“A logging company were sent to the Groves to cut down some of the larger trees within.”
“They went to work, cutting down tree after tree.”
“The sounds of them thundering to the ground would echo throughout the groves.”
“All except one.”
“This one tree refused to be felled. It was tougher and made of something different. The loggers chopped away at it with various tools, but it was they who ended up hurt.”
“By the end of their venture, they collectively gave up. The tree refused to be felled, so stand it would.”
“When they came back the next time to undertake maintenance of The Groves once again, the tree was no longer standing. It had been felled.”
“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
“In The Bleak, people have come to expect loggers cutting down its citizen trees, haven’t they?”
“Time after time, murders, rapists, and violent criminals of all kinds come to your level and make haste of their nefarious activities. They chop down all kinds of innocent people, but you’re the one tree they’ve never felled.”
“The one tree standing tall, despite their best efforts.”
“Only, my question cares not for the tree.”
“It cares for the perception of it.”
“You see Mr. Curze, surely there is nothing easier for you to imagine than trees, for instance, in The Groves. But what if no-one perceived them?”
“What if the loggers didn’t perceive the tree.”
“What if those violent criminals in the Bleak didn’t perceive you as a hero?”
“These objects of sense exist only when they are perceived; the trees are therefore in the Groves. You are therefore in The Bleak. But if the criminals stopped perceiving you, you’d no longer exist there. You’d no longer be a terror or a threat. You’d no longer be the cautionary tale against their activities.”
“This begs the question, doesn’t it?”
“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
“Or better yet… if a hero falls in the Bleak and no-one is around to hear it, does he make a sound?”
“This matter of perception is simply solved, Mr. Curze. For if you’re not perceived – if you’re not seen, or believed to exist, and no-body is able or chooses to do so, you’re not a hero.”
“There’s nothing to fear.”
“And I don’t perceive you as a hero, Mannfred.”
“I don’t perceive you at all.”
“Therefore, if I don’t perceive you, you don’t exist.”
“And if the hero doesn’t exist, and just a mere man stands before me at Clash, with a brain of knowledge I can surely understand… well…”
“You can forgive me for breaking the jar.”
“And letting all that knowledge spill out.”