Chapter 1
“Hello, can you hear me? Good.”
I am called The Judge. And I perform what I consider an important public service, a somewhat specialized line of work: I kill people. Not just any people of course, but people that deserve it. Now, you might assume that I mean murderers, rapists, pedophiles, kidnappers, hip-hop artists, that sort of thing. But no. I kill the people that I think deserve it. I can understand your typical murderer or rapist. They aren't really human, but they have a certain honesty about them. Their crimes make sense, part of the natural order of things. Life is violence, we are either violent to ourselves or violent towards others, or both. Just how it is, in many ways these animals don't have the ability to function in any other way, and such behavior falls short of what interests me. No. For something to be evil, for a person to be evil, it must involve a choice. They must understand the evil that they do and have fully embraced it, willingly. Having had the presence of mind or ability to choose otherwise.
True evil, real evil does not reveal itself in such an obvious manifestation as your typical murderer or child molester. It is a quiet cancer of society, hiding among the everyday people that sit across from you on the subway. Real evil looks normal, tricks you into thinking that it is normal, even becomes cloaked in what might be considered legitimate or necessary institutions. Supermarkets are evil. Schools are evil. Churches are evil. As you can imagine, I don't have many friends. But I will bet that as I named those 'wholesome' cornerstones of modern life what they really are, somewhere deep down inside you, you know it is true. If you doubt it, go out into the woods for a week, or lock yourself in a room with only the food and water you need to survive for a while, no TV, no radio, no computer or cell phone, nothing but you and the silence. Then re-enter the world as we have made it. It is a jarring experience. That is when you know evil. It is where I live everyday.
