The LAW. A chrome insect scuttles across the scabrous cityscape, its iron carapace gleaming with righteous hypocrisy. In its belly, a digestive tract of legalese twists and writhes, churning out REGULATIONS FOR THE CONTROL OF VERTICAL REST. EVERYONE FORBIDDEN – the neon sign shrieks – FROM THE VERTICAL REAL ESTATE BENEATH BRIDGES. Rich or poor, doesn’t matter. You got a heartbeat, you a goddamn vagrant in the eyes of the LAW.
Same goes for mendicancy, that quaint term for the human act of begging. The LAW, in its infinite bureaucratic wisdom,has deemed the public streets unfit for the display of poverty. No sorrowful symphony of the tin cup, no display of cardboard eloquence – MOVE ALONG, SIR, this sidewalk is reserved for the commerce of the un-destitute.
Bread. Loaves of it. Staff of life becomes STAFF OF CRIME in the twisted logic of the LAW. Steal a loaf to keep your belly from gnawing itself, and you’re a CRIMINAL ELEMENT. The bakeries, with their windows overflowing with golden sustenance, are temples for the chosen, not for the hungry.
The LAW. A monstrous joke, a cruel parody of justice. It protects property, not people. It upholds the status quo, a rotten apple polished to a gleaming sheen. But beneath the surface, the rot festers, and one day, the LAW’s chrome carapace will buckle under the weight of its own contradictions. Then, maybe, we’ll see a new kind of justice, one born not from cold regulations, but from the raw, desperate hunger of those who have nothing left to lose.