The Morlocks are pretty bad neighbours. These inhuman monsters live and toil in their vast underground realm, and eat the Eloi who live above. But while you’d think this would make them the worst people to live next door to, I think I have them beat with Steve, the insufferable douche who moved in next door a few months ago. Here are seven reasons why the Morlocks would be better neighbours than Steve.
1. The Morlocks toil for the comfort of the Eloi, while Steve keeps bugging me to invest in his organic coffee business.
That’s right. The Morlocks are actually involved in ‘farming’ the Eloi. They provide them with a life of ease and comfort, and in return they breach the surface every now and again and eat a few. Seems fair right? This allegorical take on class relations, and the warning of a brutalised underclass of workers literally feeding on their ‘masters’ in the same way that their ‘masters’ fed on them for centuries makes the Morlocks a pretty ok neighbour. But Steve never toils for my comfort, and he constantly bugs me to invest in his organic coffee business, cofcom. Not only is that a terrible name, but people don’t want to order organic coffee off of the internet and then wait seven weeks for it to arrive Steve! They’ll go to the farmers market, or the local organic store. This is why Steve is the worst.
2. The Morlocks only eat as many Eloi as they need to survive, while Steve bulk buys quinoa and then tells me about it.
Looks like the Morlocks have Steve beat again. The Morlocks are pure survivalists, who eat to stay alive. Steve bulk buys quinoa, which he calls ‘Zen rice’, and then he comes over and talks about quinoa. He tells me facts about it. I don’t give a shit about quinoa Steve! It’s not an interesting subject.
3. The Morlocks don’t listen to music, while Steve records his indigenous Ecuadoran drum album right next to my room
The Morlocks have devolved to a level of practical brutality, in which only what is necessary is permitted. As such, they don’t have aesthetic appreciation for things like music. Steve, however, was inspired by indigenous drum music when he lived in Ecuador for a few weeks, and now he wants to record an album that ‘expresses synergy between indigenous drum music and British music’. That’s goddam cultural appropriation Steve! You’re not Shuar. You’re not even Ecuadoran. The indigenous peoples have suffered genocide, destruction of their culture, being forced to assimilate, and continued oppression to the present day, and now you’re taking their music and pairing it with The Beatles, the whitest band in history outside of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Jesus dude. And don’t play it next to my room at 4am asshole. I need sleep.
4. The Morlocks are entirely self-sufficient, while Steve keeps coming round to my house and asking to borrow my ‘quezela’
The Morlocks look after themselves. They never bother the Eloi, unless they are eating them, and they actually look after them while they are alive. Not Steve though. Steve comes round every few days and asks to borrow my quezela. What the hell is a quezela?! He told me it was a musical instrument once, and then the next time he said it was a type of bike. What the hell Steve? Which one is it? And you know I don’t have one! I’ve told you several times that I don’t have one, and that I’ll never have one. Jesus Steve, you’re the worst.
5. The Morlocks live in a far off dystopian future that they’ve been forced to accept and shape as best they can, while Steve constantly tells me that he should have lived in the sixties
The Morlocks live in a future that has been irreversibly scarred by unequal class relations. By this point, their brutal way of life has become so deeply ingrained that it probably isn’t even seen as a moral decision anymore. Just a way of life, and the way things have always been. Steve, meanwhile, says that he feels he should have been born in the sixties, the decade of the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and open racist resistance to even the most basic civil rights. He would choose to live in a society with even greater injustices than today, because he says he likes Woodstock. Go to hell Steve.
6. The Traveller theorises that the Morlocks later evolve into the giant red crab creatures that live in the far future, while Steve tells me that he’s going to travel to Nepal even though he clearly doesn’t know what that is.
Towards the end of the Time Machine, the Traveller goes into the far future, and sees what he believes to be the remnants of the Morlock/Eloi species’; giant red crabs hunting giant butterflies. Steve’s idea of change is going to ‘find himself’ in Nepal, despite the fact that he clearly thinks that Nepal is either a club or a bookstore. He says things like ‘Yes, I’m off to Nepal to buy a Kerouac book’ or ‘I’m off to Nepal to find myself by dancing the night away on the dancefloor of Nepal, which I think is a club’. Steve is a fricking imbecile.
7. The Morlocks don’t do naked star jumps in front of their open window and then tell me that I’m a prude for objecting to that.
I’m not sure what the Morlocks approach to clothing is actually. But I do know they don’t do naked star jumps in front of the window without drawing the curtains, and then when I go over and say ‘Hey, Steve. I don’t want to see that’ lecture me on the centuries of body repression at the heart of western Christian-Jewish society. I don’t want to see your dick Steve! It’s gross looking. Close the fucking curtains!
As you can see, the cannibalistic Morlock are by far better neighbours than Steve, who I hope falls into a quarry. I’m worked up now. Goodbye.