Conversation · Composure

"Yes, and furthermore -- the design bureau people are probably left wing too. They often are."

"We did always have the prettiest posters... Maybe you're right." His eyes fill with understanding. "That is how dialectics work. But understand this -- art is still a bourgeois institution."

"That's it for the statue then. Tell me, Mr. Dros..."

"The fat Union-man let them put it there. Corrupt as he is. Probably got a fat check for it too, shared with the law..."

Accusations of corruption. Push them aside with a sharp change of topic, officer! Put the heat on him.

Hmm... he keeps having opinions about the Union's leadership.

"It was you. You shot the statue -- there was a bullet hole in his heart..."

"I did." He nods. "A needless, sentimental gesture. I should have spared the bullet for a deformed monster of liberal capitalism. Shameful really..."

"Yes. Shameful." The lieutenant takes a quick note. "So many others to punish over the years -- isn't that right, detective?" He turns to you.

You feel like you're forgetting something... never mind. It's not important. Push on!

Wait! It suddenly strikes you... perhaps it was not as it seemed?

The bullet hole in Filippe's heart... he'd been shot in the heart. By him?

"Because you forgot to take it down?"

"Forgot?!" he spreads his arms. "The Party had each of the 141 Filippian monuments detonated with plastic explosives. We were pedantic about carrying out the order. No..." He points toward the city.

"Some advertising cockroaches used their accumulated capital to erect a new, ironic version of it." He shakes his head in disgust: "Art is a bourgeois establishment. It's an affront to humanity."

Say: "Because the king is holy and his statues are indestructible." (But mean it ironically.)

"No, cynical design cockroaches like you erected a new, ironic version of it. We tore it down with honest working class plastic explosives -- but there it is again, grinning..." He shakes his head in disgust.

"I don't know."

"I do. Some advertising cockroaches used their accumulated capital to erect a new, ironic version of it. We tore it down with honest working class plastic explosives -- but there it is again, grinning..." He shakes his head in disgust.

"Because the king is holy and his statues are indestructible."

"The king was a congenitally deformed adulterer. The Party had his monuments detonated with plastic explosives. That one was especially destructible..." He points toward the city.

"Until some advertising cockroaches used their accumulated capital to erect a new, ironic version of it." He shakes his head in disgust: "Art is a bourgeois establishment. It's an affront to humanity."

"The blood-drenched soucriant on her boat -- what is a soucriant?"

"Who fucking cares?" It does not seem to strike a fire in him anymore...

"Your beloved Joyce Messier. A soucriant. A blood sucker. Women like her feed on the life energy of young working class men. And they let her."

"I can't believe the inert lumpen out there. They just let her drive her little boat like that. No violence, not even a robbery. The working class has lost their appetite for justice..." His voice trails off in disappointment.

If only he had the ammunition.

"Your beloved representative of the harbour company is a soucriant. I saw her. Women like her feed on the life energy of young working class men. And they let her."

"A soucriant, a blood-sucker, the rich whore on her boat."

"Oh, you mean the company representative."

"Women like her feed on the life energy of young working class men." He nods. "And they let her...."

"Oh, you mean Joyce."

"The boom-boom-boom morons on the ice..."

"They're morons, duped by bourgeois culture. What more is there to say? I've seen their kind -- pop up, like worms after the rain." He makes an erratic gesture of annoyance.

Oh, there's plenty to say, hard-core man.

"Indeed. What more could there possibly be to say about those beats."

"Beats..." The old man scoffs. "Violent bourgeois language. Even music is a form of homicidal competition. Saxophone blowing anti-communism..." His voice trails off into a gust of sea wind.

"Regressive beats." (Nod.) "The beats still have a long way to go."

"I don't think now is the time for this, officer." The lieutenant tries to nip it...

...to no avail!

"You know, those beats are actually quite progressive."

"I don't think now is the time for this, officer." The lieutenant tries to nip it...

...to no avail!

"Good, traditional Revacholian beats. Not moronic at all."

"I don't think now is the time for this, officer." The lieutenant tries to nip it...

...to no avail!

What more is there to say? You've always got *something to say.

"Indeed." (Don't tell him.)

"I've heard it on the radio too, that boom-boom. It's the same violent decadence all over again for the hundredth time... Misanthropy masquerading as culture."

"I let them in the church. The boom-boom is now in the church."

"I don't think now is the time for this, officer." The lieutenant tries to nip it..

...to no avail!

"I saw you." The old man nods. "Serves that pigsty right to have them in there. Ghoulish sarcophagus, the Ecclesiastes are all paedophiles..." His voice trails off into a gust of sea wind, he looks at the church on the coast.

"It was I who cleared them from the ice."

"I don't think now is the time for this, officer." The lieutenant tries to nip it...

...to no avail!

"I saw you." The old man nods. "I didn't think you'd be proud of it -- evicting mentally handicapped vagrants," he shrugs. "But that's property law for you. I wouldn't be surprised if a Frittte sprung up on the ice, tomorrow..."

"By the 'cock parading in his colourful uniform,' you mean René?"

"Every fucking morning, for thirty-four years..." He grinds his teeth in rage. "Throwing that ball. One ball against the other... I've always loathed that game. That is not a working class game. I don't care what they say on Radio June."

"Royalist ghouls play it like it was life itself! Click-clack," he makes the sound of balls connecting, "across the water each day. And that uniform, like a parrot's plumage! I won't even mention that he's a traitor to his race. A pétanque maniac race traitor."