Written Transcript

Last month, at a “die in” organized by local high schoolers against the Genocide in Gaza.

I’m sitting on the curb and all these 15 year olds are lying in the street in front of me. They start reading a  list of those killed over the PA.

I find I can’t stop thinking about the kids at my work at an afterschool– Their absolute aliveness.

—–

Sweet moments. Friendship. Terror. Beads spilled on the floor.

Head down on the table sobbing it’s time to stop playing video games.

Running as fast as you can.

—–

I can’t stop thinking about the joy, agony, and work of childhood.

The work!

Pretending over and over again that I know any of the rules.

Trying to convince either one of us that right and wrong exists.

That it matters!

—–

And not being able to provide that for a child:

That you will be safe,

That I will be here,

That no mistake is irreparable.

—–

As an adult, I’ve spent so many

Days watching all of it in the kids

I’ve worked with.

—–

The times you’re selfish.

The times you’re kind.

Cleaning up and starting over again and again.

Childhood is to be alive.

Childhood is incredibly difficult.

——-

The world that revolves around you 

And your best friend and the bracelet

Business you made isn’t a lesser one.

It isn’t a half-existence.

At least in my experience, childhood was overflowing, vibrant, and terrifying.

Learning the world and learning yourself is Perilous even under the best

CIRCUMSTANCES.

——

I can’t stop thinking about how real kids are. There’s so much focus on “What will you be when you grow up?” But here you are, a real, complete, and amazing person.

—-

Here you are, you’re an eye staring at the sun. The world is fast and big and often uncaring.

—–

I can’t stop thinking about your realness.

Your name as a name on that list.

Over and over.

The names on that list as you.

Real and perfect and in a rush and wanting the world to come.

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Since I don’t want to be a physical girl I’d settle for being an intangible idea. A symbol of a girl. The thought that my physical form simply represents a girl, a girl that signifies some greater principle or dogma, is attractive and cathartic. A girl so singular yet all-encompassing, free from the burden of constructing a complex identity. To be treated as a religious or political symbol, rooted in the Earth and its history, would mean to be treated with the dignity and respect of a perfect representation. Whenever I pass by a mirror I think of my dog, and I don’t look myself in the eyes. I pretend I’m a universal girl, on the cover of a newspaper or a missing person’s poster. I pretend I’m a vessel for communicating the decay of society, or a new mascara brand. Only looked at for what I symbolize. 

I was reading The Name of the Rose, and found a passage that stuck out to me concerning singularity and universal ideas. Eco writes: “I found myself halfway between the perception of the concept ‘horse’ and the knowledge of an individual horse. And in any case, what I knew of the universal horse had been given to me by those traces, which were singular. I could say I was caught at that moment between the singularity of the traces and my ignorance, which assumed the quite diaphanous form of a universal idea.” I stopped to picture myself as a horse, as Adso of Melk, as a girl. My skin clasped around my bones tightly. I was caught up in the dissonance between universal symbols and individual meanings. 

I remember my trip to Istanbul, when I stepped into a mosque that was not a mosque at all, but a coalescence of holy worship. Half mosque, half church, remnants of conquest were vivid and visceral on the walls of the Hagia Sophia. Its religious purpose had always been dictated by whoever ruled over Constantinople, and to the current Turkish government it was undoubtedly a mosque. Christian and Islamic paintings blurred into each other, ending abruptly in destroyed ruins. They were erased and painted over by hand; the symbol transformed at the whim of men. On metro walls in Vienna, I saw how swastikas became grids for tic-tac-toe, passerby filling in the X’s and O’s as the symbol slowly deteriorated in form and meaning. Originally, the swastika was a cultural and religious symbol implying fortune and well-being. I somehow felt its development was buried deep within the metro walls, until it finally succumbed under a graffiti artist’s hand. 

In the dawn of Yugoslavia, my great-grandfather embraced the atheist label. An aspiring academic, he had studied theology in Sarajevo as a young man. To him, religious scripture was merely a text to be critically studied. His wife, on the other-hand, adorned the hijab; a label of staunch resistance to his intellectualism. Obviously, he could not be an intellectual with a covered wife, as these two universal ideas had no point of intersection. When friends visited their home or they attended public events, they reached a compromise: my great-grandmother would wear a wig, so that he could maintain his reputation and she could maintain her faith. Their identities meant virtually nothing in relation to each other only a few years prior. The symbols seemed stronger than the very individuals that created them. Engulfing them in false universality, strict and unforgiving. 

I believed symbols are so entrenched in history and connotation that I forgot they are so malleable. I watched them break, bend, and stretch, yet still had faith in their durability. “A cowboy rides into town on Friday, stays in town for 3 days, then leaves on Friday. How did he do it?,” my grandfather asked me when I was a child. He still loves to ask me riddles, and always the most ridiculous kind. The horse’s name was Friday. I know that now. Back then, I wouldn’t have fathomed that response. It’s instinctive to always assume the name ‘Friday’ denotes the fifth day of a week, a symbol of time passed. The riddle shows how hesitant we are to accept the fallible nature of symbols, that Friday is the fifth day of a week but it can also be the name of a horse. There is nothing essential about the name ‘Friday’ to the passing of time; ‘Friday’ can be changed by governments and drawn over with spray paint. Much like Eco’s horse, the horse in my grandfather’s riddle is far from a representation of a universal idea. It’s only our ignorance that gives it such a form. 

Perhaps becoming a symbol would not be very different to what I am already. Perhaps the vulnerable flesh of a living, breathing girl is not very different to the vulnerability of an obsolete symbol. Both require theatrical fabrication, and elaborate myths about their supposed power. I look in the mirror once more, smiling. I am not a universal girl. The horse’s name was Friday.

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He woke up one day and when Scotch Tape came to greet him in bed with a lick of the feet and a wag of the tail, Jeremiah gave him a pat on the head as he had always done, and the next thing he knew, there was a tiny tyrant standing before him. 

“Well, now you’ve done it,” said Napoleon, “Look at me. Just look at me. I’ve been dead for almost two hundred years, and you brought me back just to fetch a frisbee.” 

Jeremiah assured Napoleon that he didn’t mean to resurrect him. He had no idea why patting Scotch Tape on the head had resulted in such a transmogrification. The ten-year-old was not a magician or even interested in magic. He also loved his dog very much, and he had very little interest in dead military commanders. 

Not knowing much about Napoleon, but recognizing him from a children’s book his grandfather had given him that centered around famous angry Frenchmen, Jeremiah brought Napoleon downstairs so that he could show his parents what had happened. His mother was making Belgian waffles, and from behind him, Jeremiah could hear Napoleon making a comment about those lousy Belgians and their lackluster waffles, but not wanting to absorb any discrimination, he simply focused on the task at hand.

The trouble was, as soon as he tugged on his mother’s sleeve, she turned into Napoleon as well. Turning around, she scowled at the boy. 

“Look what you’ve done,” said this other Napoleon, “I don’t even like waffles–let alone Belgian ones. Sit down and I’ll make you a French omelet. It’s time we had some real food in this house before I go off to war.” 

The Napoleon that had once been Scotch Tape shook his head, but he sat down at the table, and put a napkin under his chin. Jeremiah didn’t understand. Did touching people now meant he was reviving Napoleon’s? Or were these beings still the beings they were before but trapped in some sort of Napoleon shell? 

While Jeremiah contemplated what to do about his two Napoleons, his father entered the house with some kind of stain on his tie. 

“Spilled coffee all over my–” 

Before he could finish his complaint, he noticed the two historical icons standing in the kitchen.

Jeremiah’s father slowly began to back away. 

“Jeremiah,” his father said, “Would you meet me out in the driveway, please?” 

The boy went running towards his father hoping for a comforting embrace, but his father side-stepped him. He looked pained at having to dodge his son, but he motioned to the front door as though some kind of answer would be waiting on the other side. 

Out on the driveway, the April air seemed to want to heat up, but couldn’t quite get there. Across the street, the Muscatellos were packing up a moving van. Jeremiah realized that it was a good thing he hadn’t hugged his father, because then he might have turned him into– 

“Napoleon. You would have turned me into Napoleon.” 

When the boy asked his father how this had happened, his father leaned against the driver’s side door of his Nissan Rogue. There was a small dent where Jeremiah had banged into the car with his bike. His father had not been cross when that happened, chalking it up to the kinds of things that occur when you have a son, and how lucky he was to have such a good son, who never did anything wrong aside from riding his bike a little too fast and not eating all his peas when they were served each Tuesday and Thursday. 

“Jeremiah,” his father said, “I was worried this might happen.” 

“Worried what might happen?” 

“When you were born, the doctor did some tests on you, because you had this strange birthmark on your back that looked like Napoleon. We asked what it meant, but the doctor–I think his name was Roberto–he was being very cagey. Anyway, you seemed fine, so we took you home. A few days later we got a call from someone who sounded like Dr. Roberto, but identified himself as D.R.R. He told us that one day our child would wake up, and everyone he touched would turn into Napoleon.

Not knowing much about history, we didn’t see the problem. Your mother always confused Napoleon with Charlie Chaplin, which doesn’t make much sense, but she always did associate disparate things. I knew who Napoleon was but he always seemed kind of cute to me. Your grandfather was familiar, and very concerned, which is why he bought you that book as a child and had you read it. He wanted you to be prepared for what might happen if and when the day arrived when your Napoleon syndrome would kick in.” 

As his father was telling him this story, the mailman was walking down the street. A bee flew near his face, and he began to run to avoid the bee, because he always suspected he was allergic, even though he had no evidence to back that up. While running, he slammed right into young Jeremiah, and the moment he did, he turned into Napoleon. 

“Sacre bleu!” the mailman shouted, “Now I am Napoleon? And I still have so many letters to deliver. What a garçon irréfléchi! Wait, is Napoleon allergic to bees?” 

Jeremiah and his father looked at each other, and then the mailman. 

“I don’t know,” said Jeremiah, “I think he might have suspected he was, but I doubt he had any evidence to back that up.” 

Napoleon the mailman walked away muttering to himself, and this is how Jeremiah learned that Napoleon was a mutterer, which is something they don’t usually teach you in history books. Jeremiah’s father ushered him into the house where Napoleon the Former Dog and Napoleon the Former Jeremiah’s Mom had found the board game Risk in the closet and were engaged in a heated game. Napoleon the Former Dog looked as though he might prevail, but Napoleon the Former Jeremiah’s Mom was giving him a run for his money. 

Jeremiah’s father led the boy upstairs and had him get into bed. The boy had never changed out of his pajamas, so for a moment, he wondered if he could close his eyes, open them, and find out the entire thing was a dream. Only the dirt from the lawn at the bottom of his feet would prove otherwise. He couldn’t fathom living with Napoleon for a dog let alone Napoleon for a mother, and certainly not Napoleon as a mailman. 

And could he really go the rest of his life without touching another human being for fear that they might try invading Russia in the dead of winter? 

“Now listen,” said his father, “I know this morning was confusing. You’re going to have a lot of confusing mornings in your life. Some more than others. This will, hopefully, be the most confusing, but I can’t guarantee that. The good news is, you’re a kid, so you can just get back in bed and sleep until whatever this is wears off. It might take all day, but I’m sure it’ll go away with time. Just to test it out, I’ll have a few historians stop by this evening to see how you’re doing. One of them might even allow you to try turning them into Napoleon, and if you can’t, we know the worst is over.”  

Jeremiah’s father patted a spot on the pillow near Jeremiah’s head, but was careful not to touch any part of his son since the worst was clearly not over. 

“Some days you wake up and nothing makes sense, Jeremiah,” he said, “And when you get older, you can’t go back to bed. You have to just press on and try to avoid connecting with anyone. Keep your head down. Power forward until things feel all right again. One morning I woke up, and every time I went to have a sip of coffee, it was Greek yogurt. I don’t know why. It only lasted one day, but I couldn’t go back to bed. I had to keep working, and I was so grumpy, because I couldn’t have any coffee, and I don’t like Greek yogurt all that much. This will pass though. This will all pass.” 

With that, he patted the spot near Jeremiah’s head one more time, left his son’s bedroom, and closed the door behind him. 

Not sure what to make of anything his father had just said, Jeremiah tried to sleep, but when he began to dream, he could only have Napoleon dreams. It seemed that even touching an image in his mind was enough to transform it. A dream of him taking a test in school became a dream of him writing a letter to Josephine. A dream of him riding his bike became a dream of him riding a horse into battle. A dream of him playing soccer became a dream of Napoleon playing soccer and losing the game, because Napoleon had no idea how to play soccer.

When the dreams became too much, Jeremiah opened his eyes and saw that moonlight was streaming through his windows. His father had forgotten to close the curtains before leaving him. He went to the window, and saw that the moon was hovering right above the house where the Muscatellos live. Without thinking, Jeremiah touched the glass that separated him from the moon, and, to his surprise, the moon became Napoleon. 

“C’est bon, Jeremiah,” said the Napoleon Moon, one of the kinder Napoleons, “Go back to bed. Le meilleur remède pour le corps est un esprit calme.” 

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind. 

Jeremiah got back into bed, and Napoleon dimmed his moonlight a little, but just a little. He wanted the boy to know he was here, but that he would be gone in the morning. 

The post Napoleon appeared first on The New Absurdist.

He watched them with all of his parents along with his aunts, uncles, and cousins, who cracked seeds so loudly and commented over each 7 minute episode that Amir already longed for a time when he could have the show all to himself. How crazily wonderful were these animals. Of course they were funny—the cat from the wrapping paper so tragically doomed to failure and the rabbit outsmarting the bald hunter proving among his instant favorites. But as the grown-ups laughed and pointed out obvious ironic moments and the kids younger than him applauded and fell over as the giant dog he would soon learn was a coyote fell several kilometers to the ground, he already felt somehow superior in his understanding of it all. 

It was more than mere antics or the idiosyncratic voices funny even to those who didn’t understand English (like many of his generation his parents had thankfully immersed him in the language since preschool). There was something special—miraculous even—in the totality of the aesthetic experience. The tension of the classical music his father always played as he painted in his studio positioned against such absurd scenarios played out with characters drawn so perfectly simple that they seemed to him more interesting than any humans he’d grow up to meet for the rest of his life. 

That night he set his alarm before the first call to prayer beyond his window, imagining instead of the muezzein on the loudspeaker he hears the rabbit and the duck singing the song to their dance steps. He only remembers one phrase from it, “On with the show this is it,” but it played throughout his dreams with the rest of the cast—from the fast mouse to the giant rooster—appearing on his unconscious stage. He positions his blanket right in front of the TV in the living room with his bowl of sugar cookies and a cup of milk. Turning the volume low enough so his parents and the fresh batch of relatives visiting from Tehran won’t wake up, he watches almost two dvds all the way through, so entranced he even forgets he has to go to the bathroom until his mother appears. 

“What are you doing up so early, Amir, and eating pure sugar for breakfast!” 

He can’t bring himself to pull away from the man who discovers a dancing frog that refuses to perform for money. She turns the TV off and stands in front of it.

“Sayyyyyy…what’s the big idea!!!” replies Amir, attempting his impression of one of them—Yosememite Sam—for the first time. 

“Come to the kitchen. I’ll make you a proper breakfast.” 

She heats up the fresh bread in the toaster oven as she takes Nutella for him and feta cheese along with cucumber for her and his father out of the fridge. As she begins to chop the cucumber he asks for carrots. 

“Carrots? For breakfast? Since when?” she asks, half smiling as she goes back to the fridge for a couple, which she peels and rinses in the faucet. 

Amir sticks out his front teeth, and chomps into it in rapid succession. 

“Awww….what’s up Doc?” he asks, in the nasal voice of Buggs Bunny, already hands down his favorite. 

“Oh Amir you’re being silly,” she replies, now cutting the cucumber. 

He cradles the carrot in his hands, like a kitten, then begins to sing longingly, in English: “Oh carrots are divine you get a dozen for a dime it’s magic!!!” 

“Shhh…you’ll wake your father!” admonishes his mother. “Those American cartoons are going to corrupt you,” she says, “They’re very violent, and they teach bad manners. I’m only going to let you watch a little now and then. And no more today. Now eat your breakfast and drink your juice.”

Of course he knew she couldn’t keep him from his new obsession. Already it hurt even physically to be away from them, like Rumi when his beloved teacher Shams went missing. But it wasn’t enough just to know that within an hour she’d abandon him for yet another entire day of painting like his father would later in the afternoon. Channeling the most rebellious, destructive model he can summon in the moment so full of sugar, he begins growling and salivating, then sends himself viciously spinning as the Tasmanian devil through the living room. It was as though he’d become some wild dog—considered especially dirty in Islam—rabidly crashing through all semblance of normalcy in the family home. 

He’s sent to his room as his father wakes up in a rage and his mother is left to clean up the pieces of broken lamp and a vase. The sugar crash hits him as he lies on his bed, almost in a kind of coma. Despite his parents yelling at him, he’s sorry for nothing. Soon his father will lock himself in his studio to paint, getting drunk throughout the day, while his mother won’t surface from her room until it’s time to make dinner. He will watch and re-watch as many episodes as he can. 

***

On afternoons and long Fridays his adult relatives at the garden are so grateful for his shows that occupy all of the usually menacing children for hours at a time. Now and then they might step into the upstairs tv room just to check on their own kids and laugh a little at Amir’s antics, but for the most part they let him do his thing, just grateful to be free of their responsibilities to supervise. 

At first he entertained the little snot-nosed masses of cousins and second cousins simply by acting out every character in every episode as they appear on the screen beside him. Off hours he’d devote all of his playtime to constructing what he’d need for each episode, always improving his go-to costumes like his rabbit ears or duck bill. 

To recreate one of his favorite moments in all of television, he’d even gotten his cousins Bobback and Farbad to carry up an old abandoned TV he’d found in the shed, the kind made out of real wood with the giant dial for the channel changer. Riding his bike early one morning to the garden, he sneaks upstairs with tools he’d taken from his father’s studio. First he drags two mattresses from a room on the first floor of the garden house outside, directly underneath one of the upstairs windows. He unscrews the back of the TV, then after yanking and cutting out all constricting wires, he rips out the bigger components. Putting a sheet down in front, he smashes the screen with a hammer. Then he knocks out all remaining glass. The-clean up takes longer than the destruction, but it was worth it for the big show later that afternoon. 

With his audience glued to the working TV set along with his performance alongside it, they laugh as he runs around in his black and white outfit with whiskers and a red nose stuck on his face and a long tail c pinned to his butt. He’s painted an actual stuffed nightingale yellow and tied it with strong to his belt. Chasing the bird around with the same stumbling moves as Sylvester after Tweety Bird, the kids all hoot and holler. Then in another episode, when his model cat creeps back inside granny’s house to eat the kitten’s food, only to suddenly discover that he’s caught behind the TV screen, so too does Amir find himself behind his own emptied TV set.

Aware of appearing as himself in a show, he joins the famous cat in breaking the 4^th wall. Holding up a can of tuna fish labeled like the original cat’s “Pussy Kins Cat Food” in one hand with the sign, “Ask for it by Name” in his other hand, they both blink knowingly. Then with a foolish grin they dance awkwardly as they sing in time to the commercial jingle:

 “Pussy kins cat foot tastes real good 

Satisfies cats like a cat food should 

Hardens their muscles softens their fur 

Pussy kins cat’s cat food makes them purr.” 

Amir then sends himself flying, as if having been thrown out the actual window like Sylvester by the old woman on the real screen beside him. The danger of the fall draws a collective grasp. All the kids panic until his cousin Esan runs to look out the window, screaming, “He’s okay!!! He’s okay!!! 

Delighted as always to serve as his passive audience, all of his young relatives sitting crisscross applesauce clap and laugh so loudly that by the time Amir comes back upstairs he is followed by one of the old men from the garden below who creeps up to tell them to pipe down. 

This was Uncle Ali Mohammad, his father’s eldest brother, who’d often stumble into the room in various degrees of drunkenness. He yelled in a slobbering slur at the room full of toddlers, Shut the hell up, raving about how they were trying to recite great lines of poetry and couldn’t concentrate. This time as the kids cower in terror, Amir fearlessly grabs one of his seemingly endless carrots picked daily from the garden. Chomping on it, he walks up to the bald man with the big belly, and ask, “Aaaaaa…..what’s up doc?” 

The room explodes with nervous laughter. While his uncle rages and stomps his foot to scare them all into momentary silence, when he turns to leave Amir in his rabbit ears sends him off with one of Bugg’s famous sarcastic lines. “So long screwy…see you in saint louie!” This brings renewed laughter, and even more applause, while solidifying his position as their true leader. Overjoyed at the triumph of their claims upon the upstairs room, without Amir asking they again settle down in greater obedience than to their preschool teachers, waiting patiently to watch whatever episode he next had ready for them. 

All along, however, as he keeps workshopping his own performances he’s been training his minions for theirs. Two months into an especially hot summer, one day he turns the dvd off. “Nooooo…..!” they all cried, starving for the repetition of his mimicry just like he did for the original show. 

“Wait! Wait!” he yells, waving his hands down upon them as if to cool off their outrage. “You know it all now…like me. Instead of just watching Looney Tunes, who wants to play Looney Tunes?” A chorus of kids screamed so loudly the old men sent his own mother up to control them. 

After assigning his young relatives various roles and doing what he could to get them in costume, with Ali Reza as the new Sylvester and Miriam his youngest and by far the cutest cousin as Tweety Bird, they rehearse the scenes they watched and saw their great teacher act out. Baback, stocky and inherently ornery, made the perfect Yosemite Sam, especially in the cowboy hat Amir made for him by cutting and refiguring one of his mom’s hats with her sewing equipment. Eson and Elhan, brother and sister, wanted to take turns as roadrunner and coyote, so no argument there. Though nobody would ever have thoughtlessly asked Kaveh to play Porky Pig because of his stutter, he himself volunteered. Ironically, he had a hard time stuttering once he’d put on the foam pig nose and ears. 

Without question Amir would stay eternally as Buggs, and to that end he kept perfecting more and more of his costume. Soon he ended up with an entire rabbit suit. The other roles were flexible, and some got to play two or even three parts. For some reason, though, Amir was never satisfied with anyone as Elmer. He’d let everyone, even his teenage cousin Farhang, try on a stocking for the appearance of baldness, then cover it with a brown hat he’d painted red in the back. Still, despite the rifle he created out of cardboard tubes used to ship his father’s special paper, nobody seemed to pull it off. So they all took their turns, and he learned to live with what they could offer. 

After rehearsal, they started to take their show to the garden, performing their little seven minute skits for various packs of relatives able to give them their attention. To a point the grown ups seemed encouraging, stopping their backgammon and ping pong to watch the coyote chase the roadrunner by flapping wings made from umbrellas Eson took out of a box labeled ACME. After his exaggerated fall from the heights of a chair, they’d all clap then return to their own entertainment. 

The old men, though, had none of it. Invariably if they got within earshot the same irascible Uncle Ali Mohammad would complain, now more than ever. Even worse, he’d get his otherwise seemingly tolerant reciters of poetry on his side. 

“Hey! Hey!” he said, clearly drunk in the early afternoon. “We are discussing poetry right now, so shut the hell up! Or else…I’ll give you all spankings!” He raised his hand as if to swat their backsides. From a safe distance, Amir once again munched on a carrot, saying, “Ehhhh…what’s up doc?” With his pack of animated animals under his direction, he would count off the time to the big song and dance opening. “Okay, ready? Yek, do, seh!” Just as in the show, they all came out dancing and signing. 

Overture, curtain, lights 

This is it, the night of nights 

No more rehearsing and nursing a part 

We know every part by heart 

Overture, curtain, lights 

This is it, we’ll hit the heights 

And oh what heights we’ll hit 

On with the show this is it! 

 Having seen the routine so many times, most of the grown-ups would just tune it out. Ali Mohammad, though, had reached a breaking point. Already too drunk to recollect lines from Hafez he was to recite at the shab-e-sher, after downing the lukewarm tea his niece had brought him, he threw the glass as hard as he could. It smashed against the wall, but shards reached Amir, still dressed as Buggs, actually hitting him in the side of the head.

His entire Looney Tunes cast stood still, waiting for his reaction. Touching the bleeding wound near his real ear, then raising his fingers to show the blood, he declared with eerie calm, “Of course you know this means war.” 

But those expecting an immediate and comically violent reaction were soon disappointed. Strangely, and rather tragically, the show stopped for a while. Completely stopped. Amir started dressing like himself, and despite the constant pleading of his entourage, he refused to act his part as Buggs or direct the others. He wouldn’t even join some in going back to watch the original in the TV room. Soon burned out on the reruns, the kids just congregated near, but not too near, their disaffected leader. Some wore their costumes for a while and tried acting out scenes on their own, but soon they too abandoned the get up. Though it went without saying, all of course hated Uncle Ali Mohammad more than ever. 

Every so often Amir would leave them altogether, or at least try to, walking beyond the walls of the garden and into the streets and alleys. There was considerable construction, with workers laying pipes for some new buildings. He stood beside a hole, a new one that seemed rather deep, beside a mid-size digger with the fresh dirt on the teeth of its scooper. “Hey Buggs, are you going in that hole?” asked cousin Ali Reza. 

“Yeah, you going to hide from Elmer Fudd?” asked Bobback. 

He brushed them off as he kicked a little dirt into the opening, clearly studying what was down there. Soon he returned to the garden, and they’d all settle into some new routines of kicking a soccer ball and eating watermelon near their parents. 

Then one Friday early evening, when most adults beyond the old men reading poetry had decided to pay a visit to a sick relative before coming to the garden, Amir showed up in his bunny suit. His cousins were dying to join him again, but instead of directing them, he just stared at his Uncle Ali Reza, so the kids all stared at him too. Since the old man’s wife was not around he seemed to allow himself to get especially drunk. At one point he tried to get up for the restroom, then fell back down in his chair. Even worse, since the kids weren’t misbehaving, this time he started to take out all of his bullying aggression on his small circle of friends. 

“Heeeey Emmmmmdod,” he said, slurring his words. “You don’t know shit about Hafez. You know that? You think you’re so fucking special with your PhD. I’m surprised you passed kindergarten. And Hisham, yeah…you Hisham!” he continued, as the men looked to each other. “You only stay with us because your wife…she looks like an old goat…and your kids are even uglier.” 

His pack of friends and relatives soon had enough, and decided to take a walk without him. As the drunk old man dropped his head on the table, Amir as Buggs Bunny now sensed his chance. Clipping on his father’s crisp white collarless shirt and his mother’s white gloves, he went to the portable sound speaker on a nearby table. He’d once played dj for his father at a gathering, mostly just choosing from songs on a preset list, something his dad hoped would keep him busy and out of trouble. Thankfully, though, it had given him just enough instruction for this performance. 

Putting on Rossini’s opera, like Bugs before him in the episode from “Rabbit of Seville,” he stuck a comb in his hair and picked up a pair of scissors and a razor he’d taken from the bathroom. Then, he started to sing along to the intro, just like in the episode:

How doooo! 

Welcome to my shop 

Let me cut your mop 

Let me shave your crop! 

Daintily! Daint-til-ly! 

Hey yoooou! 

Don’t look so perplexed 

Why must you be next 

Can’t you see you’re next? 

Yes, you’re next! 

Yoou’re so next!

How about a nice close shave 

Teach your whiskers to behave 

Lots of lather lots of soap 

Please hold still don’t be a dope 

Now we’re ready for the scrapin’ 

There’s no use to try escapin’ 

Yell and scream and rant and rave 

There’s no use you need a shaave! 

As the kids started to applaud and scream in delight, he began pouring drops of oil on his drunken uncle’s bald head. In time with the violins, he manically rubbed it in, all the while looking at his usual audience of eager children who cheered him on. 

“Buggs is back!” they cried, “and look what he’s doing to Elmer Fudd!” He then took off his dampayees and took turns lifting each foot high above him, awkwardly rubbing the oil into his uncle’s head with his toes. Then he went away, to the kitchen, with the music still playing. That panicked his audience, and they all screamed, “Come back, Buggs come back!” Thankfully he soon returned with a container of homemade whip cream and a bowl of fruit. Even though they knew he’d make a circle of white with the cream, then balance bananas, apples, and grapes on his head, it still profoundly amused them. They all chanted now, in unison, “Buggs! Buggs! Buggs!” 

When he added more cream on top, followed by a cherry, even though his uncle made no acknowledgement like the original Elmer as Amir held up a mirror for his client to see his new hairdo, the recognition of the details from that episode killed them all with laughter. Of course they wanted to see him in a turban, like a mullah, playing a flute as a razor came out of a basket like a snake to bite the old mean man on the behind. For that matter, they’d also wanted the whip cream to have been sprayed around his head, as opposed to dolloped on with a spoon. Like Amir, though, they’d learned to make do, using their imagination to fill in the blanks. 

Children charged with great imagination, just to see Amir gesture toward key moments was more than enough for them to fill in the rest. As Amir sat next to the old man and called for the kids to rock, and even try to raise his chair, though they barely could move the old man back a few centimeters they could easily pretend they were enacting the infinite ascension of the barber’s chair to the climatic classical music. 

Completely in sync with their fearless leader, when he next reached down to take off the old man’s shoes they beat him to it. As a few of them together heaved his bare feet onto the chair where Amir had been sitting, Elhan ran to a room where her older sister spent a lot of her nights since a big fight with her parents. In less than a minute she returned with the nail polish, which Amir put on the old man’s toes. 

Of course there was no cement to affix to his face and let dry in a block before chipping off. But when Buggs cried for a container full of mud, all his minions went scrambling. He waited then, with the music playing, his gaze right before him as though in front of a camera. Soon he had options: pots and pans filled with dirt from the garden moistened with water from the tub, flour mixed with water from the kitchen, and even their grandma Taj’s leftover fesenjan. 

Near the end of the song, Amir went for the mud, packing it on the old man’s face, which they tilted back for maximum exposure. Though a little off script, Amir allowed the addition of fresh tulips picked from the garden, which he planted on his drunk uncle’s upper forehead with more handfuls of mud. 

As the music ended and Amir took a bow, his ears flopping down to his knee caps, the garden gate opened and they saw the pack of his relatives, including his parents and, much worse, Ali Mohammad’s wife. Instantly she registered what was happening. She raised her purse, swinging it wildly as she ran toward Amir. He zig zagged around her, then took off into the lemon trees. Though his wife couldn’t keep up, she now had a host of adults on his trail, including her athletic youngest son Mirdad in his 40’s, who years ago had played semi professional soccer. 

But Amir as Buggs could weave in and around the legs of these grown-ups, slipping passed them with a kind of poise. It helped of course to have the kids cheer him on. At one point, back near the outdoor tables where the family would have the big meals, he grabbed a cloth napkin and held it like a bull fighter’s cape. As Mirdad ran to grab him, Amir took two quick hops to the side. Seeing Amir now in the episode of Buggs fighting the bull, a couple of them grabbed tulips off the old man’s head and threw them at their hero matador. 

They gasped when Mirdad did grab him by the arm of his rabbit costume, but Amir quickly twisted out of it, then charged for the garden door. The pack of grown ups all followed, of course, then the kids after them, running into the dusty twilight of the outside village. Here and there kids did what they could to impede the pack of adults, jumping onto their own parents back and even running ahead and stopping short, forcing them to fall onto the gravel road. 

Though Amir was obviously fast, he still ran with the ironic grace of his character, kind of half skipping now and then, when he’d sensed he had a decent lead. Though quick at the start, however, the legs and lungs of his fiercest opponent was soon proving too much for him. The footsteps in dress shoes got so close he knew he’d be grabbed any second. But just as Mirdad reached with both hands for his neck, he plunged, feet first, down into the hole. It’s as though it really were a real episode, where he once again evaded capture by Elmer Fudd and others. At first in anger, then in real concern, his father shined a flashlight down in search for him. The fall looked much further than they’d imagined, and though they could ultimately see the ground below, he didn’t seem to be anywhere around. Soon his mother was calling frantically, “Amirjan, of course you are in some trouble, but we love you and won’t let you get hurt. Please just come out where we can see you…we need to know you are okay.” 

As her voice echoed through the hole, his audience all got very still. They wanted, even had to believe, he was okay. Now, however, they had some doubts. At first cheering for Buggs, suddenly the kids called him by his real name. “Amir! Amir! Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Eson got on his knees by the edge, as if to climb down, before his father stopped him. “I need to save him! He’s…he’s down there!”

Soon the adults decided to send someone for some rope, in the hopes of hoisting someone down in search of him. It would take some doing, for at least over an hour, and by the time Mirdad reached the bottom and shined his light, in real distress he cried out, “I don’t see him! He’s not there. I mean, did anyone see him actually fall into the hole? I’m not so sure now. Maybe at the last minute he made it look that way?” 

As his father now called the authorities, who would also get down there and look, some of the parents soon took their kids to bed partly out of fear of what they might find. All the while, though, Amir was back at the garden. Having fallen down the hole on a mattress he’d dragged there earlier, then out of sight upon landing, like Buggs before him he’d found an alternate escape route through a narrow passage deep underground. Now with a pillow and blanket taken from one of the guest rooms, he settled into bed between rows of corn. Chewing a carrot he plucked directly from the garden, he said as if to a camera in front of him: “Ain’t I a stinker?”

The post Persian Looney Tunes appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Here are a few: 

“Con chúc ông bà… (I wish my grandparents…) 

– Sức khỏe dồi dào” (an abundance of good health) 

– Tiền vào như nước” (may money flow in like water) 

– An khang thịnh vượng” (security, health, and prosperity) 

– Phát tài phát lộc” (riches and fortune) 

– Vạn sự như ý” (everything you wish will be) 

Every year, I try to up the ante, coming up with more impressive things to say. 

– “Tiền ra nhỏ giọt như cà phê phin” (may money drip like a coffee filter)

– “Nhiều bát canh cà chua” (many bowls of my grandma’s world-famous tomato soup) 

The more words I say, the more luck I will bring to my grandparents. 

The more outlandish, the more memorable. 

It makes sense in my head. 

Luck is a funny thing. On most days, I treat it as this unpredictable ideal that comes and goes as it pleases. On holidays such as Lunar New Year, however, luck can be controlled. Cleaning the house from top to bottom will entice it to come in, for example. 

For my maternal grandpa, or Ông ngoại, luck is accompanied by hard work and tenacity. If you work hard enough, luck might take notice and decide you would make good company. 

◆◆◆ 

Over the years, Ông has recounted his experiences growing up in communist Vietnam. 

Born on May 1, 1942 in Indochina, a French colony comprising the modern-day territories of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, he has lived through a lot. May 1st marked International Labor Day and the annual street parade of workers. As a result, there were barely any nurses and doctors left in the hospital as my great grandmother was giving birth. Luckily, my great grandfather was a doctor and friends with a nurse, and so, my grandpa, Quan Khang Tưởng, (born Kouan Hoong Cheong, which changed to Kuan K’ang Shiang on the Chinese Visa until it was finally translated into Vietnamese) was brought into the world. 

A world that would actively work to erase his identity and squash his every chance for success.

When Ông was five or six years old, his older siblings went off to school, waking at 5 a.m. to walk 10 miles. My grandpa, too young to follow them, had to stay home. 

There was an all-girl Catholic school that was closer. On his first day, dressed in girls’ clothes, Ông showed up. A nun took one look at him and asked, “Are you a boy?” In an instant, Ông said yes. With that, he was sent straight home to his mother who fought the urge to cry out of frustration. 

Ông was finally able to go to public school at eight years old. It was far but not as far as the one his siblings attended. He started in third grade with other kids his age, all of whom already learned how to read, write, and count. Without knowing numbers or the Vietnamese alphabet, Ông was punished every day by his teacher, slapped on his hands with a ruler or forced to kneel facing the blackboard for a time out. 

This became such a frequent occurrence that every morning Ông silently made his way to the blackboard before his teacher inevitably told him to do so. He didn’t dare tell his parents in fear he would have to stay home again and further fall behind on his studies. 

After almost two years, Ông left for another school. A French school in Hà Nội called Lycée Albert-Sarraut. According to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this school was the only one of its kind: an educational institution operated by a Western power in a Communist state. 

Without knowing a word of French, Ông was severely punished again. But by his second year, things were looking up. Ông could read, write, and understand French. Everything around him, however, was about to take a turn for the worse. 

1954. The communists occupy North Vietnam. Ông’s family has to leave Hà Nội and make their way to the South, to Sài Gòn. 

There was another French school in Sài Gòn that Ông applied to, but all Lycée Albert-Sarraut kids were transferred to a French school about 200 miles away, a school his family could not afford. Returning to Vietnamese school was the only option. 

5th grade. Lớp nhất. In history class, Ông’s teacher recounted China’s domination and Vietnam’s fight for independence, smiling at Ông as she spoke. His last name—Quan—did not escape her. Ông was Chinese; his family left China for Vietnam to escape communism. Not that that made any difference. In this classroom, he was the enemy. 

After school, five to six boys were waiting outside. They jumped on top of Ông, tearing at and throwing dirt on his clothes. 

Every week, Ông returned home, coming in through the back door, to change. He didn’t want to tell his parents; they were already going through such financial hardship. This would have been the least of their problems, Ông thought, or worse, created more. Instead, he directed his focus on school, seeing it as his only way to fight back. 

In 6th grade, Ông rose to the top of his class, skipping 7th grade and going right to 8th. Throughout high school, Ông maintained the same work ethic, knowing that if he did not pass his exams and receive a high school diploma, he’d be enlisted in the military. A military in desperate need of soldiers. 

Around this time, the communist Vietnamese government forced Chinese and other non-native locals to become citizens of Vietnam or face deportation. Ông’s family considered moving. Taiwan refused to receive them. Returning to mainland China wouldn’t have made any sense. They had to become Vietnamese citizens, a process which included changing their last name. 

Ông’s family fought to keep the Quan name. With such insistence, the government gave up and accepted it. 

Around 10 to 15 percent of students graduated high school in Vietnam. More than 80 percent failed.  Ông passed. But his fight would be far from over. 

There were 200 spots for freshman university students. About half were reserved for the extremely wealthy. 

Ông failed the doctor, pharmacist, engineer, and teacher entrance exams. His older brother received a high school diploma from a Chinese school. His younger brother failed to receive one. Both of them were off to the military. 

With each passing day, it was becoming more likely that Ông would be following his brothers. Until one day. A day my grandpa coins—to this day—to be his “Lucky destiny day.” 

One morning, a high school classmate passed by Ông’s house. 

“The aviation school is open,” his classmate said. “You could apply to be an air traffic controller.” 

By the time Ông’s classmate passed by his house, it was past 11:30 a.m. The admissions office closed at 12. 

With his high school diploma and no time to grab his birth certificate, Ông joined his classmate. His classmate was refused up front. The school was only accepting candidates born between 1941 to 1943 and his classmate was born in 1944. Ông, born in 1942, qualified.

If only he had brought his birth certificate. 

The Director of Civil Aviation (DCA) said it was too late to accept Ông’s documents. Ông begged and begged for them to reconsider. 

The school eventually gave in. They held onto Ông’s high school diploma and gave him until the following Monday to submit the rest of his papers. 

Luck was still on his side. 

There were 20 seats in the aviation school among thousands of candidates—close to 9,000. The entrance exam consisted of three parts: written, oral, and physical. The written section included mathematics, French, Vietnamese, and English. The oral section was in English and French. The physical exam tested his vision and hearing to ensure it was on par with the requirements for a pilot. 

The written section took four days. During this time, there was also a policeman exam going on. Around 2,000 candidates withdraw their aviation school application to take the policeman exam. Nine thousand drops to seven thousand. 

Ông excelled in French, English, and math. The same could not be said for Vietnamese. On the last day of the written section, Ông was presented with a philosophical Vietnamese essay question. With no understanding of what the question was asking, Ông wrote a few words and gave up. 

Miraculously, Ông moved onto the two-day oral section. The first of which was in French. Ông walked into a room to find his French essay on the table. The school had deemed it excellent. His Vietnamese essay…not so much. 

Ông still had a chance to win the school over. His French pronunciation was impressive. 

The next was in English. A representative from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was there to interview him. Ông spoke fluently in English. 

He had passed the oral section. 

After the written and oral section, 50 people were left. Those that were remaining were sent to an air force base for the physical portion. 

“Who here wears glasses?” 

Twenty people wore glasses. They were immediately dismissed.

Then came the examinations: vision, hearing, and heart. Ông passed them all. Five were dismissed. 

The pool of candidates had been cut in half. It was down to 25 people for 20 spots. Twenty people were accepted; five were waitlisted. 

Ông was lucky #25. 

Over the course of three months, all 25 candidates attend aviation class and take a flying exam. Three students fail. Twenty-two remain. 

After six months, another exam. 

Three students fail. Nineteen remain. 

These lucky 19 can now officially call themselves aviation school students. From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a mere 30 minutes for lunch, Ông studied for the final exam. Three students fail. Sixteen students graduate. 

Ông graduated #2 in his class with the #1 graduate scoring just half a point higher. 

Working as an air traffic controller in an airport in Sài Gòn, Ông was exempt from enlisting in the war. This, however, did not guarantee his safety. 

1968. The war is at its peak. The Việt Cộng and the North Vietnamese military launches an attack on South Vietnam and the U.S. military. It is known as the Tết Offensive for taking place during the Lunar New Year. 

So many civilians die. Ông’s older sister’s house in Sài Gòn is hit by a communist rocket, instantly killing her. 

At 28, after one year of working at the airport, Ông’s mother arranged for Ông to be married, choosing my grandma, Trần Ngà Thi. 

They have three daughters together. One of whom being my mom. 

1975. North Vietnam fully takes over the country. My mom’s younger sister is born the year after. 

At this point, Ông was an airline security manager. Everyone who worked in aviation for the old regime, about 400 to 500 people total, gathered in the DCA building. Once inside, Ông walked into the personnel office where he saw a letter with his name on the table.

Ông was being promoted to army lieutenant. He grabbed the letter and destroyed it. Hard work and luck were simply not enough. This time, Ông had to be cunning. 

Under communist rule, each person was required to disclose everything about their life, family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. The communists had no records of anyone before 1975. 

You had to physically write about every aspect of your life and circle over and over again. If there was any discrepancy found in your retelling or in someone else’s, you were called in for questioning. 

Ông had 30 employees under him as manager. If his position as an airline security manager for South Vietnam was found out, Ông would be sent straight to jail or a re-education camp. 

Security was an especially dangerous word as it was often conflated with intelligence and espionage. To the communist government, Ông could be considered a South Vietnamese spy. 

He thought about what he should say to his team carefully. For Ông, this was a matter of life or death. It was crucial for all his employees to be on the same page. 

All DCA employees were divided into 20 groups to clean up the airport. Ông’s group was assigned to the terminal where his office was conveniently located. 

Ông headed straight to his office and destroyed everything. Uniforms. Paystubs. Photos. Documents. Anything he could find that could be used against him. 

Later that day, Ông faced his team. He told them to not write down anything regarding their involvement in airline security. 

“We are smarter than the communists,” he said. “They don’t know anything about us unless we tell them. Why should we tell them anything bad? Be careful what you say because the communists will ask for proof of employment. Proof that as of today no longer exists.” 

Not one of Ông’s 30 employees declared their job in aviation. The first phase in Operation Outsmart the Communists was a success. To avoid getting caught, Ông had to lay low. 

Bà, my grandma, attended weekly mandatory communist meetings to report on her family’s activities. 

Ông was presented with two options for re-education: be sent away for 10 days or study in place for 21. 

Ông had a feeling there was a catch hidden somewhere. He chose 21 days. After his re-education period, he was hired to teach air traffic control for the communist government.

Those that chose 10 days ended up away from their families for 10 years. Ông went on to work for the communists for two. During this time, he explored every possible option to get his family out of the country. 

The first was to go to Cambodia or Thailand by foot. Along with three young children, Ông Bà would have to make their way through the treacherous jungle and carry weapons to protect one another. 

Others paid to leave Vietnam by boat. Two to three hundred people would be crammed in a small boat and go off to sea. Along the way, they’d face pirates, storms, starvation, and disease. 

Foreigners (non-Vietnamese people) were allowed to return to their home countries. People gathered outside to retrieve an exit visa. This gave Ông an idea. Perhaps he could figure out a way to leave the country legally. 

But first, he had to quit his job. No country would grant him an entry visa if they found out he worked for the communists. 

Between 1975 to 1980, millions of Northerners moved to Central and South Vietnam. To manage this migration, the communist government implemented the New Economic Zones program, which forcibly evicted Southerners from their homes and relocated them in the countryside. 

In an aviation meeting with over 2,000 people in attendance, Ông raised his hand, expressing his desire to quit. The head captain and communist major were outraged. Ông was escorted to a small narrow room where he was kept until the meeting was finished. 

The captain and major came in. They took turns berating Ông, accusing him of disobedience. “No! You misunderstand,” Ông said calmly, “Uncle Ho [Chi Minh] wants us to move to the New Economic Zone. I’m just following orders and willing to leave the city.” 

The captain and major were quiet and left the room. Ông waited for four hours. At 5 p.m., the captain returned. “OK Fine! Go home!” 

Ông didn’t wait to be told twice. As he made his way out, he ran into the head captain’s assistant. The assistant was riding a bicycle, rushing to get home in time for dinner. When the assistant saw Ông, he let out a sigh of relief. “Here, take this!” he said, handing Ông an envelope. “Bring this to your local security office. Thank you!” The assistant took off. 

The envelope read CONFIDENTIAL across the front. Ông quickly pocketed it and continued on home. 

He told no one about quitting. Not even his family.

The letter the assistant had given him confirmed that he was no longer an employee of the communists. Addressed to his local security office, the letter stressed to the local officers to control and suppress him. That night, Ông burned the paper as he cooked. 

The next day, Ông left his house at the usual time as if he was going to work. His employers, in their shock, had forgotten to reclaim his employee ID card. Carrying this ID held a distinct weight of power. Every morning and night, he’d flash the card to the local officers. The officers, upon seeing the Cờ đỏ sao vàng, the red and yellow star flag of communist Vietnam, saluted in response. 

There was a complete lack of communication between the communists. Ông used this to his full advantage. 

Ông would observe the chaos at the district office to prepare his exit visa application submission. Everyone who cited reunification with family as a reason to leave Vietnam was turned away immediately. “Tell your family to come to Vietnam,” they’d say. Instead, Ông stated he was leaving due to his physical and mental health. He slipped his application right behind a family with a significant amount of gold, seconds before the office closed for the day. 

Ông wrote hundreds of letters to different countries, asking for an entry visa. 

Three responded with good news: Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Tahiti, and the Central African Republic. 

Because Tahiti is an island in French Polynesia, Ông managed to evacuate Bà, my aunts, and mom to France by plane. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or UN Refugee Agency provided them money for the plane tickets. With the help of a good samaritan, Ông also secured an apartment in the heart of Paris (about 2-3 days before being at risk for deportation) where they lived for two years. 

When the war was over, the U.S. government publicly promised whoever had helped the Americans leave Vietnam with entry to the United States. Ông reminded them of that promise and of his role as an air traffic controller. Finally, in 1981, my family arrived in New York. 

◆◆◆ 

Every Tết, or Vietnamese Lunar New Year, I kneel before my grandparents and wish them great fortune for the year ahead, usually in the form of catchy four-word phrases. 

The more words I say, the more luck I will bring to my grandparents. 

It makes sense in my head.

Without this custom and literal expression of giving back to your elders, I often wonder how I could ever reciprocate the sheer will and fortuitous circumstances that led my grandparents to the U.S. 

That resulted in my existence as their first grandchild. 

It’s a staggering thing to wrap your head around as someone whose only exposure to war has been through stories, images, documentaries, and the news. 

Sometimes, for that reason, the new year wishes can feel superficial. I always mean them sincerely. But they pale in comparison. 

My wishes come from a life of privilege. Luck has been handed down to me like an ancient family relic. 

No words or actions will ever be enough. The only real way to “pay them back” is to lead a life worthy of sacrifice. To study to get ahead. To be as bold as to resist as a means of self-preservation. 

Do so long enough and luck, just might, catch up.

The post Luck is a Funny Thing appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Secret meetings
Giggles in the hall
25 Nespresso pods
Addicted to the cause
Sitting in your office
Just to feel your calm

Did not know how much I needed you
You were my closest confidant
Held me up, when I just could not
A whole ass disaster
I know I am a lot
Didn’t matter
You never brought it up
-Work bestie

Coming alive

A life of routine I lived
Day in and day out
Being the character, I need to be
In the different layers of life
Trying hard not to make waves
Always been a quiet girl
Some things never change

Then comes this firebird
Young and beautiful
Suffering in different ways
I open my home

I have been where you are
Feeling the world against you
Being young and not knowing
Inexperienced and scared

The years have made me stronger
Come under my wing
I can protect you
Flourish here
If you need

My little firebird
Brave and loud
Her opinions are known
Confrontation welcomed

I admire her candor
For being who she is
Not dividing herself into layers
To fit the scenery

I may be older in years
But you are fiercer in heart
I have much to learn from you
You have ignited a flame in me
-sister

Growing

Learning to say no
A blessing and a curse
Still every time that word leaves my lips
My stomach cringes for the response

Surprisingly, many just accept and move on
I am flabbergasted and disappointed
It took me so long to learn

Do not be afraid
To take up space

Thirty something

Just starting to feel like an adult
People judging my unattached life
I am more than belonging to a man
Life is bigger than the box society demands
Counting my blessings for this body
For my success and independence
It is not that I do not welcome love
I just don’t let it define me

Just because I am not a trophy
Does not mean I am not happy
The freedoms I worked so hard to earn
I enjoy them day in and day out

And if one day someone
Man, women, come along
I welcome them with open arms
It is not a need that is required
But an addition that would be a cherry
On top of an already fulfilling life

The post a collection appeared first on The New Absurdist.

     ‘Yep, some ase-ole’s done a picture of the sky through a window. With little streaks like splattered raindrops. And there’s a lot of ’em as if the artist with a capital A thought they’d hit on something special. Course, they don’t look rain-like. Not in the least. For a start, they’re blue and purple and there are some stupid red bits. S’pose they think it’s artistic to shittify about like that. Is that why they’ve done it? Is it?’

     Jack Chivers spat onto the hydrangea bush after he’d got the question out. His friend Melvin watched as the slimy-spittle trailed for a minute from the leaf on top then fell in a sudden gust of wind. Jack was locked into his own head-thoughts. He didn’t see his own spit wobbling or any of the leaves on the bush, for that matter, or even the blustery garden itself. All he saw were these bright coloured flecks of paint which represented rainfall. 

    ‘So you hated the specks because they weren’t realistic enough,’ Mel said. 

    ‘It would’ve been an improvement if they’d looked like raindrops’, Jack replied cautiously. He knew he wouldn’t hear the last of this one in a hurry.

     ‘Do you think art is all about replicating what is seen?  Like a photo?’ Mel asked him. 

     His voice sounded casual but Jack was aware this was a cover-up. His mate loved nothing better than biding his time before stepping in for the attack. ‘I…, er…,’ was all he could come up with though. Then he had a bright idea. Fight off a question by asking one yourself.  

     ‘So, are you against realism in a work of art then, Mel?’

     ‘Not at all.  But it’s not the only form.’

     ‘Still, it would show some talent if the artist-so-called could manage to paint rainfall that looked like effing rainfall.’

     ‘What d’you think this artist is up to then?’ Mel wanted to know.

     ‘Why do we give him the credit of being called an artist?  Just because he’s splodging paint on a square of canvas that can be hung up on a wall?’ Jack was proud of his latest questions and would have spat onto the bush again. But his throat was dry.  So he coughed instead.

     ‘Well, isn’t art also about a vision that’s been formed in the artist’s mind?  That is to say, the artist has interpreted reality, in visual terms, drawing on the picture from within his conscious or unconscious self.’

     ‘Oh anybody could make up that crap.’ Jack Chivers, who was easily wound up when Mel began his theorizing, stamped his feet onto the ground. ‘What about the bullshit factor, Mel. Eh?  Answer me that.’

     ‘I can’t give you an answer that would be satisfactory Jack because you’re set in your opinion. That basically, there’s no such thing as art.’

     ‘Some of us can detect hypocrisy, you mean, whereas others swallow whole any old balderdash

they’re fed.’ Jack’s latest thought triggered his growing anger to the level where he was desperate to 

spit again. But annoyingly, nothing would come. He had a coughing fit instead.

     Mel waited till things were quiet again then posed a question. ‘So what d’you think would be worse, Jack – a world which had some phony artists and art in it, or a world where there were no  artists or art at all?’

     Jack saw an opening here, which he hadn’t anticipated as it didn’t often happen. ‘How do we know the difference between the so-called-true-artist-and-art and the conman?’ 

     This made Mel laugh out loud. ‘It’s not as simple as that.  Following on from your earlier points I’ll concede that we may not know the difference. But it’s also true to say the artist may not know the difference either.  Someone may call themselves an artist because it satisfies their ego need to occupy this somewhat revered social role. They may not be conning though Jack. They mightn’t know whether they’re a true artist or not, any more than their audience does.’  

     ‘Ah ha!’ Jack shouted back. ‘So if they get hold of some squidgy paint and streak it across a canvas they’ll be convinced then and say to anybody who asks: “Look here Man, I’ve put paint on a canvas. It’s an artist’s impression of rainfall. That makes me an artist. Get it?”

     ‘It’s a complex matter,’ Mel told his pal. ‘But all I’m saying is, what would a world be like if we banned any and all artists from it? Yes, the pseudo as well as the true. And in any case a pseudo could be true at a level he himself isn’t aware of and a ‘true’ though genuine could be a self deceiver.’ 

     ‘Well it would be a better fucking place,’ Jack told him. ‘That’s what I think.’

     ‘Because you’re afraid of being duped?’ Mel wanted to know.

     ‘You’ve said, yourself, we can’t identify what’s art and what isn’t. So why won’t you go one step further and say there’s no such a fucking thing? That would be the logical next step, surely.  It’s ‘cause you’re scared Mel. Admit you’re scared.’

      Mel didn’t disagree with this. ‘Yes, the outcome would scare me. I don’t feel the need to hide 

that,’ he said.

     ‘What’s there to be scared of?’ Jack asked him with a shrug.  

     ‘The mental states of those who get personal release from painting rainfall on window glass, say,’ was Mel’s reply.

     ‘Then you think that perpetuating their delusion makes for a better world?’ 

     ‘We don’t have to make a judgement. If someone paints rainfall can’t we just accept that it gives them some comfort?’ Mel wanted to know. ‘I mean, Jack, why is it necessary to fight them over it? They’re not doing any harm, are they?’

     ‘Oh, so you don’t think there’s anything wrong with delusion, you’re saying?’

     ‘There are worse possibilities. Thing is Jack, we can’t absolutely know if art is present in an 

image or it isn’t.  But if, due to this, we banned all would-be artists from existence, what kind of a world would we be left with?  What I say is, let them practice their non-art-or-art-form and an audience can decide what they want to look at and what they don’t.’

     ‘Well, I say it’s all about ego,’ Jack muttered bitterly. ‘And that goes for the audience as well as the big-I-am-artsy-fartsy. “Oh look, I’ve bought that painting; I’ve got taste.” Taste, my arse’.

     ‘You’ve got a point there Jack.  And if we think of things their way we can see that ownership places them in a superior position to those who don’t own the thing. Well, the truth is, I dislike the competitiveness that can accompany possession of a work of art too. But I guess that’s inevitable in human society as we know it.’

     ‘And money of course. Ego and celebrity, and money. And the bigger the celeb the more the money. Fuck, Mel, it’s about capitalism, pure and simple!’ 

     Mel smiled. ‘Yes, I agree, there is that. But, let’s go and take a look at the painting in the vestibule Jack. I must admit I haven’t seen it yet.’

     It was a good moment for going indoors too because the sky had darkened even further and a few drops of rain were starting to come down. Once in the entrance hall they stared at the picture in silence. Jack had made all the points he wanted to make and Mel couldn’t think of anything to say right away. He yawned instead and this drew out a smirk from Jack.  

     ‘It’s clear, from your reaction to the pic, that you’re not impressed and wouldn’t consider it to be real art,’ he said.

     ‘I wouldn’t go so far as that,’ Mel told him.  ‘Just because I’m not mad about that kind of approach doesn’t mean a thing. We all have our preferences and prejudices.’

     ‘Oh fie,’ Jack snapped, after which they both went quiet again.  

     But after a minute or two Mel said, ‘Anyway, it’s growing on me. Look at the way the raindrops kind of fizzle away at the end. That can happen in real life when they hit the glass of a window as a matter of fact. Look again, Jack, and try to think about the fizzily aspect. It has some appeal for me, I’m finding. The artist was saying something about the world we live in. That’s not the be all and end all, either. Even if you’re right in claiming the rainfall looks unrealistic doesn’t mean that there isn’t some message attached. The viewer may need to draw on their own imagination here.’

     ‘Oh and I suppose you favour the blue and purple and the smattering of ruddy-reds on top. To what end is it all for Mel?  Answer me that, if you can.’

     ‘I’ve already told you I can’t give you a satisfactory answer. You’ve already convinced yourself that art does not exist. Whatever I say won’t make any difference; it won’t get through to you.  And besides, it’s not some competition here, with me trying to force you to see stuff my way. I accept we 

are coming from totally different places on this one.’

     Jack looked annoyed again. They’d started on something that he wanted to continue with. He didn’t concretely go into things but at the same time he knew he was being competitive over this. And also, he’d have said to himself, if he had stopped to think about it, there was nothing wrong with that. All he could do for the sake of personal satisfaction at this moment was to raise another question and so he said, ‘And why would somebody want to paint rainfall for heaven’s sake?  I mean, don’t we have enough rainfall in real life to be going along with?’

     At this point they both stared at the window in the hall. Sure enough the glass was streaked with rain.  

     ‘Look,’ shouted Jack, in a triumphant tone. ‘We can see the two things at once now. Real rain and arty-farty rain. The arty-farty doesn’t capture the real in the slightest degree. Does it.’

     ‘Well, I’d have to agree with you there,’ Mel said after a while. ‘But I’ve already told you that art may not necessarily fit into the realist category.’

     ‘Ok, let’s not go through all that again,’ Jack said.  

     ‘Sure, I recognise there’s absolutely no point,’ Mel told him.  

     ‘Hey look.’ Jack’s voice was all brightness suddenly. ‘The rain has cleared up. It was only a shower.’ He felt appeased, as though the real-world had supported him by being the true and the fake one was proved to be grossly inferior. In other words he’d won the argument.

     Mel couldn’t help giving a laugh again because he saw Jack’s look of pleasure and immediately 

guessed that he took the change in the weather as a moment of personal victory. 

     It was also true to say that the outside looked more inviting than the inside. A lemony twist of delicate sunlight had appeared in the sky, which was in itself appealing. Apart from this there was already a dry look to everything. Mel was happy with the outcome too, he couldn’t deny it. As for the tenor of their conversation, it was obvious to him that no real agreement between the two of them could ever be reached, but what the hell? So, once again they’d gone round in circles and come back to square one. Now, on better terms than they had been when they’d started on the subject of rainfall they went out into the garden again for a stroll across the lawn before supper.

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