Hello down there! It’s so nice of you to come to the edge of our city on a hill. We are a model society and an example for the entire world to look upon. I myself am just a normal citizen enjoying a walk on the top of this giant protective wall to take in the wholesome air and think about how wonderful everything is today.
What’s that? You want to come in to see our perfect community? Not sure I can help you there, my friend. You see, this wall completely surrounds the city on a hill and prevents anyone from entering. It’s a dangerous world out there — there’s so much war and disease and peril and brown people — and we don’t want any of that coming in here to harm our community.
Because absolutely nothing is wrong inside these walls. If you were able to come inside, you’d be like, “Wow, this shining city on a hill is the kind of society that all societies should strive towards!” Of course, you can’t come in, but that’s what you’d say.
You’d look around and you’d see that everything glistens in the morning sunlight. People walk down the streets and hug each other, feeling around in each other’s coats so that they can steal each other’s wallets only to immediately give them back and get another hug. Our women have never felt safer. At least, that’s what I assume they’re saying — it’s hard understanding their mysterious ways.
Everything is peaceful and prosperous, and it’s just so amazing that we can’t risk the chance of letting people like you in. I know, I know, there’s a door right over there in the side of the wall, but it’s locked very elaborately from the inside. If you saw how many high-tech locks there were, you’d be so impressed, but you can’t, so you’ll just have to take my word on this.
Did you say something? It’s difficult to hear you from this gold-encrusted balcony. When the sun comes out from behind the clouds, it hits the parapet just right and the entire city shines like the beacon of hope that it always looks like, but even more hopeful and beacon-like. And when that happens, I get so filled with emotion that it becomes very difficult for me to hear anything.
Ah, yes, you must be wondering about the piles of bones strewn about at the bottom of this hill. I think those are some people who tried to enter in the past but failed. I’m not positive, since I’m pretty sure I repressed that memory. Repressing memories, by the way, is an excellent thing to do for anyone who wants to live in a perfect society. The only times I ever have disturbing thoughts are every night when I wake up in a cold sweat and realize that all of the characters from my nightmares are alive and I created them and now they won’t go away.
But regardless of where those piles of bones came from, I think we can agree that they only go to show that the outside world is so perilous that we can’t let anyone in to our lovely, harmonious home. Who knows what kinds of deadly things they would bring in, like pestilence or ideas or information? And especially now that we’ve fine-tuned this city on a hill to such a degree of perfection that any possible new shock would send it into a destructive tailspin whose end we cannot even begin to imagine. You would be surprised at how delicate these perfect societies can be!