“Pretty intense story!” Cob said, and then I said, “If y’all want, I can tell you about the idealist, the pragmatist, and the nihilist.”

  “Sounds good!” Verona said, and so I began my story:

  “Once upon a time the idealist woke up and was immediately ready to fight for justice!

  They got out of bed, got ready to go, and then they headed towards a violent gang called the Ghasts that was operating nearby to give them a piece of their mind!

  They had almost reached where the Ghasts were when the pragmatist suddenly spotted them and said, “Wtf are you doing!?! You’re heading right towards where the Ghasts are!”

  “That’s right!” railed the idealist, “I’m gonna give those thugs a piece of my mind!”

  “But can’t we go to the police?” the pragmatist reasoned; and the idealist said, “The same police who arrested us and were unnecessarily rough with us a while back even though we didn’t do anything wrong?”

  “They thought that we were murderers!” the pragmatist groaned, “But we didn’t get convicted, and so the system worked!”

  “We’ve both read enough true stories to know that some police officers are just as bad as the Ghasts,” the idealist said, “and I don’t want to bring them into this. Period.”

  “But they have to wear body cams now!” the pragmatist reasoned, “Which means that if they do something evil then we’ll have the proof of it on camera!”

  “Oh, come now.” the idealist scoffed, “I think we both remember reading stories about how some officers “forget” to turn those cameras on so that they can commit acts of wickedness that won’t be on camera!”

  Just then the nihilist meandered over to where the pragmatist and the idealist were debating, and they said, “Who cares if it’s the Ghasts or the police who have power, since many who have power will always just abuse it anyway?”

  “Oh great.” the pragmatist said with a groan, “And so now the anarchist has arrived! It’s better to have imperfect systems that have as many checks and balances as possible than to just have anarchy! Please be realistic!”

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  “I never said that I was an anarchist,” the nihilist said smoothly, “what I suggested is that it doesn’t matter if there’s a government or if there’s anarchy because there will be powerful people abusing their power in both situations. I don’t care if there’s a government or not, which is different from being an anarchist.”

  Then the pragmatist waited to see whether the idealist would weigh in on whether it was better to have anarchy or a government with lots of checks and balances, but then they saw that the idealist had run off towards the Ghasts while the pragmatist had been distracted by the nihilist!

  “Stop!” the pragmatist wailed, “This is madness!” but the idealist didn’t stop, and the pragmatist didn’t want to get any closer to the Ghasts because they knew how ruthless and cruel the Ghasts were; and so the pragmatist took out their phone and called the police and told them that there was a hideout of the Ghasts nearby, and they gave the police the address to go to!

  The nihilist stood by boredly as the sounds of sirens became audible and got closer and closer to where they were, and the pragmatist said, “I sure hope that the idealist will be alright!”

  “We shall see…” the nihilist said boredly; and then a huge gunfight soon began taking place between the police and the Ghasts!

  After the gunfight was over, the nihilist and pragmatist went over to where the gunfight had happened, and they saw that the idealist was lying motionless on the ground!

  The pragmatist quickly called an ambulance, and the ambulance driver said they they could travel close to where they were but that they wouldn’t travel all the way into Ghast territory.

  And so the pragmatist and nihilist carried the idealist over to where the ambulance was willing to meet them, and the idealist was placed into the ambulance and the nihilist and pragmatist were allowed into the ambulance with them.

  They soon reached the hospital, and eventually the idealist woke up and explained to the nihilist and pragmatist that they had gotten into a fight with a member of the Ghasts and that they’d been knocked out during the fight.

  “You need to be more careful!” the pragmatist fumed!, “Getting knocked out can cause terrible lasting effects, and you could have easily been killed!”

  The nihilist (who it turned out had fallen asleep in the chair that they’d been sitting in but had then been woken up by the idealist and pragmatist talking) said, “Could’ve been killed is true, though we’re all gonna die eventually after a while of living our pointless lives.”

  “There’s always a point!” the idealist insisted, “For there are always injustices that must be confronted!” and the pragmatist said, “True, though confronting them strategically is the key to actually achieving a more fair and just world.”

  The End”