Nice People
Growing up, you’re always surrounded by nice people. Everyone is nice to you, because you’re a kid and kids are always sweet when they’re not your own. You’re taught to be one of those people. They keep telling to you “be nice!” An obedient, law-abiding middle-class guy who will settle for the average joe life and keep quiet, which is ensured by a regular paycheck and collective social mechanisms that serve as your safety net should you ever be tempted to break the mould that you were gently forced into during your upbringing by the same sort of pious, obedient people who are doing their best to be nice and not to ruffle any feathers as they get on with their lives. Their mantra is “be smart”, and their minds are overwhelmed with fear. Fear from others and their opinions, fear from the dangers of the open space outside their cushy comfort zones. Fear from themselves and the dark forests of their hearts where their true, unspoiled former self is tied to a tree and screaming in pain. Like a stray dog they stopped looking for, but the howling is still there, somewhere inside.
These people are appropriate, their attire is socially acceptable at every occasion and they know what “attire” means in the first place, since they’re usually attending events that can be described as “occasions”. They’re well-meaning and good-natured, responding to every intelligent criticism with a deflated “ah,well”, making sure all the blame for any upsets of the social dogma are directed towards someone else. Anyone but themselves. The music they listen to never disrupts the neighbors and they never drink q-pack beer. Even at the holy service, they’re usually in the back rows, since they’re avoiding over-exposion at all times. As if trying to make sure no one notices they ever existed once they’re gone. They always look the other way when they see something they don’t like and only watch romantic comedies, because there’s always a happy ending. They don’t read books that might make them question the order of things or anything at all. It’s the answers that count. Too shy to take their own intellects seriously, they’ll always look for answers somewhere outside.
Nice people always know who’s screaming and crying at the neighbors’ in the middle of the night, but they never do anything about it, because it’s not nice to intrude into other people’s private lives. When the altar boy unintentionally spills the truth about local priest and his “habits”, they’re the first ones to silence him because it’s not appropriate to talk about a man of the cloth like that. Be nice and shut up. Everyone else did anyway, and they turned out just fine, didn’t they? Don’t be fussy, no one likes high-maintenance characters. Don’t be a whistle blower, nice people don’t tell on others and their faults. The skeleton is always in someone else’s closet, so keep your own firmly closed. Keep your secrets where they belong, underneath pillows filled with fluffy, comfy hypocrisy. It’s not nice to scold others when they start their poisonous, Facist rants, because it’s not nice to attract their attention and turn into a target yourself. As long as someone else is the victim, it’s none of your damn business. That’s nice. Don’t upset them, because nice people are afraid of anything that might hurt your little petit-burgeois harmony. It’s a neatly appointed bubble that’s supposed to isolate you from the surrounding universe, and turn your life into a glass house; your home into a museum exhibit no one wants to see because it’s all about lots of nothing. Containers of private histories materialized in biographic check-lists of childhoods, educations, marriages, widowhoods.
Memories tend to be pathetic, and for nice people, it’s a drug they’re gladly addicted to. A sugar-coated mental scrap book devised to keep their eyes firmly shut for reality that’s about to crush on their heads. Their own personal hell is always on a safe distance on the other side of the river. If there is none, nice people will find one. Window shutters and curtains were invented to keep you nice. If you’re nice, you’re most probably very skilled at anal sex, because one has to dig very deep into you until it hits your stomach that you’re being screwed. And when it does, it’s usually already too late do anything about it. Which is why nice people vote for demagogues telling them what they want to hear. They give them that hell on the other side, the proverbial enemy they need in order to convince themselves they’re nice and nothing bad can happen to them because shit don’t happen to nice people. The fictional enemy gives them the guts to crowd up and finally show their blood-thirsty teeth. When the stage is set, they will be more than willing to use their teeth so that the guys behind the curtain would’t have to. In times of trouble, nice people easily surrender to ideas that are supposedly protecting them provided they buy into the dichotomy of Us and Them. Nice people unknowingly dig the chasm that will be their own demise because they were taught to be obedient and keep their mouths shut in times when screaming at the top of your voice should be mandatory.
Nice people tell the Holocaust jokes. It’s all good fun and they don’t really see jokes like that get the historical ball of cruelty rolling in the first place. Until it’s turned into an all-consuming avalanche of darkness and their perfect little worlds turn defenseless against the horror they themselves helped to flourish because it was supposed to be a joke and shit don’t happen to nice people. This is the moment when the fangs come out, and their immaculate masks fall off to reveal the disfigured, formerly known as human creatures which have been forced out of the safety of their pack. So in order to defend what’s left of them from the monsters, they turn into one themselves. Desperately trying to protect balance and harmony, they’ll unleash the apocalypse if necessary. You’re not nice if you don’t understand that. It’s cold out there so stay close to the fire. And if you don’t play along, you’ll be forced outside to freeze in the silence where the trees are blind and the leaves are deaf. You better do what you’re told, that’s what your parents did. And look what they’ve turned into. Just look at them and try to resist the urge to slit their throats, just to ease the mind-numbing emptiness that’s staring at you from their eyes. But nice people don’t die like that. Instead, they settle for a slow mental suicide by means of tv. They won’t even scream. That would require a pain treshold. Alas, if you’re nice, it’s always out of your sight. And you come back for more, more, more and much more of the same.
Borderline insanity is a regular side-dish at the dinner table in normal households. Normal is what’s seen and not said, what bubbles beneath. Sometimes though, it exploxes, and it’s like a group of pink elephants just escaped from the local zoo and are on a rampage through the neighborhood. But if you’re normal, your color spectrum doesn’t include pink. Rather colors like off-white, brown, beige, and lots of it. A whole universe colored like a huge cappucino. With so much daily ingestion of normal, you inevitably get overdosed. After that happens, there’s only one way out- get your shotgun, and start shooting down the elephants until your beautiful beige world is drowned in a pink bloodshed. After all, you can always count on a happy ending. Nice people go to heaven. It’s the task of those other ones to help them get there faster. Before they manage to make the world even nicer than it already is.
