San Francisco, December 1966.
“You mentioned in one of our sessions a while back that we, as a species, kill each other for purposes of pecking order, quote unquote. Do you want to go into more detail about that?” he asked.
Her breath caught in her throat for half a second, but in that half-second she felt trapped. Trapped, momentarily, between the sensation of swimming in the depths of a bad dream she can’t wake up from, desperately wanting to reach the surface of consciousness, and the physical feeling of being under a strong current of water.
Trapped.
But with the possibility of release.
She could easily pinpoint one or more incidents she had been made aware of, either through current affairs, historical research or simply ones a little bit too close to home. But it was more than that. More than the physical acts of violence; something neurological or subconscious. An almost feral instinct we all have but don’t talk about and haven’t paid enough attention to yet to find a name for it. The enjoyment of contempt, perhaps.
“People like to weed out the weaklings.” she said after a long time.
He blinked. “Can you elaborate?”
She gathered her words. “It’s starts with our primitive fear of anything different.” she said, slowly. “For some reason the human race often regards difference as a form of weakness. On the contrary, it takes a level of strength and resilience to be different in this world.”
“I agree.” he said.
“Everyone would agree. But they don’t necessarily act upon it. We are more animalistic than we think. If it’s different, we want it out. Look at history. Look at what’s going on now in Mississippi. Look at the way kids treat other kids in the schoolyard if their parents are poor and their rucksack has holes in it.”
He went to respond but she interrupted. “I think I am being slowly shunted out of my job.”
“Are you moving into a different topic?” he asked.
“No.”
clarataylor 