“I swear to God on high I have not lived long at Corporate Headquarters. I swear it has only been a few years, Judge. I didn’t know where else to turn, who else had running water, clean showers, good food, medical facilities, and more.”
“That’s no excuse, Mr. Peonne. You know prisons have the same amenities. Or nearly. You should have turned there. After all, we’ve set them up for you and your kind.”
“Not the prisons, Judge. Please, I’ll do anything you want. I’ll go kill Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, anyone.”
“Anyone?”
“Well, almost.”
“That’s the wrong attitude, Mr. Peonne. Here in America we don’t just send people off to kill people. Not without a good reason, at least. We send people off to democratize whole countries, while defending our own.”
“I know it has nothing to do with oil, your Honor.”
“It most certainly does not,” snapped the judge.
“I know, I know. I owe, I owe, is what I’m trying to say. I’m sorry for robbing Corporate Headquarters by secretly living there. To survive. I’m willing to do almost anything to pay back my debt to society, to stay out of prison.”
“Your debt to society may be to go to prison, Mr. Peonne. Ever think of that. And why not, you’ll be with your people there. You have something against your people, Mr. Peonne? Something you might like to share with us, hmm?”
“Prison will kill me.”
“Rise above it, young man,” declared the judge. “We must all learn to rise above our lot in life, while accepting it fully, whatever it may be.”
“Some lots are harder than others, Sir.”
“It’s the positive attitude that counts, in all things.”
“Live and let live, Judge?”
“Precisely.”
“Or live and let die?”
“Twenty years! Hard labor! Or simply no labor at all. Sheer confinement if you prefer. Be gone now, young man. Think long and hard about your role in this world. Be honest about it and you will be rewarded, inwardly at least. Trust me.”
“Oh, I do, Judge. I trust you’ve killed me. More and less. I don’t mean that personally, you understand? I know you’re just doing your job.”
“Thirty years! I don’t care! Make it forty! Be gone!”
————————————————————
We found Joe Peonne unconscious at the edge of the woods near Freeland. We took him in, and he muttered over and over the name Stan D. Garde, Stan D. Garde, as if he had suffered some personal horrible experience at the hands of the Stan D. Garde. And so it was, for Joe Peonne soon told us his story of the state of the corporate world which it has been his fate to endure: Joe Peonne - Plutopia.
