Short creative writing piece for personal blog.
You are a distant, innocent spec of nothingness resting on an incomprehensibly large greatness. This greatness neither notices you nor will acknowledge your existence, because you are such a giant nothing; a never will, a never was. Your smug sense of self importance is a huge mask of ignorance, a macabre charade of limited experience and close mindedness.
You are nothing and the fact that you think you're something means that you're an even smaller nothing.
"This, you have to admit," the teacher spoke.
The class of 5 year olds looked confused. Hebrew school had taken a strange turn for this group of kindergardeners; one minute it was all apples and honey, and the next a depressing diatribe of diffuse downers. To put it colloquially; "Ms. Johnson's scary!"
Irving Shacter, the proud, yet intensely schlubby principal opened the door:
"Ms. Johnson, a word we can speak?"
When they got outside, Mr. Shacter was more frank:
"To the students you speak like this?"
"Well, Irving, don't you think they deserve to know the truth?"
"We're not in the truth business, Ms. Johnson; this is a religious school."
"But don't they deserve to know that life is a giant void and we spend our hours fruitlessly attempting to fill it with meaninglessly inconsequential wastes of time?"
"You mean 'are we going to teach Atheism in a Hebrew school'? No. Now get back to those students; I can see Peter Sachs eating a paste by the handful."
Dejected, Ms. Johnson solemnly walked back to class.
"Well, kids; I guess it's time we get back to teaching you about Noah's Ark." A young Jewish boy raised his hand.
"What is it?" Ms Johnson was nervous. Would she have to lie some more to these poor kids?
The Jewish boy smiled. "Ms. Johnson; don't be down. We all know that these stories aren't actually true".
You are a distant, innocent spec of nothingness resting on an incomprehensibly large greatness. This greatness neither notices you nor will acknowledge your existence, because you are such a giant nothing; a never will, a never was. Your smug sense of self importance is a huge mask of ignorance, a macabre charade of limited experience and close mindedness.
You are nothing and the fact that you think you're something means that you're an even smaller nothing.
"This, you have to admit," the teacher spoke.
The class of 5 year olds looked confused. Hebrew school had taken a strange turn for this group of kindergardeners; one minute it was all apples and honey, and the next a depressing diatribe of diffuse downers. To put it colloquially; "Ms. Johnson's scary!"
Irving Shacter, the proud, yet intensely schlubby principal opened the door:
"Ms. Johnson, a word we can speak?"
When they got outside, Mr. Shacter was more frank:
"To the students you speak like this?"
"Well, Irving, don't you think they deserve to know the truth?"
"We're not in the truth business, Ms. Johnson; this is a religious school."
"But don't they deserve to know that life is a giant void and we spend our hours fruitlessly attempting to fill it with meaninglessly inconsequential wastes of time?"
"You mean 'are we going to teach Atheism in a Hebrew school'? No. Now get back to those students; I can see Peter Sachs eating a paste by the handful."
Dejected, Ms. Johnson solemnly walked back to class.
"Well, kids; I guess it's time we get back to teaching you about Noah's Ark." A young Jewish boy raised his hand.
"What is it?" Ms Johnson was nervous. Would she have to lie some more to these poor kids?
The Jewish boy smiled. "Ms. Johnson; don't be down. We all know that these stories aren't actually true".
"You do?"
The entire class exclaimed: "Yeah!"
"But if we stop pretending like we believe it, we don't get grape juice and challah on Fridays. Grape juice and challah is pretty amazing".
That's when Ms. Johnson realized; religion isn't about actually believing in anything, it's about getting cool stuff when you pretend to believe in stuff.
A class-wide group hug ensued, with the exception of Peter Sacks who was rushed to Mount Sinai hospital with an acute case of septic shock brought on by excessive paste-eating.
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