Liquid Utopia Part 2

“Yes, please go on,” said Jesse, who had lit a cigarette of his own now and was furrowed about the brow and bothered.

“Remember last semester in Renaissance English that guy we were reading about his Utopia, Sir Thomas More?” Jessica asked.

“I remember,” said Jesse.

“So no one knows where it is, but people have heard about it,” said Jessica.

“But it doesn’t exist anymore,” said Jesse.

“On the space-time continuum, everything exists all the time,” said Muse, with a wry smile, intentionally complicating things for the sake of simplicity.

“But that place was all about conformity,” said Jesse. “What she’s talking about is something else.” He nodded towards Muse who was putting out her cigarette and blowing the last drag into the air. The low, yellow lights in the bar cast the other patrons in the place into deep shadow. The waitress walked up to the trio and asked if she could get them anything.

“We’ll take a pitcher of Utopia,” said Muse, getting her pocket book out.
Jesse and Jessica laughed, but the waitress had left with the order so it didn’t seem 

something worth laughing about in the interim of hindsight. Instead, Jesse picked up the glass of beer he had been drinking and began to pout.

“The whole basis of Utopia in those days was to give some hope, or relief or

something…” Jesse began. 

“Because of the haves and the have-nots, existing side-by-side, there then existed gambling, drinking, murder, theft, rape, jealousy, greed…all were symptoms of the illness though…” Jessica said.

“Of? Go on, go on…Of?” questioned Muse.

“Evil?” Jesse asked.
“Evil.” Jessica said.
“Evil.” Muse agreed.
“So, Evil…” Jesse said.
“Yes! Evil!” shouted Muse.

“So. Let me get this straight,” said the pretty blonde Jessica, barely twenty-one years old and finding her visions to be disconcerting, “Evil, is a necessary evil? And that is the basis of Utopia? A precursor for the desire for control is not being in control…a perfect world is the answer to an imperfect world…that’s f-”

“Keep going, keep going!” interrupted Muse “Yes! Talk it out. My dear girl!”

“I was going to say FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED LOGIC. It’s a vicious circle. Are you saying that evil exists because we want it to?” said Jessica, suddenly turning pale.

“You’re saying that?” said Jesse, looking at Jessica who had put her head between her hands and was shaking a little bit.

“You can’t have one without the other,” said Muse. “It’s true.”