Burn it all
I was trapped in a world of my own making, my flesh burning as I stacked the blasted chairs. Who stacks folding chairs when they can smell their own flesh on fire?
There weren’t enough hands in the world to stack the endless seats. Yet I kept running, a daft buffoon, from reception hall to closet, piling one on top of the other. The golf club was aflame, lighting up the night. Like a tribute, a sacrifice to Shamash.
The world around me danced into the flame. There was a joy, an unearthly sigh of relief, to be ending things. The end came much more elegantly than things began. The velvet couch, for instance, oozed into the floor in a slow tango between wood and upholstery.
And I was alone.
All the asses that had filled the chairs were off disintegrating in their own pools of sin. I alone remained and I alone stacked the chairs while the chandelier sprayed heavenward.
The bride never saw me. The groom couldn’t hear me over the moans from his temptress, the trusted bridesmaid grabbing and thrashing like he was hers.
They would all rot. They would be a burnt offering while I cleaned up their mess. Their putrid wedding mess. A few more chairs, no a dozen. It was hopeless; the more I stacked, the more that remained.
Yes, they too would burn. The bloody chairs would turn to dust like the idiots that sat in them. The tacky wallpaper, the sneer of the grandfather clock as it kept record of my madness. Burn it all, I heard myself say.
As the last of my uniform fell off in burnt tatters, I saw her face. The bride. Her smile reflected kindly through the club’s fountain. The unholy libations flowed as all else burned, mocking me. She mocked me. I had put her her of misery, saved her from a loveless marriage. Still she laughed.
They say I woke up then, delirious. Angry.
“Burn it all…”
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* 332 words including the third definition of club.
June 18, 2013
A Rare Case of Learning (Despite Schooling)
This morning, Good Morning America praised an 11-year-old who created his own documentary. In Yuck!, Zachary Maxwell exposes the disgusting edibles that NYC schools pass off as food.
As I drowsily sipped my hot tea and checked the weather forecast, I was appalled. Here we had a young man creating something innovative, using the tools available to him to make something creative and meaningful, and it was reported on because it so rarely happens. He did this in spite of his schooling.
We Americans, nay, we capitalist-consumerist-industrialists encourage children to use their intellect in creative ways, but consistently hold them back with meaningless years of school drudgery.
“Hey kid! Go be creative! Make something amazing! Carve out a meaningful life for yourself! But spend thirteen years sitting at a desk, taking meaningless tests first.”
We constantly send children this contradictory message. We tell them to think outside the box, then yell at them to stay in it. We tell them that the world is their classroom, then lock them into four cement walls for seven hours a day.
This is why Ivan Illich encouraged the deschooling of society. This is why suburbanites in the finest school districts are saying no thank you. Learning is part of living. Our English words are far too segregated. We are always living-learning. We are always doing-being. We don’t learn in preparation for life. We learn in life.
So yes, I was appalled, but not by Zachary Maxwell. By us. We who are so certain of our sacred cows that we make Zachary’s achievement a rare occurrence. Bravo, Zachary. Shame on us.
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Illich, I. (1973). The Deschooled Society. Peter Buckman (Ed.). Education Without Schools. London: Willmer Brothers, Ltd.
Illich, I. (2004/1970). Deschooling Society. New York: Marion Boyars.
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