Russell Twyce

Law is a lion

A social order fiction for your search for stories

A psychopath had positioned himself at booth selling briefcases. He had bought a few dozen cases and then had a couple of posters made up, that suggested he was as a legal needs marketer. Using a fictional company name and the logo ‘Law is a lion’, the killer had rented a space at a lawyer’s seminar. Along with cases and brochures, he had smuggled in some weaponry.

When the show was at it’s busiest time, on Saturday afternoon, the psychopath put a placard on his ‘Law is a lion’ table reading ‘out conducting business’. [private_Chevron]Then he took out his guns and mingled with the conference attendees. And fifty-three people died in one of the worst mass murders in history. After expending all his ammunition, he set his small arsenal aside and sat patiently waiting for the police to arrive to reestablish the social order.

“Law is a lion.” He said to the first policeman. “These lawyers heard the lion roar.”

The swat team responded with a Miranda warning, while roughly cuffing him.

“Law is a lion.” The prosecutor repeated. He had responded immediately to be in full participation during the interrogation. “What did you mean by that?”

“I suspect you’ll be intelligent enough to figure it out.” The psychopath responded. The killer then proved cooperative by answering all the detail questions of where he procured the guns and how he set up for the killings.

“Why did you kill lawyers?” The state’s attorney asked.

“I didn’t kill anyone.” The murder said with an impassive face. “I evoked the lion’s roar and the law murdered it’s own. I deemed it appropriate to use lawyers. The law is a lion and lawyers are lawyers. The law lion bit down hard on its own tail.”

“Hundreds of witnesses saw you in your act of murder and nobody but you reported the presence of any escaped zoo animals.” The prosecutor scoffed. “I recommend strongly, that you call a lawyer, but you’ll end up as a caged animal anyways.”

“Of course you would feel that way.” The psychopath mocked back. “Because you’re a lawyer. I neither need nor want a lawyer representing me with untruth.”

“You allegedly committed the heinous murders and either with or without a lawyer, you’ll be spending the rest of your life in jail.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” the psychopathic killer repeated, “and you’re more than welcome to put me to a polygraph test.”

“The results would be suspect. Psychopaths are purportedly able to beat them.” “Why do you suppose that is?” “Psychopaths are generally of above average intelligence.”

“And do we out-think the machines?” The killer laughed at the absurd statement. “I’ve read extensively on psychopathic traits and frankly, you know next to nothing about us. Truthfully, I suspect you do know more but you’re repressing it because our ‘above average’ intellects have told us something that you don’t want those of lesser intelligence becoming aware of.” The psychopath leaned as far forward as his restraints would allow and he whispered. “The law is a lie and it’s why psychopaths commit crimes. But the psychopath never actually hurts the victim: he breaks the law and the law then forwards the harm on. That’s how the lion law works.”

“In your mind,” the prosecutor guessed, “the law is lying and that sounds similar to ‘lion’. I’m supposing that your saying ‘lawyers are lawyers’ was meant as ‘lawyers are liars’ because those two words also have a similar sound.”

“I knew you’d be smart enough to figure it out.” “A court seeks for truth.” “Horse manure!” The psychopath snorted. “Your law court will be determining if I broke the state’s law against murder, multiple times. And breaking the state’s law in protest is precisely what my full intent was. If I could’ve spectacularly broken the law without people dying, I would’ve preferred that, but the murder law requires a human sacrifice. The law should stand in the docket with me: if law wasn’t deemed to exist, then I wouldn’t have broken it, and those who died would still be alive.

“Anarchy is the alternative to law!”

“That is lion law’s biggest lie!” The psychopath resolutely said. “A social order keeping philosophy that isn’t rooted on lies, is law’s true alternative. Psychopaths are the vanguard of an army of truth that will tack the law’s lying lion skin to a shed.”

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