Monkeys with Guns

My most interesting case was a human, specifically a man, thirty-five years of age; quiet, reserved, stared down toward his feet much of the time. Occasionaly he would look up into my eyes, but only while I asked him a question; upon answering he'd immediately return his gaze to the carpet below.
He had glasses, wore t-shirts with notable but inoffensive slogans such as "Anti-Crombie" and the ever-famous "Make 7...Up Yours" that was so popular during his youth. His head was bald much of the time--not from nature, but from a razor. Completely. He spoke of haircuts as a conspiracy, one of many he believed to exist, for the sole purpose of robbing insecure, gullible people of their hard-earned money. Soda pop was another. Cigarettes a third. He did, however, believe in a medicinal and creativity-stimulating side of marijuana and also advocated the use of mushrooms--the only stipulation being that one used them only once in his lifetime. "That's all that's needed," he'd say. "Once you see the other dimension, it stays with you forever. Any more than that and you risk losing parts of yourself on the other side, never to see them again."
Rarely would he ware jeans. He favored cloth shorts with an elastic waistband. "My body's condition is irrelevant; my mind--sharpness and speed--is all that matters." During our six-month period together I saw his weight fluctuate greatly, swinging from eleven to sixteen stone and back several times.His mind--content and disposition--however, only grew.
He bore several unusual habits and mannerisms, one of them being that everything he did had to come in certain numbers. "I take steps to places in even numbers, usually square, hopefully in powers of two." When asked why two was preferred, he replied, "Two is the perfect number; the only even prime; the basis for computer memory. I love two."
Another, involving chewing, he described as "somewhat indescribable". I asked him to try. "Well...the only way I can put it is...a point on one of my teeth--an arbitrary point--must form a sphere with eight points around the equator, eight at each tropic, one at each pole and one in the center, the points being where the tooth comes into contact with one on the opposite side." I had to ponder this for a moment, and, having still not understood, he provided a demonstration, and I got it.
I asked of his fascination with numbers. "They never talked back." I put my finger to my chin in contemplation and asked him to go on. "They never turned their back on me, never scolded me, never harmed me in any way." I then informed him of my opinion that, perhaps, numbers had actually caused a bit of harm in keeping him from other people. His only response was "And that's bad because...?"
* * *
"How did you end up here?" I asked.
He replied, with an unexpected nonchalance, "Your body of law has determined me to be insane. In actuality, quite the opposite is true. Our resources are being depleted at an alarming rate, the atmosphere as we know it is dead, and forty-ton semi tractor-trailers barrel down rural populated roads at speeds blindingly fast enough to splatter a young child into an innocence-lost soup. In protest I stood, wearing a large artificial diaper, in the exact center of the U.S. 41-U.S. 30 intersection--one of the busiest in the nation, I might add--and held a sign conveying facts much like those I just provided. I was promptly placed in handcuffs and taken to a holding facility, where I was fed miniscule bowls of cereal and sickeningly-plain white bread and bologna sandwiches. I made no effort to escape--that would surely have proven futile. Instead I bided my time and waited for the courts to find me insane."
"And you knew they would?"
"Without doubt."
I hummed my curiosity. "How?"
For the first time since we met, he looked at me as he spoke. "It's reciprocal." My eyes bulged slightly, much like if one asked "What's two plus two?" and the answer given were "Apples".
"I don't follow."
"It's quite simple. If two people are locked in one room, and one is insane, will they ever come to a consensus on who it really is?"
I hummed again, this time in contemplation. "So you're saying that since, in your eyes, the world is insane, it would therefore find you to be the insane party?"
"Precisely."
"And it worked?"
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"
I felt the corners of my mouth rise at his logic. "Touche."
I steered our conversation toward his opinions once again. "Now, what leads you to believe that this world is insane? Surely it's possible that it's merely sick, right?"
He returned his eyes to the floor. "Have you ever heard of a Venn Diagram?"
"Why...Yes, yes I have. Although I'm sorry to say I'm a bit rusty on the purpose."
"It utilizes overlapping circles to show visually how different groups overlap in real life. Visualize a large circle entitled 'Sick'. Now place a smaller one within it and label that one 'Insane'. What does this tell you?"
I had a vague idea. "It would seem to imply that all insane people are sick, but not all sick people are insane."
"Exactly." I loved how he enunciated that word, almost like the greatest joy for him came when another human was able to follow his reasoning. "Now...what, then, separates the two?"
I placed my finger back on my chin and turned my line of sight a bit away from him. "Hmm..."
"Give up?"
"I suppose so."
"A sick person knows he's sick."
The light bulb finally shone. "And the truly insane--"
He merely smiled and nodded.
Absolutely brilliant, my good man. Keep it up.
"Do go on," I nudged.
"Do I really need to?"
I cocked my head and one of my eyebrows to suggest that he do so anyway.
"When you look at the people ruining this planet, do they seem sad about it?"
"Why...no. I suppose not."
"No. They don't. Not only that...they love it. They love the chaos and distraction from those characteristics that make us human. They will do anything to avoid compassion and selflessness and fulfilling childhood dreams. Anything. At any cost--oxygen, nature...life itself. Just not dollars. Unless you're talking about the middle class. They could never have enough cash to satisfy their narcotic spending."
"Young man, I...I don't know what to say. You are the smartest, most ingenious person I've ever met."
His face instantaneously lost its aura. "Please--don't do that."
"I--um--okay, I won't but...you must admit that you're rather intelligent."
"I only see what's already there. I infer nothing."
I was speechless.
* * *
Several months into our sessions I began to doubt whether or not I would ever see him as integrable into our society. I also began to see why that wasn't so bad.
"Do you think this world will ever recover from us?"
His mannerisms seemed to indicate that he had ingested a few alcoholic beverages, for he was looser and more emote. "Oh please--this world? Are you kidding? It survived the dinosaurs! And...the asteroid that saw to their demise! It survived the mysterious great Cambrian extinction that wiped out ninety-nine percent of ALL SPECIES! Us?" He gave a raspberry. "Get with it, man."
"I've pondered something about you for quite some time, and I'm going to ask you now: What is your definition of sanity?"
"Quite simply, using the laws of this universe to aid the flourishing of life. We are an insane lot in that we will wipe out entire species for a few more Wal-Marts; that we will use precious minerals, minerals in our bones and blood, to build vast highways for consumption and the propagation thereof. We will outlaw murder and just as quickly use it on our own sick people in prison. The earth is not our playground; as long as we continue in that vein, we will be deemed insane."
"By whom?"
"By the author of our laws of physics."
"And who might that be?"
He sighed and rolled his eyes while breaking a small smile. "We will never know. Some call it nature, some God, some Allah, others Vishnu, Odin, and Marduk. I call it 'That Thing We Will Never Understand'."
"Does your label imply that we'll never know what its motives are, if any?"
"Never."
"So it never speaks to us?"
"If it has, I don't know of it."
"Do humans, in your opinion, have any special place in the universe?"
"In my opinion?"
"Yes sir."
"We're monkeys with guns."
Good show, my good man. Good show.