Classroom X - I. Rain

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV—

He stops there. The music ceases accordingly. I’m watching from a distance, but the sudden silence strikes me quick and hard. Hallelujah! someone shouts. Ha-lle-luuuuuu-jah!

There’s something odd about the classroom. The pictures that the kids drew are taped on the back wall. Rough crayon marks, silly, grotesque stick figures of ME, DADDY, and MOMMY. One of the kids drew DADDY with three legs. Another drew a green sun, later saying that the sun turned green at night sometimes.

The teacher, young and spirited, is tired, aching from the screaming and running.

Why? some kid asks.

Because…

Yes?

The bell rings — some glorious sound for both parties. The teacher sulks into her chair and sighs. Eighty more days. More than those kids could count to.

            1, 2, 3, 4 —

Something's about to happen, I think. There’s still one kid remaining, but the teacher doesn’t know. The kid, he’s sitting there, still and silent, bro00ooding. His eyes are dark. He has a pencil in his hand, tightly gripped.

The teacher doesn’t know anything. She sits there, drinking coffee, looking over emails — yawning. It has begun raining. The splatter increases slowly, softly, so ten minutes later the liquid sound sloshes over the quiet classroom without the teacher realizing.

You don’t know anything.

The kid: he’s waiting.

The drainage pipe outside is clogged, so there’s a massive puddle outside, flooding the walkway. The kid walks up to the teacher now; he stands in front of the teacher, looking straight in the eyes, unsmiling:

“It’s raining.”

“It’s raaaiiinnngggg.”

“IT’S raaaAAAAIIIIIINNNNnnnngggg.”

“IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, my god IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, it’s raining, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAaINING, IT’S RAINING, it’s raining, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING, IT’S RAINING!”

The teacher wakes up drenched in sweat. Is it still raining? All the energy, dRained away. Yes. Where are we? The kid is long gone, probably dead. Distant thunder rolls along, crackling and booming, shaking the ground. The pictures on the wall have come to life. ?                                  ?

            How are you doing?       ?                                               ?                                               ?

            What is going on?                                   ?                                             ?  ?

            How aaare you doing?                            ?                                   ?

            Uhh — I’m ok…                                              ?

?                                               ?                                                                                   ¿¿¿¿¿¿

There’s no definition or clear direction to the voice, but the teacher knows it’s one of the drawings.

            Hello!                                        Hello! Hello!

The teacher is shivering now, quivering in fear (oh ever powerful fear). I see all of this, while doing nothing. She screams, knees on the floor, begging for something, for clarity and sanity.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!¿?¡!!!¡???!¿!¿

                        what is this?

this is your

classroom

don’t you

remember?       

Two Old Men Eating Soup, by Francisco Goya

            -Say what?

            -I’m losing my mind.

            -What’s this?

The sun went down.

            -The sun goes…

            -Does this matter?

            -No, it doesn’t. But neither does anything else—the dead trees, the war, the disease…

            -I remember…

            -But does it matter?

            -No, not really, I don’t think. It’s weird though this—

            -Damn maggots!

            -...this time, something’s terribly wrong and missing…

            -Is it your wife?

            -Oh yes, it is! How could I have forgotten...I remember the night…

            -The night, yes.

            -Much like this one, yes.

            -When the cannons shot…

            -Yes, and the sky burned…

            -Like an angry sunrise—

            -No, like sunset.

            -Ah yes, and then…

            -Ha! The limbs and the blood...

            -Like the gutting of sheep,

            -And the screams of dying lambs.

            -My wife, though—how her eyes rolled back and I held her—

            -There was nothing you could do.

            -But the way she whispered…

“Do not speak my name again.”

            -

            -

The soup was cold and bland, much like the room. The wind howled, and the windows creaked.

            -See that?

            -What is it?

            -A mouse.

            -So?

            -And that, over there!?

            -What?

            -A spider...so large, and brooding.

            -Yes?

            -What life is this then?

            -A miserable one, yes, but the one we must have.

            -Poor youth, poor beasts—

            -Please, do not pity them.

The mouse ran away.

            -You scared it off.

            -Me and my wrinkly, old hands.

            -No. You and your despicable, dying soul.

            -I don’t think we do…

            -Have souls?

            -Yes.

            -But we must.

            -Why is that?

            -Life, my friend.

            -Life is rarely a gift. More often a burden.

            -Better a burden than nothing.

            -Life is like this soup.

            -You are losing your mind.

            -Sooner or later, we must cool off, and be drunk by the greedy, nasty mouths of the world…

            -Stop this talk.

            -Savor it, deathless ground—

            -I’ve had enough.

            -Drink it, and swallow me whole—

...as he pours the remaining soup onto the ground.

            -Oh, the spirits rise—

            -My dear wife come back to me—

            -

            -Is this it?

            -

            -

            -

            -The dead are risen.

            -The dead are risen.

            -The dead.

            -The dead.

            -Rejoice!

            -All hail.

            -

            -

Excavation, by Willem de Kooning

How the jagged edges of ruined buildings

Scar the horizon like evil trees,

And skeletons, rusted scythes

And old billboards line the streets.

We took this thing out a couple weeks ago. Oh, how it’s grown since. Everything’s overflown and reeks of something wildly unpleasant. Upon further inspection, we found a woman’s ear buried down under. It felt like rubber. And also, piles and piles of video tapes; old cassettes, VCR’s, whatever. The whole thing was difficult to...tame — the best word I can find for the whole ordeal — and especially the thick sludge that sat, brooding at the bottom of it all.

We found a famous professor who worked at a famous university to take a look. She said it was indeed strange — it seemed to be evolving constantly — she picked up a few scraps and held them up to the light and gasped. We need to dig further, she said. We shook and trembled and nodded.

So the landing is almost moist, if not damp and clustered with viscous fluids of varying darkness. And on top of it, leatherlike platforms hovered and floated about. We found swirls of dreams, at first. Translucent, eel-like entities danced above us. But those passed by, and as the light dimmed, as if passing into some eternal dusk, we could see the remnants of cities and visions.

The sky moaned with a visceral tone and gut, and pouring forth a dusty, red-brown fog. And then the distant shrieks that sliced the dirty air, the trash and spirits that loomed large and small everywhere. It was windy too, and the breeze was scathing hot, burning with acidity. But most of all, we saw the memories of some past lives — not dark, per se, but grotesque in a deformed childish way, in impossibly painful angles and teasing, taunting expressions. And they would whisper to us, between laughs and cries, in the middle of it all, inescapable:

With you I linger endlessly,

Talking of some distant land,

Wishing to see the lovely sea,

But having to do with this ancient sand.

The breaking of souls —

The Ascent

We begin with jellyfish: translucent creatures,

And grey skies — filled with red clouds and undiminished stars.

Ascend, said she, goddess of all, who is none other than nothing at all,

Ascend the staircase to an unimagined heaven: the living room.

With wallpaper, carpet and incandescent lighting, lumps of sugar cubes

Sitting on the table; you ask, “Who brought us here?”

It isn’t me, or her, or the highway made for lost souls seeking respite.

If you look up or around, you still won’t see it, the source of good.

Come away, let us retreat to a quieter place, and you shall see,

The endless ocean bearing down on Gatsby — don’t cry.

Someday he’ll learn, says those with splintered hearts and broken dreams.

History repeats because we think we’re better than before when we’re not.

And that’s ok, she says, that while cities grow, we remain small.

We remain small, and now feel even smaller. That’s ok.

To make mountains of molehills and forests of sticks,

Or to make molehills of mountains and pebbles of stars...

To become unstuck, we must cease resisting —

Not to die or to give up, but to float; become lighter than light.

Shine, diamond, and shrink (but not sulk) in this emptiness,

This barrenness, our baroness, the ruler without measurement,

This expansiveness, that wholeness and unity in which we ascend

The moment we decide our hands are only hands.