The Bill Already Paid

[Begin mid-argument; band already playing. Loping groove, requinto picking, suspicious fuzz bass. Dry, conversational male vocal.] No, listen—you can't charge me for existence then call the invoice a miracle. I read the fine print. It was written in a language invented after I agreed to it. [Requinto answers with a cocky melodic phrase.] First, a body with a limited warranty, a mind full of questions and a death date nobody can find. They charge you for the time spent trying to understand it. That's a billing department with a god complex. A soul costs extra. Answers are premium. Please remain on the line while the universe disappears. [Short instrumental turn; bass accents land slightly wrong.] Exhibit A: every road has a horizon that moves when you move. Exhibit B: the house deals the cards, then calls you a sore loser when you notice the deck has stars. So where do I file a complaint? [Beat cuts for a moment; one requinto note hangs.] I called the universe's number. It rang inside my head. A pleasant voice said, “Your concern is important.” Then asked if I'd tried being dead. I called that a drastic solution. It said, “Sir, that's a natural conclusion.” I asked for it in writing. “You are the writing,” it said. [The requinto repeats its motif; one note changes. Jazz harmony begins to tilt.] Wait. Who authorized the witness to become evidence? Who put my fingerprints on the lock before I knew there was a door? Why does every path to the truth look like a path I took before? I've got receipts and holes in the story big enough to swallow galaxies. A theory so airtight it can't breathe without me. [Rapid-fire delivery; bass and drums shift accents.] If the universe is crooked, crooked is the ruler I use to measure crooked. If the judge is in on it, who exactly gets to book him? If the language is a trap, every word I use is proof I crawled into the mechanism just to tell you that it's rigged. I called it reason. Then learned the system's vocabulary and started speaking for the system. That's a hell of a distinction. [Sudden silence; low bass returns alone.] Maybe I didn't crack the code. Maybe I found one that fits me. Maybe the cosmos isn't running a scam— maybe I need it guilty. A crooked universe is easier to live in than one that doesn't care. At least a scammer knows your name. At least a rigged game says you're there. [Requinto motif returns slower; harmony unsettles.] What if all my evidence is real? What if every contradiction stands? What if I found the hidden ledger and my signature's on every page? What if I wasn't the customer? What if I wasn't the mark? What if I've been selling little pieces of the same thing in the dark? [The band rebuilds; psychedelic guitars bloom, groove slips out of alignment.] I charged the world for certainty, sold my doubts as revelations, stitched loose ends into explanations and called the seams a secret pattern. Every time the pattern failed, I made it fit my view. I hate a rigged investigation, a witness who won't tell, a god who hides the evidence. I know that witness rather well. [Band drops to one suspended chord; vocal turns quiet.] I never signed. Never saw the terms. Never chose the sun or the cost. [One beat of silence.] I only chose what it all meant. [Instrumental rupture: bass dropout, displaced drums, dissonant chords, warped requinto motif.] So don't tell me I agreed to this. I woke up halfway through the argument with the bill already paid. I read the fine print, made my case, found the fingerprints, found the face. And if the whole thing's crooked, if every answer comes with a hidden fee, I've got one last question for the universe. [The groove returns, familiar but subtly wrong. Bass vanishes; one exposed guitar note.] Who's been collecting all the complaints I keep making against me? [Return to opening motif, altered; instruments drift apart. Leave the final chord unresolved.]