated, Ammo.” I replied. “How many times have I told you that? Besides, in my case, it is simply an attempt to nullify this modern cliché, you know … all that stuff about beards being an emblem of piety and religion. I call it my own little statement against the epidemic of stereotyping so common in our society.”

“What’s the point?” She asked.

“The point is … I mean, simply because someone has a beard doesn’t mean he has no right to be damned.”

“You think you are damned?” She asked.

“Absolutely.” I replied. “This beard of mine, it’s simply a pious overture to all things dark and sinful, my own version of it anyway.”

“You are the Devil, aren’t you Lev?”

“Yes, indeed. That is what I am, an honest down to earth disciple of the Satan himself, someone who is perpetually in love with all things dark and wicked, so long as they are done with finesse.”

“With finesse!” She exclaimed. “You mean it is all right to do all the wrong things so long as they are done with finesse.”

“Indeed, it is. And why not. I honestly don’t see any problem with that. After all, isn’t finesse treated as a social masquerade of modern day; a yardstick by which the morality of action is gauged nowadays. To put it in simple terms, these days, it isn’t about what you do, but how you do it. Beautify everything, add an element of finesse to anything you do, be it murder, theft, or any other so called act of delinquency, and rest assured you will get away with it, and with flying colors mind you. And on top of it, your each action will be followed by the resounding applause of the society.” I smiled. “I mean, isn’t that a nice thing to happen?”

She replied. “But simply because society approves something doesn’t make it right, does it?”

“No, but it makes it democratic. Every action or argument, if it carries the approval of the society, needs no other moral justification.”  

“Such as?” She asked. “Give me an example.”

“Such as the death of the governor, or have you forgotten. Wasn’t that a perfectly democratic thing to do?”

“How can you say something like that?” She asked. “It was murder in cold blood.”

“Indeed it was.” I replied. “But majority wanted it done, remember?”

“You don’t think killing the governor was wrong?” She asked, appalled.

“Surely, it was.” I nodded. “But you miss the point, Ammo. It was done the right way, and an overwhelming number of the population wanted it. And what’s more, the act of murder was carried out with a certain degree of bravado by the man they now hail as a national hero, and now everywhere he goes, he is …”

“Followed by the resounding applause of the society!” She cut in. “Ok, I get it.” Paused. “But there is something fundamentally wrong with this world, isn’t it, Lev?”

“No, there isn’t.” I replied. “Absolutely nothing wrong with anything that happens in this world.”

She replied. “You surely don’t mean that, do you Lev? I mean you don’t find nothing wrong with all that we witness day in and day out.”

“That isn’t what I am trying to say, Ammo.” I replied. “What I really mean to say is that I don’t mean anything, because you can’t give a meaning to something if there is none to it.”

She replied. “Lev, sometimes it is just as futile talking to you as trying to devise a meaning out of everything that is in this world.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean to say you don’t make much sense.” She replied. “Never did. And no wonder you don’t have a steady relationship, you really are a little too crazy for most of us fair kinds out there.”

“Perhaps that is so.” I agreed. “Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that either.”

Silence followed.

I continued. “Or perhaps it is more like how Voltaire once put it, that ‘all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’.” Paused. “And maybe that’s all there is to it, I am afraid.”

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