“The problem is,” said The Critic, “is that the universe is an un-ordered place, and disorder, in all circumstances, is simply unacceptable. My job as a critic, is to point out disorder, critique it, and hope, by this critique, to motivate change toward perfection. I can’t abide ANYTHING that is, or appears to be, not organized and perfect. I need all paintings and pictures on all walls I see to be hung perfectly straight and rightly aligned. If, for example, I go into someone’s house and see that their pictures are hung even slightly crooked, or that the utensils in their kitchen cabinets are in ANY sort of disarray, I’ve no problem pointing it out to them. Only weak-minded fools live in such a chaotic state. My will is disciplined and strong from decades of hard study and controlled, reasoned thoughts. My job, as The Critic, is to correct the flaws and weaknesses in others by riding them mercilessly about what I perceive to be their short comings. Wear a suit with a tie that doesn’t quite match, and I’ll trash you for it. I’ll trash you until I humiliate you enough to change your ways and correct the flaws I see in you. Date someone who I think isn’t attractive, and I’ll tell you you’re a buffoon for doing so. Perfection is all, and order is God.
Through discipline, criticism, and ordered thought, I see my place on earth as a force to better it, and by doing so, to better life for all humans on it. When I leave this life, my tombstone shall read, ‘Here Lies A Man Who Accepted NOTHING But Order, Perfection, And Discipline.’ Some may find my constant demand for perfection, as my learned mind sees it, as too harsh, too strict, too unreasonable. To them I say, you’re weak, cowardly, and afraid to admit that MY way of order, MY insight into life and how it should be lived, is the RIGHT one. Many hear my criticisms of them and the world and shake in terror because they are awed by my brilliance and my greatness and know living up to them may not be possible for them. A superior intellect and a superior human being can be intimidating to many. Others who fear me say I’m a cruel man who should not be listened to. Fear does that to weak minds. But, in the end, I KNOW my way will be seen as right by everyone. My legacy will last forever, and I will be remembered as the greatest, most ordered and disciplined mind to have ever lived. Schools will teach children of the value MY sense of correctness, order and righteousness brought to this world, and holidays will be celebrated in my honor many centuries after I’m gone. I am The Critic. I am the voice of greatness. I am the voice of reason and order and no one will ever be able to say, in the long run, that I was wrong. It was my destiny to criticize those weaker than I. It was my righteous task. These are facts that, in time, all will see as true. So sayeth The Critic. So sayeth the perfect human mind.”
The Critic died in his 78th year of life. He was alone when it happened–a heart attack, say the doctors. Since he had no next of kin, and lived friendless and alone because no one, in his opinion, was good enough to be anywhere near him or in his home, his body lie rotting for two weeks before his neighbors began to smell it decaying and called authorities to come check on him. Flies, maggots, beetles and rats were feasting on his corpse when the police found it. The ooze from his decaying corpse had dripped into the fine woodwork of his living room floor and ruined it. It all had to be torn up and disposed of due to the smell that could not be washed away. His perfectly aligned books and paintings were also ruined from the odor of his rotting body and had to be disposed of. His entire, meticulously built home was gutted and repaired with the most basic and common of drywall and other building materials. A common, middle class man eventually bought the place. He worked hard, but wasn’t a home body, not really. So he let the yard grow wild. It eventually resembled a dandelion forest as his lack of proper maintenance allowed said flower to completely take over. No sign that a perfect critic and man had once tended to a perfectly manicured lawn remained. All was rather common and benignly undisciplined. It was all very normal now.
As for The Critic’s body, it was roughly autopsied and eventually buried in an old, rarely used grave yard somewhere south of his once perfectly ordered home. His grave was marked with a single crooked, cracked stone which read, “Here Lies The Critic. A Man Who Will Forever Be Remembered For Just How Perfect He Was.”
