Gabriel Jeroschewitz, July 12th, 2025.

Trust?

If you never trusted another person ever again, it would be understandable. I’d argue that avoiding people altogether might even be logical. Nobody would blame you. If they knew the hell you went through, they’d want to hide, too. I was thinking, though… what if, instead, you spent your life driving the heads of predators through a metaphorical, but no less satisfying, spike? Wouldn’t that be nice?

I’ve been watching Agnes for a while now. Not in a creepy, stalker way, mind you—more like one observes a fascinating, highly volatile, and inexplicably effective social experiment. Agnes, you see, went through… a lot. Not the kind of “a lot” that ends up on the evening news, but the slow, insidious agony inflicted by a thousand tiny cuts of societal disregard. Think of it: the neighbour who played polka music at 3 AM. The co-worker who consistently microwaved tuna casserole. The HOA president, who once fined her for having a ‘non-regulation’ gnome. Each a pinprick, but collectively, they forged Agnes into something magnificent, something the prompt of the universe perhaps hadn’t envisioned.

What if you became the threat, bringing hell to their doorstep instead? Doesn’t that sound like a lovely little plot twist? Rather than cower, wilt and shrink into someone meek and unassuming, Agnes took the biggest, deepest breath of her life and just… strategized. Her “scream” wasn’t a vocal sound, not initially. It was a well-indexed binder titled “Polka: A Comprehensive Legal Treatise on Nocturnal Noise Pollution, with Appendices on HOA Bylaw Violations About Obnoxious Instrumentation.” It landed on Mr. Henderson’s doorstep with the thud of a small anvil, followed by a cease-and-desist letter drafted with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker. Within a week, the polka stopped. The silence that followed, I swear, vibrated at decibel levels that, in case of emergencies, could break glass easily–not from sound, but from the sheer, resounding absence of it. It was the sound of a predator’s head being driven, quite elegantly, through a spike.

What if, instead, you spent your life ripping out the repugnant, abominable hearts of as many abusers as possible? The ones that look like yours – the quiet, unassuming types who want to live in peace. And the ones that look like theirs – the oblivious, self-important ones who believe the world is their personal soundstage or stinky kitchen.

Could you take the tuna casserole incident? Mildred from accounting. Every Thursday. The smell would coat the office like a fine, fishy mist. People would gag, subtly. Pass out air fresheners, casually. But Agnes? Agnes saw an abuser—an abuser of nostrils, of common human decency. Agnes sidled up one Thursday as Mildred was about to press ‘start’ on the microwave. No scream, no theatrics. Just a polite, almost too polite, smile. And then she began. In excruciating detail, she outlined the chemical composition of trimethylamine, the compound responsible for the ‘fishy’ smell. She presented a printed diagram of the office’s ventilation system, highlighting its inadequacy. She then produced a laminated chart of “Breakroom Etiquette for the Socially Conscious Colleague,” complete with footnotes citing HR policies, health codes, and a surprisingly eloquent quote from a 17th-century philosopher on the tyranny of the senses.

Mildred, her hand frozen mid-air, looked at Agnes as if she were an alien life form. Agnes wasn’t angry. She was just… informative. With the casual flourish of a magician, she then produced a small, airtight container. “For your leftovers, Mildred,” she cooed, “scientifically proven to contain even the most potent volatile organic compounds. Such a thoughtful gift, wouldn’t you say?” It was like watching a surgeon remove a cancer, only the tumour was Mildred’s pride, and the organ was her tuna casserole’s heart. The office smelled only of stale coffee for the first time in years. Let’s throw parades in Agnes’s name and make these abusers infamous. Let’s publicly broadcast their every depravity. Let’s throw dead roses at their feet – a coronation of who the blame and shame always belonged to. The office breakroom now features a large, laminated sign: “The Agnes Protocol: No Fish or Offensive Odours. Penalty: Public Discourse on Chemical Compounds.” It’s a work of art.

What if, instead, everything evil in the world was made afraid of you? Would that not be the ultimate form of retribution? Don’t let anyone convince you that revenge is only fueled by hate. Agnes was never motivated by hate. Her heart, if anything, seemed to swell with a profound, almost furious, love for order, for quietude, for the unspoken social contract that allowed people to be.

Her masterpiece, however, was the HOA—the infamous gnome incident. Agnes had a perfectly tasteful, hand-painted ceramic gnome with a little fishing rod. It was blue. Mrs. Periwinkle, the HOA president, insisted it was “non-regulation forest-dwelling folk” and demanded its removal, citing Section 4, Sub-section B of the “Approved Garden Ornamentation” Addendum. That was the last straw.

Agnes didn’t cower. She didn’t wilt. She fought back. Retaliated. Showed no mercy. She became an advocate for every mild-mannered resident whose petunias were too purple, whose recycling bin was two inches too far from the curb. She went unapologetic. She was vicious. She came up swinging, not with fists, but with binders, precedent, and an encyclopedic knowledge of municipal codes and zoning laws. She discovered Mrs. Periwinkle’s own “non-regulation” bird bath (imported Italian marble, clearly not “federally approved bird-bathing apparatus”). She exposed the entire HOA board’s dubious accounting practices during the annual “Pest Control Fund” allocation. She found the forgotten clause that stipulated mandatory composting for all residents, which Mrs. Periwinkle had conveniently ignored for years.

It was a campaign. A war of attrition was waged with spreadsheets and legal citations. Agnes didn’t just castrate them metaphorically; she dismantled their bureaucratic structure brick by brick. She tormented and demoralized them with a relentless barrage of official complaints and public information requests. She hunted down the perverse injustices of their rule. She became their nightmare. Be their curse.

Agnes stood up at the next HOA meeting. She didn’t scream. She didn’t shout. She spoke calmly and precisely for forty-five minutes. Every word was a tiny, perfectly aimed dart. By the end, Mrs. Periwinkle looked like a deflated balloon. The gnome, incidentally, was not only allowed to stay but was declared a “neighbourhood treasure, promoting local artistry.”

You can seek vengeance, never motivated by anger or hate, but by a love so robust and resilient that it destroys those devoid of it. Agnes’s love for a quiet, sensible life, unburdened by petty tyrannies, was her engine. If ever you’re unsure of your worth, know this – no matter how hard they tried, they could never take what makes you significant. Agnes, fighting for her perfectly manicured lawn, her tuna-free air, her polka-less nights, ultimately, saved others. The neighbourhood is, dare I say, a utopia of considerate behaviour now. The office is a beacon of common sense.

I hope your survival is so fucking loud it reaches those who lost their voice but never stopped listening. Because sometimes, the most profound acts of comedic retribution are born not from anger, but from a profound, desperate love for a quiet life, and a burning desire to make people stop being so… annoying. And Agnes, bless her little gnome-loving heart, was the loudest survivor I ever had the privilege to observe.