The Pilot and the Plane

There are a fair number of people in this world, and more than one might imagine, who are essentially sociopaths. They move among us and appear normal enough as they go about the daily tasks of life. They are competent, in a mechanical sense. They drive cars, they work, they go shopping, they may even have a family. They work as candy store clerks and airline pilots and teachers and bus drivers, and entertainers, and politicians. They seem to function. They do function. Until, that is, their interest lands on a victim. Something they want. It is then that the putrid core of the sociopath overcomes the host. The world of 'others' no longer exists -- really, it never had existed within the secret mind that motivates this type. He moves then to possess that which he has no right to -- the life, the freedom, the dignity of another human being. It is all about his appetite now. It is all about filling himself for the sake of himself. How many must be destroyed in the pursuit of his prey? The number, to him, is meaningless. The people are meaningless. Even his target is meaningless. His appetite is the meaning, his pleasure, his power, his conquest. And when he's done, he beats a cowardly retreat. He has gotten what he wanted. He has eaten. And now he crawls back into a healthy skin which his moral and mental disease does not deserve. These are the parasites of our world. They eat, they hibernate, and they eat again. They are flesh, a mouth, and a stomach, and quite devoid of soul. They mimic the most precious elements of humanity -- love, friendship, relationship, loyalty. These are the tools they use in the hunt, no more lively, no more sincere than the metal of the hammer or the wrench or the saw.  The sociopath is a repetitive, redundant creature who leads a life of repetitive crimes against genuine, caring human beings who are infinitely more deserving of life than he. Justice? In this world, there is none. We may take heart, nonetheless, in the knowledge that this man, this mere lump of slithering, seeking flesh will find only darkness and void beyond this human time on earth.