In my efforts to decipher Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, I find myself thinking of this story I wrote in my English class journal in seventh grade, over the course of several days in October of 1998. As to what in the world this has to do with Murakami, I shall be explaining shortly.
So here it is! All spelling and grammar are original and unchanged. And I didn't realize how long it was, so please forgive the prodigious length of this post.
Horror? Sci-fi? Satire? Wannabe-X-Files? You be the judge. (I was 12, okay???)
Original Author's Note: In second grade, we were given an assignment to write about a school bus that didn't come. Ever since, whenever I get a creative writing assignment, I write about a missing school bus.
Part 1
One day, in a small rural farming community, Lindsay McGarth was waiting for the school bus with her friend Miranda Glenksi.
They had been waiting for 15 minutes.
This wasn't exactly a rare occurence. In small towns like this, there were usually not many places where a vehicle could be fixed. So if there was a problem with the bus, then a mechanic could be called from a neighboring county.
Neither of the girls wanted to disturb their parents. So they waited.
An hour pulled by.
Lindsay and Miranda waited patiently, making small talk. But still, no bus.
Suddenly, in midsentence, Miranda turned and walked in the direction of Vornholt Middle School.
"Miranda?" Lindsay called after her. "Miranda, what are you doing? Miranda!" Lindsay then realized that she to was walking. And she couldn't stop. What was really weird, however, was the fact that she felt no emotion. No fear, no surprise. She just walked on impulse.
Lindsay and Miranda walked and walked until their feet hurt. But they walked the entire 25 miles to their school.
By then, it was around 11:15.
Once Miranda and Lindsay reached Vornholt, their feet gave way and they collapsed.
Lindsay lay still for what seemed like forever. Her feet still aching, she pulled herself up.
The missing school bus sat in the parking lot.
Part 2
Lindsay stared at the bus, puzzled. What was it doing here?And why had she walked 25 miles?
"Um - Miranda? Do you know what -" her voice trailed off. Miranda wasn't anywhere to be seen.
Lindsay looked around and realized with shock that her surroundings were different.
Vornholt Middle School was a big old building surrounded by huge trees with benches scattered about randomly. The weather had been, if Lindsay remembered correctly, since she normally never bothered to take note of the weather, sunny with big white fluffy clouds. But now, the sky was gray, with the clouds still present.
Vornholt and all it's trees and benches were gone, replaced with a flat, gray windowless building in the middle of a flat, gray plain. There was a featureless road behind Lindsay that led to a parking lot that was enclosed in a barb wire fence that went around the building and a good portion of the land.
What is this? Lindsay thought, horrified. Some kind of prison?
It was then that she noticed the school bus. Still bright yellow, it contrasted sharply with the gray landscape.
Looking down, Lindsay noticed that she still contained color.
A shrill, high-pitched scream interruped her thoughts. It didn't take Lindsay long to realize she had screamed.
Why did I do that? she wondered, and then saw why.
Standing besides the front end of the bus, was man wearing black shoes, black chinos, and a black trenchcoat. His hair was also black.
"The day the bus does not arrive," he said in a flat voice. "Is the day of Judgement."
Lindsay screamed again. Instinctively, she hurled herself and the the barb gate. [I think I left a word out in that sentence.] It swung open easily.
Not stopping to think about her good fortune, Lindsay tore down the road like a madwoman, desperate to get away from the gray building, the gray grass, the gray sky with white cotton candy clouds; Lindsay wanted to run and run and keep running from the Grim Reaper, or whoever that man was.
Lindsay ran.
Part 3
The road went on forever. Long and black, with a double white line down the middle, it stretched as far as Lindsay could see. The gray prarie bordered both sides, dotted with gray shrubs.
Where am I? Lindsay thought, terrified.
She almost ran into a white octagon road sign. Printed on it was the number 98. 98 what?
"The day of Judgement."
The voice came from all directions. It was impossible to tell where the speaker was.
Lindsay screamed hysterically and tore off the road like a maniac. She tripped over a shrub and scrambled up and kept running.
Someone grabbed her arm and she stopped short.
Part 4
Lindsay whirled around.
The person who had grabbed her was a tall, beautiful woman in white. White blazer, white blouse, white miniskirt, 4 inch white high heels. Her hair was black and fashionably cut.
"Who are you?" Lindsay shrieked. "Where am I? What is this place? Who was that guy back at the building?"
The woman didn't answer. She pulled Lindsay along with her, back in the direction of the mysterious compound.
"Let me go!" No matter how hard she tried, Lindsay could not break free. The woman in white had a grip like iron.
Lindsay tried to throw herself on the ground. She had seen her three-year-old brother do that a lot because he knew that when he was on the ground, it was difficult for his parents and sister to get him to go anywhere.
That didn't work for Lindsay. The woman in white hauled her along mercilessly, walking at a steady pace and keeping her dull robot-like gaze staring straight ahead.
The compound loomed ahead. The school bus still sat out front, still yellow and like Lindsay it still contrasted sharply with everything else.
Part 5
The woman's grip on Lindsay tighted as they approached the glass doors. They swung open automatically.
There was a blinding yellow light so intense Lindsay's eyes felt like they were on fire. I'll be blinded! was all she could think.
Lindsay could feel herself being forcibly [pulled? dragged? - forgot a verb there]. Then, suddenly and unexpectidly, the light was gone.
The room Lindsay was in had shiny silver walls, floor, and ceiling. There was a metal chair in one corner. Other than that, the room was devoid of any furniture or features.
Lindsay heard a soft whoosh behind her and felt a faint breeze. She whirled around just in time to see the heavy steel door slide closed.
Lindsay's terror rose. She shaking [sic] even though she wasn't cold. Her legs were trembling so uncontrolably she had to sit on the floor.
Where am I? Lindsay wondered. Where is all the color? I have color, and so does the bus, but nothing else does.
Part 6
Lindsay felt tired. She struggled to stay awak, but soon she was sound asleep.
She woke up a while later, and had no idea how much later it was.
She was in a different room. It looked like the other one, except at one end was a table and two chairs.
Seated at the table, was the man in black, and the woman in white.
"Who are you?" Lindsay screamed.
The two strange adults didn't move or change their expressions.
"It has worked," said the woman impassively.
"She has passed the test," the man agreed in the same toneless voice.
"What worked?" Lindsay demanded.
She didn't expect an answer, but got one.
"This race deserves to live," said the woman. "The interdimensional transporter, disguised as a school vehicle, effectively sent the specimen. Mind control was effective in sending her to the school.
"The specimen responded appropriately to traumatic external stimuli.
"Test and judgement complete."
Part 7
The room dissolved. There was a floating sensation.
Lindsay hit the ground with a thud. For a moment she lay, staring at the sky, blinking.
She was by the side of the road. The sun's merciless glare started to hurt her eyes. Lindsay sat up awkwardly.
"There she is!"
Lindsay turned in the direction of the voice. Four police officers were getting out their squad cars.
What happened? Lindsay couldn't remember.
***
A few days later, the bizarre story was pieced together. According to witnesses and the students themselves, the school bus had failed to arrive. Then it seemed the students had started to walk to school for no reason.
The bus was seen parked in front of Vornhold Middle School. Mysteriously, one by one, the students began to slowly back out. Doctors were unable to determine the reason. They could not have been forcibly knocked unconcious; someone would have surely seen the attacker(s) and given warning. There was nothing medically wrong with any of the students. No poisinous pesticides had been sprayed recently. There were no toxic waste disposal plants nearby. It all made no sense.
And while the students were unconcious, both Lindsay McGrath and the bus had vanished. Without a trace.
Lindsay had been found several hours later, by the side of the road, six miles away from Vornholt, where she had last been seen.
The bus itself was never found.
"The Vornhold Incident," as it was called, became the most talked about "paranormal" occurence in history. Reporters swarmed the country, and quaint little Vornhold soon became a household name.
The End
So, um, yeah. Parts of this aren't 100% original. (*Sigh* I guess I plagiarized.) I used to have a little book about "real-life" alien encounters, and the author mentioned a novel some UFO researcher had written called Men in Black, Women in White. (I just Googled it and didn't find anything, though.) The gray landscape comes from a video game ad I remember seeing in one of my Star Trek comic books. Yes, I was a rather strange kid.
Plot hole: if the bus never came, how could it have served as an "interdimensional transporter" that transported Lindsay?
Now if only someone would send Lindsay Lohan to some bizarre Otherworld and actually leave her there. . .
Showing posts with label Originals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Originals. Show all posts
Friday, June 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Sin of Pride/Vanity
"He looks like a walking corpse… Like a mummified body dead a thousand years. Amazing he is still alive, much less the most powerful man in the Galaxy. He isn't even that old; it is more as if something is slowly eating him."
- Prince Xizor in the Star Wars Expanded Universe
The Sin known as Pride, or Vanity, is the insidious root that generates all other Sins until that blackened tree fairly scrapes the sky. All its branches continually meshing, meeting, and entangling as Sin begets Sin; all trails back to the trunk that molders and putrefies yet, perversely, will not die.
Such is the condition of that singular individual they call Vanity's Tyrant. He, above all, is the incarnate of Pride, as his own bloated self-worth swelled and distended out to encompass the kingdom as he rose higher and fell farther. The Tyrant wields power like that which has never been seen before and hopefully never will be again. He strides on the broken backs of friend and foe alike. I say he verily calls the gods to attention when his armies swarm and blanket the scorched cities banded by dead horizon only. For this is Tyrant's land, the dead land. There is not even silence here, but the despot's laughter ringing a dead tone from cracked desert to turbulent waters.
But let it be known that while the state stomps eternally on the face of all that is good, the Tyrant rots on a throne of gold and ivory. He looks ahead and sees the world scraping and bowing and delves delightfully in his own might but he is blind to himself. He is warped and so is the mirror. Life is love, and laughter, and peace like a meadow waving in the breeze of warm summer's day. Life sustains and is ever-growing; it is green and vibrant. It is rocked by winds and rain but perseveres through the tempest. Sin itself is outside Life, it is an intangible thing that yet infects the living. It is disease. The Tyrant has sunk into himself and does not realize that he is encrusted with a sickness that feeds upon his physical form. The sight would inspire most holy pity were it not so terrible: a dried, desiccated, shriveled corpse crows and sneers from down on high and crushes the kingdom in his gnarled hands evermore.
This silly little vignette, written in the melodramatic style of Edgar Allen Poe and containing imagery from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," was written for an English class in college. We were reading Spenser's The Faerie Queen, which features many fantastic creatures that represent various sins, such as "Error." The assignment was for us to design our own monsters, based on a sin of our choosing, and I chose to build Pride/Vanity out of the character of Emperor Palpatine (a.k.a. Darth Sidious), the tyrannical Sith Lord and galactic despot from Star Wars. According to the database at starwars.com, "The dark side energies flowing through Palpatine's body were so intense, that they ravaged his mortal frame. The very source of Palpatine's strength was killing him." (In case you haven't noticed by now, yes, I am a geek, although I usually prefer Star Trek.)
Maybe I should post it on fanfiction.net?
- Prince Xizor in the Star Wars Expanded Universe
The Sin known as Pride, or Vanity, is the insidious root that generates all other Sins until that blackened tree fairly scrapes the sky. All its branches continually meshing, meeting, and entangling as Sin begets Sin; all trails back to the trunk that molders and putrefies yet, perversely, will not die.
Such is the condition of that singular individual they call Vanity's Tyrant. He, above all, is the incarnate of Pride, as his own bloated self-worth swelled and distended out to encompass the kingdom as he rose higher and fell farther. The Tyrant wields power like that which has never been seen before and hopefully never will be again. He strides on the broken backs of friend and foe alike. I say he verily calls the gods to attention when his armies swarm and blanket the scorched cities banded by dead horizon only. For this is Tyrant's land, the dead land. There is not even silence here, but the despot's laughter ringing a dead tone from cracked desert to turbulent waters.
But let it be known that while the state stomps eternally on the face of all that is good, the Tyrant rots on a throne of gold and ivory. He looks ahead and sees the world scraping and bowing and delves delightfully in his own might but he is blind to himself. He is warped and so is the mirror. Life is love, and laughter, and peace like a meadow waving in the breeze of warm summer's day. Life sustains and is ever-growing; it is green and vibrant. It is rocked by winds and rain but perseveres through the tempest. Sin itself is outside Life, it is an intangible thing that yet infects the living. It is disease. The Tyrant has sunk into himself and does not realize that he is encrusted with a sickness that feeds upon his physical form. The sight would inspire most holy pity were it not so terrible: a dried, desiccated, shriveled corpse crows and sneers from down on high and crushes the kingdom in his gnarled hands evermore.
This silly little vignette, written in the melodramatic style of Edgar Allen Poe and containing imagery from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," was written for an English class in college. We were reading Spenser's The Faerie Queen, which features many fantastic creatures that represent various sins, such as "Error." The assignment was for us to design our own monsters, based on a sin of our choosing, and I chose to build Pride/Vanity out of the character of Emperor Palpatine (a.k.a. Darth Sidious), the tyrannical Sith Lord and galactic despot from Star Wars. According to the database at starwars.com, "The dark side energies flowing through Palpatine's body were so intense, that they ravaged his mortal frame. The very source of Palpatine's strength was killing him." (In case you haven't noticed by now, yes, I am a geek, although I usually prefer Star Trek.)
Maybe I should post it on fanfiction.net?
Friday, September 26, 2008
Temperance is Fun! (Part III)
Einstein Has Really Done It Now
The day had begun quietly enough. Another patrol, perhaps a few burglaries, some kids with spray paint: all in all, nothing unusual in the life of Sergeant Martinez. Such was the existence of a small-town police officer. It certainly wasn't a boring job, but it lacked to moments of danger and adrenaline that characterized the days of her urban counterparts. At least, that was how she felt until the call came in just before 8:15.
Within minutes she had arrived at the Best Buy where the incident had occurred and found curious onlookers already swarming about the store's entrance. She elbowed her way through and tapped the glass. A harried-looking manager rushed over and unlocked the sliding doors just enough to let her in and keep the excited spectators out. "I'm sure glad you got here so quickly," he said as she followed him to the back, where several brightly colored cardboard signs celebrated the release of the new Dell Inspiron 460. "Officer –"
"Martinez."
"Well, Officer Martinez, I don't know what to make of it. I was at the front registers preparing to open when all of a sudden I hear all this yelling. I run back to see what was going on and there were these two men in these . . . old-fashioned costumes and the employees are telling me they fell through some kind of vortex . . . I mean, we normally don't open until nine, so all the doors were locked; they couldn't have just walked in and I could have sworn they weren't here when I arrived at seven-thirty . . ." The manager shook his head. "One seems rather agitated. He keeps moaning something about 'the vast emptiness which the imagination can no longer people with fascinating illusions' and some nonsense about Einstein and the time-space continuum."
"And the other?"
"Yeah, uh . . . he asked if it was the year 2000 and I told him, no, that that was, you know, eight years ago . . . he's been bouncing off the walls ever since and asking to see our glorious society of love and compassion and equality and peace . . . I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth . . ."
The End!
The day had begun quietly enough. Another patrol, perhaps a few burglaries, some kids with spray paint: all in all, nothing unusual in the life of Sergeant Martinez. Such was the existence of a small-town police officer. It certainly wasn't a boring job, but it lacked to moments of danger and adrenaline that characterized the days of her urban counterparts. At least, that was how she felt until the call came in just before 8:15.
Within minutes she had arrived at the Best Buy where the incident had occurred and found curious onlookers already swarming about the store's entrance. She elbowed her way through and tapped the glass. A harried-looking manager rushed over and unlocked the sliding doors just enough to let her in and keep the excited spectators out. "I'm sure glad you got here so quickly," he said as she followed him to the back, where several brightly colored cardboard signs celebrated the release of the new Dell Inspiron 460. "Officer –"
"Martinez."
"Well, Officer Martinez, I don't know what to make of it. I was at the front registers preparing to open when all of a sudden I hear all this yelling. I run back to see what was going on and there were these two men in these . . . old-fashioned costumes and the employees are telling me they fell through some kind of vortex . . . I mean, we normally don't open until nine, so all the doors were locked; they couldn't have just walked in and I could have sworn they weren't here when I arrived at seven-thirty . . ." The manager shook his head. "One seems rather agitated. He keeps moaning something about 'the vast emptiness which the imagination can no longer people with fascinating illusions' and some nonsense about Einstein and the time-space continuum."
"And the other?"
"Yeah, uh . . . he asked if it was the year 2000 and I told him, no, that that was, you know, eight years ago . . . he's been bouncing off the walls ever since and asking to see our glorious society of love and compassion and equality and peace . . . I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth . . ."
The End!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Temperance is Fun! (Part II)
But Intemperance is Even More Fun!
Jane Addams finished her speech on Hull House's goals for 1898 and made her way to the punch bowel. Her gaze flickered briefly to the gentleman standing with his arm looped around a pillar, grinning madly at the other guests. His behavior, in addition to his bizarre dress, had been unnerving her throughout the evening but she ultimately decided to ignore him. Settling into an apathetic slum to establish a revolutionary social experiment had taken great courage and the subsequent years had not depleted her reserves. Pouring herself a drink to relieve her parched throat, she returned to the bustling throng, only to find herself back at the punch bowel several seconds later. She really had talked quite a bit. The punch had a funny tang to it, but she was thirsty. Quite thirsty. The room tilted.
"Miss Addams, I must say I found your speech quite enjoyable. Your grasp of the social sciences is impressive." She gripped the edge of the table. "However I do believe you neglected the economic side of the issues . . ." The crowd buzzed like so many bees, the speaker's words soaring vividly above the hum. "But perhaps I should introduce myself first. My name is Edward Bellamy. You may be familiar with my book, Looking Backward. . ."
"Edward Bellamy!" Addams slammed her glass down onto the table, magenta liquid swirling violently. Heads turned. The eccentric stranger darted from his pillar to the opposite end of the refreshment table, where he hovered anxiously. Bellamy took a step back.
The world had suddenly become very sharp and very clear. The crowd had ceased and the silence was very loud. A damper had been lifted and she saw what was and what was to be done and by God she would do it! Bellamy! "I most certainly did read your little book and was most distressed!" The room had turned to her but the universe had collapsed into the object of her displeasure, who stood directly before her.
"'Under no circumstanced is a woman permitted to follow any employment not perfectly adapted, both as kind and degree of labor, to her sex.'" The odious sentence, so long emblazoned in her mind, flew out her mouth. "Reformers are mistaken in trying to eliminate differences between the sexes? Tell me, Mister Bellamy, from what feminine authority did you derive such idiocy? You go on and on about imperium in imperio and the natural sympathy between members of the same sex and how the two sexes cannot possibly understand each other and it's a mistake to try to erase those differences – I daresay you contradict yourself! If woman cannot comprehend man and man cannot comprehend woman, then how in the world do you know women are so utterly different and indeed weaker than men? Have you ever given birth?" Her eyes narrowed. "Well neither have I , but I have witnessed the spectacle and tell me sir, have you any idea of the strength required to endure such an event? And on multiple occasions! 'Unnatural rivalry' with men! Perhaps you are concerned that women will prove the superior!"
Bellamy was speechless. "Now, now there's more to it than that," he managed to stammer out. "Truly I concede – and I believe I made it quite clear in Looking Backward – that the woman of the nineteenth century is imprisoned by marriage, helplessly dependent on her husband, her great potential untapped. You and I really are in agreement –"
"You say your women have everything they strive for now when you wouldn't even have us as President or Senator! No! You would have us as advisors only, no real leadership outside the confines of the woman's world! You say only those women who have been wives and mothers may hope to reach the pinnacle of the system? I have been a teacher, a thinker, a writer, a sociologist, a statistician, a mediator, an activist, an organizer, a visionary, a speaker, but I have been neither wife nor mother. By God, have you any idea how this smacks of the 'separate but equal' they're now trying to force on the Negroes of the South? We'll give you your imperium in imperio but you shall be as the creek that trickles alongside the rush of a mighty river. We'll allow you your playhouse but we have the real house, we hold the power, we make the final decisions!"
Krutch gave a happy little jump. The race question! If only Reinhold Niebuhr were here!
"That is a poor comparison!" Bellamy protested. "The Southern Negro lacks any type of authority whatsoever and is daily threatened with violence –"
"And that's another thing!" Addams swung dangerously, but steadied herself. "Where is the cultural diversity of the year 2000? Where are the Poles, the Jews, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, the Russians, the Germans, the Italians, the French, the Hungarians, the Greeks, the Irish? Your world is one enormous industrial complex! In your world to be equal is to be identical! You, sir, seem to be under the impression that in order to achieve equality we must eliminate all our wonderful differences, all that makes us unique! I suppose that makes sense in an awful sort of way, I mean uniformity of standard and practice and expectation and whatnot would make it so much easier but tell me, haven't you ever heard of Faust? There I am at Hull House working to encourage our hardworking immigrants to hold onto 'whatever of value their past life contained' I believe were my words. You would have us all as little more than cogs in a vast industrial machine! Your world has no humanity!
"Your views on this matter of social diversity are extraordinary in their utter perversity. You imagine the only the 'better sorts' reproducing, thus 'purifying' the race, a prospect I find most exceedingly disturbing. Good God, first you would turn us into slaves to the state then you would breed us! Human beings are not animals! Just what is your definition of 'the inferior types' that ought to 'drop out'? You never did tell us! Give me a reason, sir, not to be thoroughly disturbed by this! I have devoted my life to aiding and improving the lives of the 'inferior types' and let me tell you that moniker is hardly an accurate description! Poverty is the result not of vice and laziness, but of the imbalance and selfishness of society. You claim to see wasted potential and disrupted greatness in their forlorn and desolate faces, but I wonder!"
Krutch didn't blame her. That sounded a lot like that other demented German. Despite the predicament he had put him into, as well its frightening social and moral ramifications, Krutch found himself feeling almost sorry for Mr. Einstein. That Hitler did not seem to be very fond of Jews. He began to wonder which German would destroy the world first: Hitler and his mania or Einstein and his time travel. Perhaps he should travel to 1944 and see what had had happened. Krutch began laughing again.
Bellamy opened his mouth to counter, but Addams was on a roll. "Although I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised, given the inherently elitist character of you year 2000. You postulate that corruption will be defeated by limiting suffrage to only the select few, the so-called 'honorary members.' That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. While we're at it, let's combat betrayal and backstabbing by eliminating friendship! Don't you see, sir, that democracy derives its dynamism and vibrancy from all the varied forces of society? Do you honestly believe that the will of the people can be adequately represented by only a small fraction, especially one determined by specific man-made parameters?
"You claim that a lack of exercise of the intellectual faculties makes humans soft and dull. Well what do you think happens when citizens are denied a voice and rendered powerless and at the mercy of their so-called 'social betters'? The notion of initiative, the very bedrock of our self-government, suffers and absolutely nothing gets done! We of the Settlement House movement neither support nor deny any specific socio-political idea or any individual idealist, but grant them all a place at the table 'if perchance one of them be found an angel.' You ought to attend one the Working People's Social Science Club sessions. Once the speaker has finished and the discussion ensued, you will never see a livelier bunch. Everyone, that is, all members of a given society, have a right, indeed an obligation, to full participation in the political system. This is lateral progress, the advancement of society through the betterment of all its members, not merely a few individual achievements glowing like pinpoints in the dark. Do you truly believe that a small gathering of elites behind close doors possesses the all the requisite knowledge to comprehend the complete operations of the interdependent society? To know what is best for it better than the masses that make it? Is this your idea of Utopia?"
By now the room had fallen silent and focused once again on the indomitable Jane Addams. Krutch, the stranger from a strange time, was not so unsure of Bellamy's theories on democracy and suffrage. Even by the twenties, many felt, the world had reached such complexity, such a frighteningly delicate dance of infinite facets, that few of the "masses" dared attempt comprehend it, much less help govern it. It was far easier to bustle about your own particular niche and hope that the neighboring niches did their jobs well. No, Bellamy had a good point. The notion of a "public" was nonexistent. Or laughable. Just look at what had just happened in Germany.
Bellamy, for his part, was utterly stunned. It was a full minute before he found his voice and even then it was quite subdued. "Well, well, yes, I suppose we do have our differences, ma'am, but perhaps we are not so different as you would have everyone believe. I really do agree, first and foremost, that rich have become listless and the poor dispirited by the great gulf between them and their mutual isolation from one another. That vivid verbal portrait you once painted of an entire generation shocked into silence and rote cliché by the realization of its powerlessness in the face of entrenched custom and tradition to affect any sort of positive change – I most thoroughly agree with you. To be confined to a single, remote sphere, far from the dizzying excitement and challenges of the greater world, is to deaden and soften the heart and mind. I argue that this is the effect of the contemporary restrictions placed upon women. We are all, quite frankly, restricted by social conventions that separate us from our brothers and sisters and this lack of human brotherhood – or sisterhood – is what is numbing us. We are all too focused, I agree, upon ourselves and will only progress by uplifting society as a whole. We all claim humanity; I am saddened by your assertions that I am hypocritically antagonistic to the downtrodden and wish to 'breed' them out of existence. That is not what Looking Backward meant to imply at all and I truly apologize if that is the message you received. If you will recall, I also criticized the apathy, corruption, laziness, and parasitical nature of many of the upper class. A tiny elite that exists to consume the bulk of society's benefits produced by those whom they so ruthlessly crush and command: one of these days, they will fall from the top of the stagecoach.
"We both, you and I, believe that the rich must do their utmost to aid the poor in their struggle for survival and search for life and meaning beyond the drudgery and deprivation of their existence. We must only extend the love and compassion we feel for those closest to us, our friends and family, to all humanity for we are the human family. That was the true message of Looking Backward: the Kingdom of God, if you will, descended from on high and finally embraced by society. Centuries and centuries of dreaming, of the visionary few glimpsing the light brimming on the horizon – we can achieve it, Miss Addams, it is within our ability if we would only set our hearts to it. You say you see a Christian renaissance rising all around you, 'a thousand voices singing the Hallelujah Chorus in Handel's "Messiah."' I promise you, that single transcendent moment of conversion is not far off; soon we shall cast off our ancient shackles. Love, love for the human family, compassion for the weak, the mobilization our forces not to fight but to cooperate – the industrial army, Miss Addams, we must all join hands and work together for peace instead of war. If we can mobilize so quickly and effectively for the purpose of destruction, can we not do the same for building and growing?"
It was the most beautiful speech of the evening. People wept, turned to one another and embraced; many raised their glasses of grape juice in salutation. How they envied their descendants! Addams sighed and clasped her hands in anticipation. Edward Bellamy was right. It was glorious, glorious and well within their reach. The room suddenly slid at a dangerous angle. Glorious, glorious! She cheered and scooped more punch out of the bowel with her glass, downing it in seconds.
Krutch stared at Bellamy and Addams in disbelief. Oh this was too much. What a bunch of daydreaming children, squealing about the castle in the sky. He let out a yell and slammed his fists down on the table. Gasps were heard, glass shattered, and patches of grape juice stained the rug. Krutch drew an angry breath. "You pitiful, sentimental fools!" the mad time traveler roared. "Do you honestly think love is a social ethic? Do you honestly believe anyone can be made to care about strangers on the opposite coast when they can't even stand their own neighbors and would sooner drive them out of business and reap the spoils than to join hands? Your naiveté disgusts me! You are all woefully ignorant about the brutal facts of society if you think love will find an answer! Don't you realize the cruel necessity of power, of coercion? No one is going to sacrifice their own interests if they are not either forced to do so! Army? ARMY?! You haven't seen it yet have you! The wasteland, the no man's land, the trenches choked with bodies, the yellow fog of the mustard gas laced by barbed wire, the machines of death, bodies torn apart, veterans with no limbs, no faces, no lives though they still be living! You talk of a new generation rising to the challenge of bringing love and compassion to the downtrodden? I shall talk of a generation destroyed! I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I shall show you fear in a handful of dust! You purport the greatest fallacy of them all! You believe we can be divine! You think we can identify with the Absolute! And you are all sadly delusional if you even think such an Absolute exists!" Krutch snatched a glass, intent on the rest of the punch. Addams, for her part, simply stared at him.
Murmurings twittered to life amongst the guests, Addams' uncharacteristic attack forgotten in the wake of this horrid speech by this horrid person. What a sad, strange little man! "It must be terrible to go through life thinking like that . . ." "Oh dear, do you truly think he believes that?" "Tragic, really . . ." "Some people just have no faith, I tell you." Krutch smiled jovially and drunkenly waved his glass at the crowd. Addams fell over in a dead faint. Bellamy stormed up to Krutch. "You know, it is people such as yourself who continue to stand in the way of . . ."
Screams were heard as a ring of light materialized directly behind the two men and its interior shimmered like a lake suspended sideways in the air. Krutch jumped for joy while a look of shock crossed Bellamy's face as a great force issued from the watery surface and he found himself falling forwards.
* * *
"I got it, I got it!" Albert Einstein assured the attendees of the Harvard Physics Lecture Series. Despite the enormity of the situation, he felt quite relieved. Good God, he hadn't expected the Temporal Relocator to actually work. . . "I'll have him back in a jiffy!"
To be continued. . .
Jane Addams finished her speech on Hull House's goals for 1898 and made her way to the punch bowel. Her gaze flickered briefly to the gentleman standing with his arm looped around a pillar, grinning madly at the other guests. His behavior, in addition to his bizarre dress, had been unnerving her throughout the evening but she ultimately decided to ignore him. Settling into an apathetic slum to establish a revolutionary social experiment had taken great courage and the subsequent years had not depleted her reserves. Pouring herself a drink to relieve her parched throat, she returned to the bustling throng, only to find herself back at the punch bowel several seconds later. She really had talked quite a bit. The punch had a funny tang to it, but she was thirsty. Quite thirsty. The room tilted.
"Miss Addams, I must say I found your speech quite enjoyable. Your grasp of the social sciences is impressive." She gripped the edge of the table. "However I do believe you neglected the economic side of the issues . . ." The crowd buzzed like so many bees, the speaker's words soaring vividly above the hum. "But perhaps I should introduce myself first. My name is Edward Bellamy. You may be familiar with my book, Looking Backward. . .""Edward Bellamy!" Addams slammed her glass down onto the table, magenta liquid swirling violently. Heads turned. The eccentric stranger darted from his pillar to the opposite end of the refreshment table, where he hovered anxiously. Bellamy took a step back.
The world had suddenly become very sharp and very clear. The crowd had ceased and the silence was very loud. A damper had been lifted and she saw what was and what was to be done and by God she would do it! Bellamy! "I most certainly did read your little book and was most distressed!" The room had turned to her but the universe had collapsed into the object of her displeasure, who stood directly before her.
"'Under no circumstanced is a woman permitted to follow any employment not perfectly adapted, both as kind and degree of labor, to her sex.'" The odious sentence, so long emblazoned in her mind, flew out her mouth. "Reformers are mistaken in trying to eliminate differences between the sexes? Tell me, Mister Bellamy, from what feminine authority did you derive such idiocy? You go on and on about imperium in imperio and the natural sympathy between members of the same sex and how the two sexes cannot possibly understand each other and it's a mistake to try to erase those differences – I daresay you contradict yourself! If woman cannot comprehend man and man cannot comprehend woman, then how in the world do you know women are so utterly different and indeed weaker than men? Have you ever given birth?" Her eyes narrowed. "Well neither have I , but I have witnessed the spectacle and tell me sir, have you any idea of the strength required to endure such an event? And on multiple occasions! 'Unnatural rivalry' with men! Perhaps you are concerned that women will prove the superior!"Bellamy was speechless. "Now, now there's more to it than that," he managed to stammer out. "Truly I concede – and I believe I made it quite clear in Looking Backward – that the woman of the nineteenth century is imprisoned by marriage, helplessly dependent on her husband, her great potential untapped. You and I really are in agreement –"
"You say your women have everything they strive for now when you wouldn't even have us as President or Senator! No! You would have us as advisors only, no real leadership outside the confines of the woman's world! You say only those women who have been wives and mothers may hope to reach the pinnacle of the system? I have been a teacher, a thinker, a writer, a sociologist, a statistician, a mediator, an activist, an organizer, a visionary, a speaker, but I have been neither wife nor mother. By God, have you any idea how this smacks of the 'separate but equal' they're now trying to force on the Negroes of the South? We'll give you your imperium in imperio but you shall be as the creek that trickles alongside the rush of a mighty river. We'll allow you your playhouse but we have the real house, we hold the power, we make the final decisions!"
Krutch gave a happy little jump. The race question! If only Reinhold Niebuhr were here!
"That is a poor comparison!" Bellamy protested. "The Southern Negro lacks any type of authority whatsoever and is daily threatened with violence –"
"And that's another thing!" Addams swung dangerously, but steadied herself. "Where is the cultural diversity of the year 2000? Where are the Poles, the Jews, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, the Russians, the Germans, the Italians, the French, the Hungarians, the Greeks, the Irish? Your world is one enormous industrial complex! In your world to be equal is to be identical! You, sir, seem to be under the impression that in order to achieve equality we must eliminate all our wonderful differences, all that makes us unique! I suppose that makes sense in an awful sort of way, I mean uniformity of standard and practice and expectation and whatnot would make it so much easier but tell me, haven't you ever heard of Faust? There I am at Hull House working to encourage our hardworking immigrants to hold onto 'whatever of value their past life contained' I believe were my words. You would have us all as little more than cogs in a vast industrial machine! Your world has no humanity!"Your views on this matter of social diversity are extraordinary in their utter perversity. You imagine the only the 'better sorts' reproducing, thus 'purifying' the race, a prospect I find most exceedingly disturbing. Good God, first you would turn us into slaves to the state then you would breed us! Human beings are not animals! Just what is your definition of 'the inferior types' that ought to 'drop out'? You never did tell us! Give me a reason, sir, not to be thoroughly disturbed by this! I have devoted my life to aiding and improving the lives of the 'inferior types' and let me tell you that moniker is hardly an accurate description! Poverty is the result not of vice and laziness, but of the imbalance and selfishness of society. You claim to see wasted potential and disrupted greatness in their forlorn and desolate faces, but I wonder!"
Krutch didn't blame her. That sounded a lot like that other demented German. Despite the predicament he had put him into, as well its frightening social and moral ramifications, Krutch found himself feeling almost sorry for Mr. Einstein. That Hitler did not seem to be very fond of Jews. He began to wonder which German would destroy the world first: Hitler and his mania or Einstein and his time travel. Perhaps he should travel to 1944 and see what had had happened. Krutch began laughing again.
Bellamy opened his mouth to counter, but Addams was on a roll. "Although I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised, given the inherently elitist character of you year 2000. You postulate that corruption will be defeated by limiting suffrage to only the select few, the so-called 'honorary members.' That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. While we're at it, let's combat betrayal and backstabbing by eliminating friendship! Don't you see, sir, that democracy derives its dynamism and vibrancy from all the varied forces of society? Do you honestly believe that the will of the people can be adequately represented by only a small fraction, especially one determined by specific man-made parameters?
"You claim that a lack of exercise of the intellectual faculties makes humans soft and dull. Well what do you think happens when citizens are denied a voice and rendered powerless and at the mercy of their so-called 'social betters'? The notion of initiative, the very bedrock of our self-government, suffers and absolutely nothing gets done! We of the Settlement House movement neither support nor deny any specific socio-political idea or any individual idealist, but grant them all a place at the table 'if perchance one of them be found an angel.' You ought to attend one the Working People's Social Science Club sessions. Once the speaker has finished and the discussion ensued, you will never see a livelier bunch. Everyone, that is, all members of a given society, have a right, indeed an obligation, to full participation in the political system. This is lateral progress, the advancement of society through the betterment of all its members, not merely a few individual achievements glowing like pinpoints in the dark. Do you truly believe that a small gathering of elites behind close doors possesses the all the requisite knowledge to comprehend the complete operations of the interdependent society? To know what is best for it better than the masses that make it? Is this your idea of Utopia?"By now the room had fallen silent and focused once again on the indomitable Jane Addams. Krutch, the stranger from a strange time, was not so unsure of Bellamy's theories on democracy and suffrage. Even by the twenties, many felt, the world had reached such complexity, such a frighteningly delicate dance of infinite facets, that few of the "masses" dared attempt comprehend it, much less help govern it. It was far easier to bustle about your own particular niche and hope that the neighboring niches did their jobs well. No, Bellamy had a good point. The notion of a "public" was nonexistent. Or laughable. Just look at what had just happened in Germany.
Bellamy, for his part, was utterly stunned. It was a full minute before he found his voice and even then it was quite subdued. "Well, well, yes, I suppose we do have our differences, ma'am, but perhaps we are not so different as you would have everyone believe. I really do agree, first and foremost, that rich have become listless and the poor dispirited by the great gulf between them and their mutual isolation from one another. That vivid verbal portrait you once painted of an entire generation shocked into silence and rote cliché by the realization of its powerlessness in the face of entrenched custom and tradition to affect any sort of positive change – I most thoroughly agree with you. To be confined to a single, remote sphere, far from the dizzying excitement and challenges of the greater world, is to deaden and soften the heart and mind. I argue that this is the effect of the contemporary restrictions placed upon women. We are all, quite frankly, restricted by social conventions that separate us from our brothers and sisters and this lack of human brotherhood – or sisterhood – is what is numbing us. We are all too focused, I agree, upon ourselves and will only progress by uplifting society as a whole. We all claim humanity; I am saddened by your assertions that I am hypocritically antagonistic to the downtrodden and wish to 'breed' them out of existence. That is not what Looking Backward meant to imply at all and I truly apologize if that is the message you received. If you will recall, I also criticized the apathy, corruption, laziness, and parasitical nature of many of the upper class. A tiny elite that exists to consume the bulk of society's benefits produced by those whom they so ruthlessly crush and command: one of these days, they will fall from the top of the stagecoach.
"We both, you and I, believe that the rich must do their utmost to aid the poor in their struggle for survival and search for life and meaning beyond the drudgery and deprivation of their existence. We must only extend the love and compassion we feel for those closest to us, our friends and family, to all humanity for we are the human family. That was the true message of Looking Backward: the Kingdom of God, if you will, descended from on high and finally embraced by society. Centuries and centuries of dreaming, of the visionary few glimpsing the light brimming on the horizon – we can achieve it, Miss Addams, it is within our ability if we would only set our hearts to it. You say you see a Christian renaissance rising all around you, 'a thousand voices singing the Hallelujah Chorus in Handel's "Messiah."' I promise you, that single transcendent moment of conversion is not far off; soon we shall cast off our ancient shackles. Love, love for the human family, compassion for the weak, the mobilization our forces not to fight but to cooperate – the industrial army, Miss Addams, we must all join hands and work together for peace instead of war. If we can mobilize so quickly and effectively for the purpose of destruction, can we not do the same for building and growing?"It was the most beautiful speech of the evening. People wept, turned to one another and embraced; many raised their glasses of grape juice in salutation. How they envied their descendants! Addams sighed and clasped her hands in anticipation. Edward Bellamy was right. It was glorious, glorious and well within their reach. The room suddenly slid at a dangerous angle. Glorious, glorious! She cheered and scooped more punch out of the bowel with her glass, downing it in seconds.
Krutch stared at Bellamy and Addams in disbelief. Oh this was too much. What a bunch of daydreaming children, squealing about the castle in the sky. He let out a yell and slammed his fists down on the table. Gasps were heard, glass shattered, and patches of grape juice stained the rug. Krutch drew an angry breath. "You pitiful, sentimental fools!" the mad time traveler roared. "Do you honestly think love is a social ethic? Do you honestly believe anyone can be made to care about strangers on the opposite coast when they can't even stand their own neighbors and would sooner drive them out of business and reap the spoils than to join hands? Your naiveté disgusts me! You are all woefully ignorant about the brutal facts of society if you think love will find an answer! Don't you realize the cruel necessity of power, of coercion? No one is going to sacrifice their own interests if they are not either forced to do so! Army? ARMY?! You haven't seen it yet have you! The wasteland, the no man's land, the trenches choked with bodies, the yellow fog of the mustard gas laced by barbed wire, the machines of death, bodies torn apart, veterans with no limbs, no faces, no lives though they still be living! You talk of a new generation rising to the challenge of bringing love and compassion to the downtrodden? I shall talk of a generation destroyed! I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I shall show you fear in a handful of dust! You purport the greatest fallacy of them all! You believe we can be divine! You think we can identify with the Absolute! And you are all sadly delusional if you even think such an Absolute exists!" Krutch snatched a glass, intent on the rest of the punch. Addams, for her part, simply stared at him.Murmurings twittered to life amongst the guests, Addams' uncharacteristic attack forgotten in the wake of this horrid speech by this horrid person. What a sad, strange little man! "It must be terrible to go through life thinking like that . . ." "Oh dear, do you truly think he believes that?" "Tragic, really . . ." "Some people just have no faith, I tell you." Krutch smiled jovially and drunkenly waved his glass at the crowd. Addams fell over in a dead faint. Bellamy stormed up to Krutch. "You know, it is people such as yourself who continue to stand in the way of . . ."
Screams were heard as a ring of light materialized directly behind the two men and its interior shimmered like a lake suspended sideways in the air. Krutch jumped for joy while a look of shock crossed Bellamy's face as a great force issued from the watery surface and he found himself falling forwards.
* * *
"I got it, I got it!" Albert Einstein assured the attendees of the Harvard Physics Lecture Series. Despite the enormity of the situation, he felt quite relieved. Good God, he hadn't expected the Temporal Relocator to actually work. . . "I'll have him back in a jiffy!"
To be continued. . .
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Temperance is Fun! (Part I)
I wrote this in October 2006, my junior year of college, as part of a midterm for a class on the history of American thought. We were given a list of essay topics and one, written by the TA, went something like this: “Jane Addams and Edward Bellamy attend a Temperance is Fun party where some ne’er-do-well has spiked the punch. Losing her inhibitions, though none of her sharp intellect, Addams proceeds to verbally assail Bellamy for his book Looking Backwards.” Quite naturally, I couldn’t resist. We had also read that supremely hopeful and uplifting tome The Modern Temper by Joseph Wood Krutch, a veritable paragon of Modernist despair over alienation and meaninglessness. I couldn't resist that either.
The end result was a very odd time travel tale also involving Einstein. It was divided into three parts, which will be serialized here over the next three days. (And yes, I got an A.)
A Terrible Victory
It was perhaps the final nail in the coffin, the lone man thought as he surveyed the party from his perch against the wall. That science had stripped modern life of all value and shattered the pedestal of humanity he had come to reluctantly accept.
But this on the other hand . . . this.
Upon falling into the vortex he had had no choice but to come to terms with this latest scientific development, if such a mild phrase could be assigned to an achievement of this magnitude. Not only had science destroyed God it had almost literally a replaced Him! Humanity, thought the oddly-dressed stranger, has thoroughly kicked itself loose of the heavens: there is nothing neither above nor below us, no authority to whom we can appeal in the name of good or naught. We first subjugated the earth, have now breached the fabric of time . . . what next? Oh God . . . what God? What? Terror seized him, then intensified past the threshold to a deep freeze that encompassed his entire being. The restaurant walls seemed to close in and the crowd blurred, its chatter muted. The second I return to 1934, I swear to . . . I swear that Einstein . . . Beneath the suffocating weight of moral horror, a small active part of him began to delight in fantasies of just what he was going to do to that wretched German.
The image of Albert Einstein being drowned in one of Otto Diels' exotic concoctions stirred him from his stupor and enabled him to again study the denizens of 1897. Temperance is Fun, what a ridiculous idea. Only in 1897 could someone conceive of something so naive and hopeful. He thought of the great disaster that had been Prohibition and shook his head. Maybe he ought to warn them. . . His head snapped up and his eyes widened. He, Joseph Wood Krutch, possessed a power to make even the gods of old tremble, to singlehandedly attain a feat unheard of in the annals of divine record from the Bible to the Book of the Dead. To alter history! That one ordinary man could do such a thing! It was glorious, it was astonishing, it was terrible, it was insane . . . look at them! Just look at them! So confident in the power of science! Everything was going to be all right, the scientists will cure what ails you, welcome to the void! All the way from 1934! Krutch was laughing. People were eyeing him nervously and backing away. The Harvard Physics Lecture Series always did have such excellent brandy on hand and gentleman though he be, he was nevertheless always unable to resist slipping some into the flask he carried in his suit coat. Some vague part of his mind whispered a warning of consequences and the time-space continuum, but Krutch wasn't listening. He was dimly aware of the room hushing and of a solitary female voice and everyone turning towards her, eager for her words. Krutch made his way to the punch bowel. Even in his fuzzy state it was hard to miss its bright magenta among the muted color scheme. With the guests' backs facing him, Krutch poured in the brandy. Temperance is Fun!
To be continued. . .
The end result was a very odd time travel tale also involving Einstein. It was divided into three parts, which will be serialized here over the next three days. (And yes, I got an A.)
A Terrible Victory
It was perhaps the final nail in the coffin, the lone man thought as he surveyed the party from his perch against the wall. That science had stripped modern life of all value and shattered the pedestal of humanity he had come to reluctantly accept.But this on the other hand . . . this.
Upon falling into the vortex he had had no choice but to come to terms with this latest scientific development, if such a mild phrase could be assigned to an achievement of this magnitude. Not only had science destroyed God it had almost literally a replaced Him! Humanity, thought the oddly-dressed stranger, has thoroughly kicked itself loose of the heavens: there is nothing neither above nor below us, no authority to whom we can appeal in the name of good or naught. We first subjugated the earth, have now breached the fabric of time . . . what next? Oh God . . . what God? What? Terror seized him, then intensified past the threshold to a deep freeze that encompassed his entire being. The restaurant walls seemed to close in and the crowd blurred, its chatter muted. The second I return to 1934, I swear to . . . I swear that Einstein . . . Beneath the suffocating weight of moral horror, a small active part of him began to delight in fantasies of just what he was going to do to that wretched German.
The image of Albert Einstein being drowned in one of Otto Diels' exotic concoctions stirred him from his stupor and enabled him to again study the denizens of 1897. Temperance is Fun, what a ridiculous idea. Only in 1897 could someone conceive of something so naive and hopeful. He thought of the great disaster that had been Prohibition and shook his head. Maybe he ought to warn them. . . His head snapped up and his eyes widened. He, Joseph Wood Krutch, possessed a power to make even the gods of old tremble, to singlehandedly attain a feat unheard of in the annals of divine record from the Bible to the Book of the Dead. To alter history! That one ordinary man could do such a thing! It was glorious, it was astonishing, it was terrible, it was insane . . . look at them! Just look at them! So confident in the power of science! Everything was going to be all right, the scientists will cure what ails you, welcome to the void! All the way from 1934! Krutch was laughing. People were eyeing him nervously and backing away. The Harvard Physics Lecture Series always did have such excellent brandy on hand and gentleman though he be, he was nevertheless always unable to resist slipping some into the flask he carried in his suit coat. Some vague part of his mind whispered a warning of consequences and the time-space continuum, but Krutch wasn't listening. He was dimly aware of the room hushing and of a solitary female voice and everyone turning towards her, eager for her words. Krutch made his way to the punch bowel. Even in his fuzzy state it was hard to miss its bright magenta among the muted color scheme. With the guests' backs facing him, Krutch poured in the brandy. Temperance is Fun!To be continued. . .
Monday, September 22, 2008
OBAMAAA!
He came up out of Illinois, the land of lake and prairie at the edge of the old frontier. It was said that he embodied that inestimable power of man to break loose the stagnant slough of times gone by and call down Heaven to Earth. It was said he proclaimed the dream born in the crucible of the sixties: he would stand on stage and preach national redemption before the flash and glare of the cameras. From the dingy tenement kitchens of Chicago where the cold leaked through cracked plaster to the rusty fire escapes lacing up the brick walls and the weed-choked lots where little girls jumped rope and kicked up dust – I know it, he seemed to say, I know it all. I know the hooded alleys and I knew the sound of cards slapping on the table during poker and the men's laughter drifting up from the streets on the stifling summer evenings as I sat with the single mothers and desperate fathers, pondering our collective destiny. I know you, the common man, and I have come to lift you up. Those twelve years between since you first demonstrated your faith in me have been marked by a peculiar concentration in the air that has permeated America’s bones from New York to Los Angeles. Something is going to happen.
And so it was, to the great joy of many Americans, that he announced his presidential candidacy. His relative lack of experience was immediately subordinate to his overwhelming ability to proclaim the WORD. For he knew that Illinois could not contain him; he saw a future of no limits . . . no boundaries . . . for a journey like the exhilarated rush of a car down the highway in a wide open space somewhere with the hot wind in your face . . . speeding towards an unknown destination with a blend of wide-eyed innocence and wild abandon. . . .
* * *
When they heard he was in town, the reaction was to be expected. They came out of school, spa, supermarket, studio, bar, bank, office, auto shop, hospital, library, laboratory, laundromat, lecture hall, mall, museum, marina, arcade, café, cinema, hair salon, toll booth, gas station, police station, airport, amusement park, firehouse, warehouse, church, synagogue, mosque, Wal-Mart, video rental place, boutique, bookstore, pet store, party store, craft store, convenience store, liquor store, drug store, dollar store, hardware store, sporting goods store, all variety of other stores, fancy restaurants and fast-food joints; they were from the cities, the country, the suburbs. On car, truck, train, tractor, bicycle, subway, skateboard, scooter, Rollerblade, motorcycle, moped, pogo stick, plane, horseback, camelback, and on foot, they rode, drove, jumped, skipped, and ran to see the One Who Would Speak.
They packed tight into the stadium.
He emerged from the wings.
The silence was deafening.
He leaned forward over the podium. “I promise you hope,” he announced. “And I promise you change. Hope and change, I promise you! Yes, I promise hopeful change! I shall bring you changing hope! Because I HOPE FOR CHANGE!”
It was the most beautiful speech anyone had ever heard. People turned to one another and wept. Glorious, glorious! O, sing to hope and change! O, sing in exultation! O . . .
“. . . And they will not ONLY attack you if you try to point out what’s going on in White America, US of KKKA . . . The government gives them the DRUGS, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America’?! NO NO NO! Not God BLESS America, God DAMN America, that’s in America for killing innocent people! God DAMN America for treating our citizens as less than human! . . . We BOMBED Nagasaki, nuked five more than the thousands in the Pentagon and New York, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians, and black South Africans, and NOW we are INDIGNANT because the stuff we’ve done OVERSEAS has been brought right back into our own! front! yard! America’s CHICKENS – coming home! – to roost. . . They live below the sea level, they live below the level of Clarence, Colon, Condoleeza . . .”
“PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!” The One shouted in panic. “I AM THE GREAT OBAMAAA!”
Now, now – don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate Obama. He may not be my first choice for President, but I don’t think he’s a bad choice either. It’s just that I had a couple of really gung-ho Obama supporters in one of my classes last year and I kind of wrote this silly little piece (based loosely on a scene from William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch) during the Wright scandal to annoy them. It was originally posted on Facebook.
Cartoon by Bob Gorrell.
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