One
day, when I was walking on the street in the familiar town, I lost
the way and found myself on an unknown alley. Oh, it's weird, I
thought, and yet kept on walking, the alley was getting narrower and
deeper. It was likely to come into a next street soon, but it did
not. As if I stepped into another dimension, the more I advanced the deeper and deeper the narrow alley appeared.
Presently,
I found a grocery store. I was thirsty at that very moment, so I made
a stopover for the store to buy some drink. The store was crowded
with presences easily recognizable as devils at a glance. I wonder if
I was sort of numb or something because of losing the way, strangely
enough, I was not scared.
I
took a well cold bottle out from the buzzing fridge and brought it to
the devil at the register. The devil pleased innocently.
“Welcome
to our store! Please leave the empty bottle at the garbage pile in
front of the store after drink. And take this plastic bag too!”
“So,
do you gather garbage to recycle them?”
The
devil was surprised.
“No
way! Plastic bottles, plastic bags, by spreading them out and
throwing them away so we can destroy the world, you know? The sea
gets polluted and no one can live in such environment anymore. It's
the same result even if you incinerate them. Modern devils make only
steady efforts.”
A well thought plan, I was impressed.
“So,
are there any other tricks with products in this store?”
With
better observation, I noticed that the store displayed strangely so
many meat. Chicken, poke, beef and whatnot put on white trays were
displayed on the shelves. The devil smiled quite innocently.
“Bingo!
As you see, many meat. We are making people numb to blood. So you
don't feel sorry when you kill any creature different from yourself.
Then it's only one more step to kill strangers, right? Discrimination
and war! We do this to make you, deep in your heart, not to respect
lives different from you.”
Totally make sense, I was impressed.
“But
how such unremarkable, underground effort. I thought devils were more
showy beings.”
“But
in the end, we've found this way more effective, if we are to corrupt
not only one or two humans but the whole planet and destroy it. The
knack is, to encourage the sense of egotism in people. The sense that you want to live comfortably, you want to enjoy, and to do so, you don't care things other than yourself. Plastic bags, animal meat, all the same thing. Well, you'll see, in a hundred years or two, what will be
happening...”
Paid money devils love, I came out from the store and drunk off the
bottle. And then I threw it away into the garbage pile near the store.
The garbage pile was flooded and illustrated devils' diligence.
After a little walk, suddenly, I found myself on the large street I
knew well. I had no idea which alley I just came out from a moment ago. Since then I have never found the alley again.