Top Shelf Knife Fight the People Just Watch

by: E.M. Burlingame

Yeah, perch up there like a bloated vulture on a rotting branch. Slosh that overpriced swill they peddle as wine into a crystal goblet that could feed a family for a month in the filthy rat nests I clawed my way out of. Savor the view, you smug prick. Revel in the height. You're nothing but a goddamn pigeon shitting on a statue—naked, glaring, begging for the hawk's talons or some snot-nosed punk's slingshot to end your pathetic strut.

You really believe your filthy stacks of cash build impenetrable walls? Bulletproof glass and those meat puppets in suits with earwigs jammed in their skulls? What a joke. That's just a sad clown show for the brain-dead masses gawking below. Those "guards"? They're breathing sacks of failure—sweating, screwing up, harboring vendettas like festering sores. They get bought off cheap, they cower like whipped dogs, they hatch schemes in the dark, and their precious families? Prime leverage for any bastard with a grudge and a blade. Triple their pay? They'll just splurge on a sharper backstabbing tool. Government badges? That means they kneel to some faceless, stinking overlord dripping poison like a punctured sewer pipe.

Trust? That's the bitter bile you puke up every dawn, choking on your own delusions. Gaze down at those teeming streets. See that writhing swarm of insects? That's "the people," you fool. Loyal? Don't make me retch. They're spineless traitors, loyal only to the next viral lie, the next meager crumb of a paycheck, the next dopamine hit from their glowing screens. Loyal to the death? For you? When's the last time those gutless wonders stormed the gates to shield a leader, not to rip him apart? They'd auction your worthless carcass for a stale sandwich and a lukewarm piss if the mob's mood soured. Fickle? They're gutless weathercocks whipping in a storm of their own idiotic whims—cowardly sheep with hidden fangs, rabid mutts who'd savage the hand that feeds if it doesn't toss scraps fast enough. And time after time, they sit on their flabby asses, watching the righteous get slaughtered, too chickenshit to lift a finger in defense.

Hell, tally the corpses. How many puffed-up fools like you got Swiss-cheesed by the very door-holding drone you trusted? Or some frothing lunatic funneled in by whispers from the abyss? Your so-called shields are your prime executioners—or their puppet-masters are. It's a venomous cesspool, and you're the plump, oblivious rat wallowing in the center. And those sniveling cowards below? They gawk and do jack shit to avenge the fallen, to right the wrongs. To them, you're just another pompous prick on high, ripe for their seething, secret hatred—leaders who stake their lives and their families' every goddamn second, while the yellow-bellied people hide behind anonymity and apathy.

Think this rot is fresh? History's an endless vomit of the same bloody cowardice. Take Constantine, that iron-fisted legend. He needed the Praetorians erased—those "elite" scum, the cream of what gold and terror could buy. Turns out they were just overpaid goons crowning kings for sport, ruling the empire with murder from the shadows. So he slaughtered them like the diseased vermin they were—hunted their asses down, gutted their puppets, torched their lairs. It took rivers of gore over generations to scrub that filth from the throne, making it marginally less of a suicide seat.

And why did he triumph, build a civilization went on another thousand years? Because his ragged troops—the mud-caked grunts with rust eating their armor—had guts stuffed with more than greed and terror. Call it blind devotion, call it idiocy, call it swallowing the myth whole enough to bleed out for it. Who cares? They stood tall. And the people fought tooth and nail in the filth, hunted Praetorian scum for years, rooted out every last whisper of betrayal. Loyal enough not just to charge into hell for the boss, but to avenge his ghost if he fell. That's real spine, now they're just spineless big mouthed twats.

Got anything like that now? Peer through your armored pane at that ocean of vacant stares. Those soft, entitled little cowards wouldn't spit on you aflame unless their algorithm deemed it cool. They're pampered weaklings, herded like dumb cattle by any loudmouth with a meme and a grudge, swallowing lies that crumble seconds after the carnage. Loyal? These pathetic excuses for humans wouldn't die for their own kin, let alone some trembling elite in a tower. Oh, they blather about justice and heroism, but they flunk every single test of courage—abandoning leaders to the wolves again and again, hiding in their safe bubbles while the brave get butchered. Cowards, every last one, failing history's call with their trembling inaction.

So guzzle your pretentious scotch, you lofty idiot. Bask in the altitude. Tune into the soft whir of your climate-controlled cage. That's not serenity—that's the hush before the betrayal sinks home. From within. From without. From the shadows you bribe to babysit you. Who gives a damn. The pinnacle isn't glory; it's the gaudiest bullseye. And that horde of gutless scum down there? They're clutching stones, too cowardly to throw them themselves but eager to cheer the assassin on. Pour me another. The downfall's gonna be a grotesque spectacle, but hey, the booze numbs the wait for the inevitable shove. And hell, but I'm deep down numb and bored and could use a good show.