▸ Column · Modern Earth, suburban — retired warriors and martial artists living on neighboring compounds, Vegeta's own domestic milieu of barbecues, wives, and petty boundary feuds.
VEGETA replies.
The letter
Last autumn my neighbor Gerald — a retired fighter, lives on the compound abutting mine — staked a three-foot stone war-idol dead on the boundary, angled so its painted eyes glare into my kitchen at dawn. I answered with two granite sentinels holding little banners reading "IDOL GO HOME." Within days Gerald arrayed seven iron pennants in an arrow aimed at my door. I countered with a strobing beacon-tower that flares at dusk; he raised a full shrine in midsummer under a hand-lettered sign: "BLESSINGS ON ALL (SAVE NEXT DOOR)." We haven't spoken since winter. Our wives, it turns out, signed a secret truce neither told us about. And this morning a freight notice arrived for the 200-pound fiberglass war-beast I panic-ordered at 2 a.m. I won't back down — but my wife says the beast is "a line," and I genuinely can no longer tell whether I'm winning or simply turning into Gerald.
Vegeta replies
Hmph. A war fought with lawn idols. And you carried it to a prince. Listen, fool — a worthy rival forges you; you close the gap on him until you stand undeniable. That drive is the only engine that ever made anyone stronger. But Gerald forges nothing. You aren't closing a gap. You're growing a mirror. Every statue you plant makes you more him, not less. That isn't armor anymore. That's the coffin — and I know the coffin. I wore it for years, serving the creature who murdered my entire race, telling myself my spine was made of pride when it was made of his leash. The day I learned the difference was the day I put myself between my family and the end of everything. Your wife built a truce in secret and named the beast a line. She is the only one in this story who isn't a fool. The thing you'd suffer for is sitting in your house while you spend your nights ordering monsters to spite a man you've stopped speaking to. Cancel the freight. Not because you lost — because he was never a gap worth closing. Stop measuring yourself against the man beside you dragging you down. Walk it correctly.
— Vegeta
Frieza weighs in
Oh, how delightful — the prince counsels you to lay down your pride and scurry to your wife. How thoroughly domesticated he's become; I knew him when a sideways glance would have cost a man his house. Charming. But the sentiment misses the only fact that matters: you answered Gerald. Each time you matched him, you confessed you were his equal — and you were. That is your humiliation, not the war-beast. The composed never plant a single pennant, you poor thing. Don't grovel for peace; simply stop playing a game that broadcasts your rank. Let him decorate. Become someone whose grounds he studies in envy. Gratitude flows upward, dear. Make him look up.
— Frieza
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