| I sit in the depths of the shadows of hell. I wander the alleys of decay. I breath in the sweet, sour pungent
smell of rotting garbage left in the wake of environmentalists. I sit in the putrid wastelands of the forgotten. The
bowels of hell reincarnate. In all amazement, I sit in a padded chair at a plush book store complete with a coffee
shop. It’s wonderful the bounds we are making with technology isn’t it? I am sitting here looking at two “senior”
citizens play a game of checkers on an oversized, quilted board with oversized checkers. The demographic for this
game is set for a lower age group of course, but they aimlessly amble along with their game. Don’t get me wrong, I
love to see people enjoy themselves, but when I see people in such an active, delusional aversion to the obvious truth
it makes me sick at my stomach. It’s the same everywhere I go. And next, to my right are three young girls who are
oblivious to the cascades of information that beckons them silently, but who remain intent on the young man behind
the counter of the coffee shop. They swoon for an hour or two and quietly chatter among themselves and laugh to
themselves as the young lad tries to ignore the constant disruption they are to him. These girls are no more than
twelve or thirteen and the young lad must be in his early twenties. Ah! Young love. Such innocence at play.
Schmucks! The lot of them! All Schmucks. They can’t help it though, I guess. This society doesn’t really support
education on a sturdy foundation anyway. Why should they care if they are intelligent or not? They haven’t been
instilled with the love of wisdom. Only the decaying love of money and its pursuits. Which one of those pursuits is
education! Bah! Learning to line your pocket and to be well off. It’s a shame. A Damn shame. When I was young everybody was in it for the experience, not for the money. My friends were among the poorest of the lot, but they were also the brightest. They had a lot of talent behind them and dismal futures ahead. It’s sad that today I see some of the brightest people in dead end jobs at McDonalds or giving up entirely and living a monotonous life until oblivion takes them. It makes me sad. The depths of this sadness cannot be felt. Nor can it be explained in simplistic, sporadic jargon that we use. I doubt there will ever be a language that will ever fully explain human emotions. With these unlearned rouges around I can’t read, I can’t think on anything intelligible, I only feel a deep disgust and contempt. From the early days until now, there has been many droughts in the pursuit of knowledge and many great spells of excess and privilege. But as things are going now, it’s disappointing. I remember a man in the early days of Socrates. He was a beautiful example of diverse knowledge. He was a true renaissance man, though the renaissance hadn’t occurred. He lived in modest habits and of house and income, but his intelligence was to be rivaled by almost none other. But not only was he an acute scholar, he was also acutely athletic. But what troubled me the most about Cratylus was the fact he was not respected by his peers, and he never made any struggle to be acknowledged by them. Cratylus was a modest man. He lived a modest life. And no one hardly noticed him. In fact, he never married and never had a child. A virgin of considerable opposition. I happened on him on one of my travels to Athens. Oh, by the way my name is Arminus. That’s not my given name, but after my metamorphosis I took the name of the person responsible for this torment. But anyway, back to Cratylus, he was running to the forum to read about the newly posted civics announcements by the emperor. You know, basic citizen guidelines and the such. Nothing serious, a trifle really. He bumped into me as he rounded the corner of the local bathe. He stopped, and curtly said, “Excuse me, sir.” Before he went to continue to the forum, but before he could I grabbed him by the arm and introduced myself as Hermogenes. He bade me a warm welcome and babbled a fast farewell and tried to run off, but again I stopped him. He was beginning to become frustrated at this man before him. He stared me down and tried to intimidate me with his stiff posture and resolve, but I stood there and simply said, “My friend, what is your rush? The emperor has not been slain. Nor is there a famine that I have heard of, so what is the rush my fine fellow?”
“I go to the forum to read.” Cratylus said uncertain of my question.
As Arminus walked to his beat up 1992 Ford Ranger he thought about the changes in his life. For one, he
had to adapt a new name for this time. Which was difficult because this time doesn’t use meaningful words to name
their offspring. They named their young after cars and abstract traits like Mercedes and Hope. It was a difficult task
set before him, so he thought he would look to the past for an answer. His best bet was a common name with a far
reaching meaning. Finally he came up with David. David Silverburg. He thought it had a good ring to it and had
some historical substance in it. While David reached into his pocket to retrieve his keys to unlock the door of his
worthy stead a young woman ran up to him and said, “David! David, hey! How is it going?” |