A Hero Comes to Town

And so it came to pass that Gyorgy Yabu and Clyde Moyen Bucket decided to take care of Hellecchino and Chokepoint Piste. After all, things had gone on for too long as they were. They hired their own hero: Samson O’Merdé. Samson O’Merdé had once been a member of the Gorin Noshow but had become, with the group’s demise, what you might call a masterless retainer. Being on the out-and-out, more or less, Samson advertised in the papers, very simply: Samson O’Merdé, Have Gun Will Travel, telegraph peculiarmo and totalwreckaz. It just so happened that Samson was in Total Wreck and unemployed at the time he was contacted. Heroing and avengifying were a little slow at that time.

Samson rode a Brahma bull named Golu Devata mounted with a wrought silver Mexican saddle. He stood 6′4″ tall and weighed in at 285 lbs; nevertheless, he was very fast, on his feet, with his fists and with a gun–a specially crafted Colt .45 with an extra large Colt python real Sambar stag grips to fit his meaty fist, fluted and worked cylinder and a long Thomson Center contender barrel, the site a tiny svelte mermaid. Mostly for show, of course, as Samson was so strong that he rarely needed to indulge himself in pistoling. But, of course, he was a hero and truly into fixing things, though he did, it must be admitted, have a heavy hand. He was known to carry a 10′ club, a shillelagh that he used to knock bad guys down to the ground and make mince-meat of them. Which, of course, he was real good at doing. Samson O’Merdé had a reputation to out-rival the pistol whipping of Wyatt Earp.

His hair, a kind of dusted dishwater blond, stuck out in spikes from around his sweat stained headband, purportedly taken off of Cochise and, in honor of the Indian rebel, never washed in order to keep the originality in place. His face was dirt grimed from his ride across the semi-arid regions of Arizona, New Mexico and West Coahuila, which made the whites of his eyes and his great mouthful of white teeth gleam in the noonday sun and, to tell the truth, in the dark of night, which was enough to frighten off the most inveterate of spiritualists and ghost hunters, including James Randi, who, of course, admitted such things did not exist but ran anyway. He was a realist, after all, and the proof of the pudding was in the direct observation; he was known to say that he never saw a thing, though he saw alot of things he didn’t believe in.

Massive Schwartzenegger arms thrust out of the arm holes of his grimy leather vest; he wore no shirt in order to more advantageously advertise his masculine flat tummy with well-defined abs and his fine pectorals. He liked to shrug his massive shoulders and flex his deltoids and, while stroking his stubbled chin, his biceps. Levi Strauss had made him a pair of extra large, extra durable jeans that, over the years had become dirt-encrusted and frayed at the cuffs so they did not reach to his ankles, giving him the appearance of an overgrown Huckleberry Finn. His boots were simple brown leather. Although Samson O’Merdé wore a red polka dot bandana loosely tied around his neck, he did not carry one in his right rear pocket, the consequence of which is that he blew his nose by pressing on one nostril and breathing heavy out of the other. He also spit, great growling gutsy hawkings. He was an easy man to follow for any tracker.

Samson O’Merdé was a sight to behold indeed.

He also slurped his coffee and soup and ate with his mouth open. He burped upon consumption, smiling and noting, “That was good!” His mother did not raise him well. He said, “Amen” when he farted, usually by lifting his right cheek and bearing down hard.
His job was to save people from all sorts of discomfort and dysfunction, including Hellecchino, who was described to him as a little devil. In fact, Samson was there to save Yabu’s holdings and rid the Brazos River Basin of the people’s hero, that trickster Hellecchino whatever-his-name-is. But Samson was not told this part of the job. He was kind of single-minded; the less information there was, the more probable it was he wouldn’t become confused. In that everyone knew Samson had arrived, it is safe to assume Hellecchino knew, too. But this information, carried in glaring, glowing headlines in the Yabu Yeoman, did not change Hellecchino’s day-to-day goings-on. Or those of Buck.
“Did you see the headlines, Hellecchino?”

“Nope. Never read the paper.”

“A hero’s come to town. One Samson O’Merdé.”

“Yup. I know.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothin’.”

“I guess me neither.”

“Good guess.”

But, of course, such whimsy could not go on forever. Especially as Samson O’Merdé was also a big talker. Amongst the Caramboleros he would show his prowess at dodging that he got by way of his mother heaving things at him as he sat around the fire minding his own business. He was truly amazing. Bologna and Cologna Shrievalty set about learning his moves. Everything and anything of such ilk would come in handy in the line of duty. But the fun and games could not go on forever. So it was that Gyorgy Yabu called upon Samson to do his bidding, though it happened on a day that Samson was going to market. Not so much as to buy anything, though he did need a few things, but because he had heard that this Hellecchino character he’d been brought in to contain liked to frequent the weekend farmer’s market.

Gyorgy Yabu stood on his porch waving a yellow envelope before his face as Samson waltzed through the yard and up the stairs to the veranda.

“Where’s Golu Devata?” he asked.

“I left him tethered to the old oak tree. I’m walkin’ into town today.”

“Going to market I hear.”

“Yup. That’s right. Just like this little piggie.”

“Well,” said Yabu waving the envelope more threateningly, “I have a letter for you to deliver to George Meseems.”

“But I have planned my business at the market.”

“Be that as it may, you must. And if I say you must, you must. You are, after all, my hero.”

“Well, if you say I must, I must.”

Yabu handed over the envelope.

“Don’t wait for an answer. Just deliver it and get on with your business.”

“Okay, boss.”

“Hurry on up about it, now!”

“Right you are.”

Yabu gave a great sigh as Samson sauntered out the Hacienda loco plátano gateway.

“There’s an aura about that man,” he said to Clyde.

“Yes, sir. I’d say there is. Good thing, too.”

Well, on his way into town, Samson met up with an old woman sitting on the side of the road. She waived at Samson, calling him to her side.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “How can I help you?”

“My name’s Sally. Sally Godown.”

“How do you do. My name’s Samson O’Merdé, Hero Extraordinaray.”

“Yes. So I’ve been told.”

“You’ve heard of me, then?”

“Of course I have. Who hasn’t?”

“Yup! That’s me.”

“Well, I want you to take me into town to buy nine pounds of butter.”

“I can’t do that. I’m on an errand for the boss. Mr. Yabu.”

“I need you to do this. You don’t know who I am.”

“You told me. You’re Sally Godown.”

“That’s right. And I don’t walk nowhere. I ain’t walked anywhere in 30 years.”

“My, my.”

“So you must carry me into town to buy my nine pounds of butter.”
“I have an errand to carry out.”

“I say you just and you must. You are a hero.”

“Well, if you say I must, I must. Hop on my back and let’s get a move on.”

Sally hopped rather more sprightly than might be imagined onto big old Samson’s back and off they loped into town to buy nine pounds of butter. Which they duly did. And Samson brought Sally back and dumped her on her roadside stone.

“I sure hope that butter don’t melt, Sally Godown,” Samson said by way of departure.

As he continued on his way, he met a foxy kind of character. Mr. Sossel Cheeseparings. A man with a pointy nose and a smooth voice and a long lapping tongue that he kept swiping around his chops as if he couldn’t get all of the sweet stickiness from off his thin lips. He was not very tall and kind of built like a svelte pear.
“I say there, big foot,” he hailed Samson. “What is that you’re carrying, eh?”

“It’s a letter. From Gyorgy Yabu to George Meseems.”

“Is it now. Well. . .I say.”

“What do you say?”

“I say. . .do you know what’s in it?”

“No. It ain’t my position to know. I’m just the messenger.”

“Ahh. . .messenger. Can’t be shooting the messenger now, can we, eh?”

“No.”

“How do you know that letter isn’t telling Mr. George Meseems to kill you, hm?”

“Why would he?”

“Because if Gyorgy Yabu says he must, he must.”

“Is George Meseems a hero, too?”

“I dare say not. Why “too”?”

“Because I’m a hero and if I must do a thing, I must do it.”

“Is that right now?”

“Yes. It is.”

“I suppose it must be a good idea to know what it is you’re carrying around with you.”

“I know that! I carry my pistole and my shillelagh.”

“Yes. I see that’s a great club. How about the envelope?”

“It’s not mine.”

“Don’t you want to know what’s in it?”

“I can’t be opening it.”

“I can. And I can read.” And Sossel Cheeseparings took an extra long lick of his lips.

“Can you?”

“I suppose I must.”

“Well, then, if you must, you must.”

“That’s right. We’re both heroes.”

Samson handed over the envelope and the foxy gentleman licked it open and began reading it.

“Oh, my. Oh, my oh my.”

“What’s it say?”

“You’ll have to catch me to find out.”

Sossel Cheeseparings lit out of there faster than an otter sliding down a mud bank. Samson O’Merdé lit out after him. He had a job to do and he was not one to shirk his duty. Sossel Cheeseparings ran on and ran on and ran on and ran on and Samson ran on and ran on and ran on and ran on after him. They ran on across the mesquite and the dusty plains and across piss-ant creeks until, finally, Sossel Cheeseparings tripped over a gopher and dropped the envelope. Samson O’Merdé picked up the envelope, apologized to the gopher and continued on his way to George Meseems to deliver Yabu’s message.

George Meseems didn’t even bother with an acknowledgement. He just took the yellow envelope and shut the door in the messenger’s face. Didn’t matter to him that Samson O’Merdé was a hero.

Well, Samson was late getting to the farmer’s market and he missed catching up to Hellecchino and so he lumbered on over to the Baron’s Roadside Inn tent and sat down to rest and recoup. It was there, with a beer and a side of beef before him that Hellecchino caught up with him. He watched Samson wading into his beef like a sounder of boar for a moment. Then he sat down opposite him and to one end of the table to escape the juice and saliva, necessary appurtenances to tearing into BBQ beef ribs. Lots of newspaper on the table beneath the plates and a damp dish rag for Samson to wipe his hands and mouth occasionally. He was persnickety about the cleanliness of his glass when he drank. A dirty, mouthed-up rim bothered him no end.

“Say,” said Hellecchino. “I hear you’re a hero.”

Samson did not bother to finish his mouthful, answering back around his cud.

“Yup.”

“I’m interested in heroes. I never met one.”

“Well, now you have.”

“Samson O’Merdé. Peculiar, Missouri and Total Wreck, Arizona. Have Gun, Will Travel.”

“Yup.”

Samson swallowed, wiped his greasy hands and mouth and sucked down a half a mug of beer.

“How many of them you put away?”

“More’n a dead Quaker.”

“He drank a gallon in an hour.”

“Yup.”

“You eat alot of dead cow, too.”

“Yup.”

“Vegetables?”

“That’s woos-ass food. I’m a man.”

“Ooh. I can see that. You a big ‘un.”

“Yup.”

“Tell me, then. What kinds of heroic things you done?”

“How many days you got?”

“Oh. . .I’m not busy. But just pick the salient ones.”

“That would involve the giants from up north.”

“Like Paul Bunyan?”

“Who’s he? Never met him.”

“He was a big ‘un, too. Had a blue ox.”

“Nope. He weren’t one of the baddies I did in.”

“So, tell me ’bout ‘em–if you don’t mind.”

“Nope. I don’t mind.”

“Good. Oh, Baron? Would you mind refilling Mr. O’Merdé’s glass and bringing me some lemonade?”

“We ain’t got no lemonade.”

“Well, what do you have?”

“Beer and whiskey and milk.”

“Oh, gosh. I don’t do milk. Carries tuberculin virus and other crudities.” Hellecchino sighed deeply. “I suppose it’ll have to be whiskey. Bring the bottle.”

“Are you sure you kin handle it?”

“Why, of course. It’s 50% water, ain’t it? You don’t mind I drink whiskey while you guzzle beer, do you, Mr. O’Merdé?”

“Nope. Whatever yer poison is.”

And so, they got down to it.

“The first giant had one head–”

“Don’t they usually?”

“Nope. The second one had three.”

“Oh, my!”

“Yup. Anyway. This giant had been raisin’ hell up around the lumberjackin’ camps and they called me in ’cause they was losin’ not only lumber but lumberjacks and flapjacks. An’ you just can’t have that. So they called me in and I went up there and I brandished my shillelagh, knocked the giant to the ground and made mince-meat out of him. And then I put my food on his neck and I bawled at him, ‘What’ll you give me not to kill you?’ Well, that giant began slobberin’ and droolin’ and begged me not to kill him. ‘Oh, please, oh please. . .don’t kill me, Samson. I got this here magic flute. You blow on it and it’ll make whoever dance more’n the girl with red shoes and you ain’t gotta be so violent no more.’ ‘But I like violence.’ “Okay. Then you can dance ‘em to death.’ ‘Sounds good to me.’ So he give me this here magic flute.”
Samson pulled out an ocarina. A wooden sweet potato looking thing on a string round his neck.

“Let me see that a minute,” said Hellecchino kind of bouncing around on his bench as if he was looking at an archeologist’s dream.

Samson unslung it and handed it to him.

“You be careful with that. It’s magic.”

“Wow! So, go on with your giant taming.”

“Well, the second giant was up in the hills stealing sheep and shepherds. This giant had three heads.”

“Three heads!”

“Yup. And I went up there and I brandished my shillelagh, knocked the giant to the ground and made mince-meat out of him. And then I put my food on his necks and I shouted at them, ‘What’ll you give me not to kill you?’ You shoulda seen those three heads cryin’ out in three part harmony, justa beggin’ for mercy. ‘Oh-ooooh! Spare me and me and me. Don’t kill me at all at all at all. I’ll give you my jar of iocshlainte. Me too. Me too. It’s magic. It will cure whatever injury you get. All wounds. . .mortal, immortal, civil, financial and military.’ I got that here in my pocket.”

“You ever have to use it?”

“Nope. But you never know. Always be prepared.”

“Well. You’re some hero. I’ve never heard of a hero like you before. I suppose the bad guys, if they hear you coming, just get up off their asses and take to the hills.”

“You got that right.”

“It’s a good thing I got your tootler thing here.”

“Why’s that? You’ll be givin’ it back,” Samson held out his great big paw, BBQ sauce dripping off of it.

“You don’t want to go blowing your own horn. Better wipe your hands off.”

And as Samson was doing what he was told, Hellecchino began blowing a jig on the ocarina. Lo and behold, as he was looking directly at Samson, Samson began to dance. Hellecchino got up from his bench and moved out into the road and Samson danced along with him, stirring up dust devils with the worn down heels of his boots. Hellecchino backed down the road and out into the mesquite-ridden plains, drawing the dancing O’Merdé giant after him, twirling and jumping and waving his arms like a deranged ballerina. Hellecchino led him on a merry march all the way to [the entrance to hell] where he had him do a merry two-step and a Charleston and then danced him right down into the bowels of the earth.

After the noise of Samson’s twisting descent faded away, Hellecchino went back to his chair atop the cinderblock house.

“You didn’t take his magic iocshlainte?” asked Buck incredulously.
“Nope. I figure he’ll be needing it to assuage his pride.”

“He’s bound to come looking for you, Hellecchino.”

“Yup. Heroes are like that. Just don’t know when they’ve had enough.”

The People Solution Solved

They were all sitting at table. It was a longish table, holding eight people. Six along each glistening mahogany tableside in matching art deco mahogany chairs and two at the end. One end for the master of the house, one end for the mistress of the house. The two children were there, dressed accordingly, sitting in the middle chairs on either side. Grandparents and aunt and uncle were there, too, on either side of the children. It was a family gathering. As meals should be.

In the centre of the table was a lavish sterling silver candelabrum with five never- before-burned white candles in their cups. And they would never be burned, melting wax being so outré. The only drippings in this house were in the kitchen, reserved for the servants. The lace table cloth was smooth and without a hitch or wrinkle. As should be the case. At each place was a setting. A China plate, somewhat large, with blue dragon design, a dessert fork, a dinner fork a soup spoon, a dessert spoon and a knife. A glass, a wine glass–white for this evening–and a tea cup, of matching China, of course. The water glasses and the wine glasses were crystal. Listen to them “ting” when you flick them with your finger or ring when you rub their rims with a wet finger. Be sure to wipe off after, please. At the head of each place was a crisply folded mountain-shaped linen napkin, stark white.
The balcony windows were appropriately curtained by diaphanous white silk, the doors closed. The wallpaper was of huge, white, intertwined cymbidia, red pistils poking out like tongues. Glossy finish white wainscoting and door frames, ceiling frames. The ceiling was textured stucco-like and in its centre hung an elaborate crystal chandelier of 13 little lights with dangling crystal “drops.” Light was shattered everywhere.

There was one door into the dining room, opposite the balcony doors, of course. And one door into the back rooms, the kitchen etc., behind the mistress’s chair. She it was who would pass judgment on the looks of the incoming repast. At her place was a crystal bell that tinkled every so delightfully, indicating to the kitchen staff the appropriate time to begin serving dinner. Of course, the mistress awaited the master’s nod. And there was no conversation until the food had been brought, everyone being careful not to talk with food in their mouths. How gauche that would be. Even today.

The archeologists who stumbled upon this early 21st century tableau were careful to point out the exacting nature of dining etiquette of the time, as evidenced by the several apparently popular books on such behavior unearthed in ancient libraries and bookstores. Archaic as these may seem to the present day, they were de rigueur during the 21st and preceding centuries when print culture was held in high esteem. A very slow time indeed compared to our own, to be sure. And costly. The amount of money spent on creating books, as they were called, and in buying them is unimaginable. We must be careful, historian Dr. Arlen Grabitchikov-Spasky has advised, that we do not condemn such as being wasteful, as this was the going concern for much of the time. Although, he was careful to point out, by the 21st century reading had become somewhat passé. It was the beginning of the ethereal intellectual culture we are so familiar with today. Books and reading were everyday.

So it is, by engaging in archaic activities such as reading, that we know anything at all about our sometimes oddly funny predecessors. And that this found tableau in the House of Yabu or Yahoo, depending on whom you apperceive, has been understood.

These people, it seems, have been waiting for dinner for eons. You would expect, from the furnishings and whatnot, that they would be more than affluent enough to warrant house servants, those persons we now consider slaves, albeit indentured slaves who could, at the termination of their contract seek freedom and self-respect. Nevertheless, it appears that they never appeared on this particular scene. How the table was set and the lights put on we are unable to ascertain but, from further excavation of the Yabu remains there is no evidence of other skeletons. There was no one else in the house. No servants at all. No one else at all except for the dinner guests.

This baffled scientists until eminent socio-psycho-historian Dr. Stefan Prinkah- Schtinkah, Chair Emeritus at Haavaad, uncovered documents–written, of course, as befits the times–that shed light on the matter.

It has been difficult to transcribe and translate the texts, much diminished by time and worms, into the modern idiom, at least until the key was found via a letter known as ‘e.’ This was the most used letter in the language and once we had unearthed this moment, we were able to gain ground quickly. Languages change, evolve, so quickly and without apparent direction that this was a good stumble-upon discovery. It has thus led to discovering the going intellectual concerns of the day.

What has been discovered, much as it might amaze my readers, is that there was a concerted effort by the elite of the age to decrease the number of lesser sorts, as they were considered, so that they would not be “over-run,” as they termed it. Apparently, as far back as the late 20th century, these people were frightened of being displaced from the top, from being the majority, the dominant race, as it were. The people of this time were entranced by race and racism, being one of the more racist of times, it appears, according to Dr. Prinkah-Schtinkah. “Racist and classist,” he says. “The common man, as he was called, placed himself in constant enmity against the rich and those of other races. It was, to them, only common sense. Both were seen as attempting to undermine the system.”

This elimination by the “upper” of the “lower” was managed through education, employment and medical care and led to a near extinction of the species. As is evidenced by this recently unearthed Yabu tableau. So successful had the decadent upper classes been in their bid to rid the world of the “lesser sort” that there was no one left to do for them. No one to clean. No one to cook. No one to even drive for them.

Education was coapted by turning over general resources to private corporations that were only interested, it seems, in profit from increased test scoring. So that teachers were awarded increases in both monetary recompense and status via the number of students who scored high in their recitations of approved statistics and approved knowledge and the number of students who assessed them as likable and “good.” Higher education was so extremely expensive that only the monied, dominant elite were capable of affording it. Thus, there was a kind of incestuous situation.

Employment was attended to by removing all industrial endeavors to out-of- country situations. No compensation was offered to replace this dislocation. And, thus, people went without homes as well as jobs and died off in droves. So much so that cemeteries became over used. Costs of burial were so out of order, according to Dr. Arlen Grabitchikov-Spasky, that many people could not afford to bury their dead. This, apparently, is the reason for the recently discovered mass grave sites around the country. The people’s bodies were simply dumped in multiple shallow graves and, after awhile, covered over.

Medically, coverage and care was simply denied. Either people were able to buy into one plan or another, either being less than advantageous to health and welfare, or they suffered and, of course, died. Millions died. This has since become known as The Last Solution.

This Last Solution was legislated by the government of the times, it has been recently discovered. The governing bodies were made up of the elite and privileged, the self-same people who were afraid of being displaced. Delusion strikes deep and seems to have carried the day, not only in governing but in creating wars hither and yon. The 21st century has become known as The Last of the Wasting War Years. Even the more ancient Trojan Wars were not so devastating to both sides. Unlike the Trojan Wars of so very many, many centuries ago, no uplifting or heroic literature was produced. A decidedly noteworthy point.

There was apparently consideration at one point, according to recently unearthed government documents, of building what were then called “space ships” and filling them with volunteers to seed colonies on distant planets. The hope was that they would die off on the long and treacherous journey or when they got there. If not, they would be indentured to make money for their betters back on Earth. Nothing came of this, fortunately. It paralleled, Dr. Arlen Grabitchikov-Spasky says, the populating of the Americas by the tendentious and unwanted Protestant Christians, the Puritans, who were allowed to ship off to the “New World,” as much in hopes of their discovering great wealth for their betters as of their dying in the attempt. History repeats itself no end and we should take note of this.

In attempting, then, to maintain their status at the top, these people effectively brought themselves down, for they were incapable of doing anything themselves. They did not even know where they got their water! And, Dr. Arlen Grabitchikov-Spasky says, if they’d known where to find it, they’d not have known how to retrieve it, so distanced were they to the realities of living.

It is truly amazing that the lack of imagination of our forebears did not doom us all to extinction.

The Yabu Dining Room can be seen at the Yabu Estates any time between 8 and 10. Admission is limited as digging is still going on. It will take two swipes of your ID. Brochures are, of course, free of charge.

Friends

The friends that a man has are as numerous as oases in an untrodden desert. And as easy to find. Once met, these friends remain with you. They somehow get into your head and direct your life. They keep you coming back for more. On your journeys, you cannot do without water or gentle shade. The feel of green grass on your skin. The vibrant color that washes your eyes. The well-rounded sound that caresses your ears. Yes. Friends are the life of you. You cannot do without them.

Destiny Bathos’ friends were of a particular sort. Highly unusual. Destiny became fixated on them. To the point of distraction. Like wandering through the closed stacks of a massive library eyes agog not knowing which book to pick up and read until you suddenly realize you don’t know where you are. Or really what it is you’ve been doing. Tunnelled. A world of deadened sound. White noise. Musty dusty smell that dries your nostrils. Makes you lick your lips. So overwhelmed it’s almost hard to breathe.
That’s the kind of friends Destiny had. She could still have them. No one knows. Destiny has disappeared. It’s embarrassing to realize she’s gone. Slipped through the cracks. But then Destiny was a strange girl. And yet. . .and yet she was my friend. I cannot but tell her story as nearly as she left it to me to do, for it has been 10 years since her disappearance.

Destiny was not sure exactly when it was that she first met these friends. Exactness though is only needed by an anxious mind that cannot swim through the waters of ambiguity, concreteness being a means of gaining identity. The fearful need an anchor in order to feel they are in control of both themselves and the outside world. And so it is that in the cramped writing of the first 10 pages of her journal. So hastily thrust into my hands. She expends great energy in attempting to nail down the time and place of her first encounter. That in the end she could not is perhaps telling. What I have been able to discern is that the sky was cloudy. A lowering cloudiness. And that she was walking away from the train station. She was on her way home. Although she had gotten used to the gentle incline of the road and enjoyed the feeling in her thighs as she traversed its grey tarmac, for some reason or other half way up the hill she became tired. Her legs became leaden. Reminding her of her teenage years when she would suffer the same sudden contagion while running track. She was trapped in the La Brea tar pits. Her breathing became labored. Had she forgotten to take her medication? It was near time for the evening dose. Destiny reached into her coat pocket for her inhaler. It was not there. Well. She thought. I’ve been in worse situations. She could wait until she got home. It wasn’t far.

Destiny looked back at the man on the bicycle. He had passed her shortly before. He looked back at her. Had she seen him before?

The second time Destiny met her friends was a week or two later. She was lumbering up the stairs between the houses. On her way home from the local store. She craned her neck to see her apartment above her. A mist enclosed her face and was as suddenly gone. She looked around. Something had been sprayed in her face. Once again she felt her legs grow heavy and her breath short. She was getting a headache. The more strenuous half of her journey was ahead of her too. Could she make it? Her asthma medication was up there. Though why she should consider taking it was beyond her–it hadn’t helped the last time.
Destiny’s home was a little apartment halfway up a steep hill. The store was in the valley along the main roadway. From her balcony she could look out over the southern portion of the town, perched as it was on the mountainside. She often sat there listening to music and reading or just watching the neighborhood life. Over there. About 2/3 of the way up the mountain. A new house was being built. The entire second story wall facing her was a sheet of glass. It was too far away for her to see what was inside the room. At least, she had the impression it was one big room. A big eye looking out over the neighborhood. The owner must be rich to enable this. Especially since the first massive pane had fallen. Shattering on the steep street.

For weeks. Beginning about the time the glass house was being raised. She had been hearing tiny little feet scurrying about in the attic space above her. She spoke to her next door neighbor about this. But he heard nothing. All was quiet on his side of the wall. Later though these scamperings became heavier. Sometimes stopping midway along the centre beam. What were they listening for? These were really big rats. Destiny did not like rats. Rats as big as little people. Mice were okay. Rats were another thing. They carried diseases and rabies. She remembered her time in Baltimore where she had to rattle the fence to scare away the rats before she could ascend to her apartment. Perhaps she would speak to the landlord.

And the new people downstairs. They had been terribly noisy in their moving in. All their possessions packed into and piled on top of a car. They and their people carried on well into the night. The next morning when Destiny looked down from her balcony the car was still there. There were still boxes and packages atop the car. Shortly thereafter they began again their cacophonous moving in but when Destiny returned at the end of the day the car was gone and the new neighbors were firmly ensconced inside their drawn curtains. A couple. All evidence of them was contained in the white shirts hanging on the balcony. Every evening, those white shirts could be seen hanging there on the balcony. They could have been different white shirts. People usually had more than one shirt. But Destiny was sure they were the same white shirts. Always there. Like a signal flag. They were there now as she slogged up the steep steps carrying her beer.

The apartment was horribly quiet when she staggered in. She sat down on the carpet. She set the bag with the beer bottles in it next to her and took a sip of the Coke she’d left that morning. It tasted odd but she was so thirsty she drank it all. She pulled the inhaler to her. Fingering it. Trying to find comfort in its plastic container. Why should she take it? It really hadn’t helped the last time. She put it down. She took a deep breath. She passed out.
Destiny didn’t want to pass out. She fought it. A failing Greek protagonist at the end of her life. But some things cannot be overcome. Losing consciousness is one of them.

When she regained a semblance of consciousness, her friends were there. She was being supported. A latter day Pieta. A woman’s voice soothed her in alto tones. “We’re here to help you.” Destiny’s eyelids were rubbed with something. She blinked. Over and over. Her upper lip was lubricated with something. She sniffed. Over and over. “Don’t worry,” came the velvety tones. “We’ve got you now. We’re here to help you.”

Then Destiny was able to sit up. However. She was not able to raise her head. No. It was not heavy. She simply could not raise it. So the only thing she saw was the woman’s legs kneeling before her. And the woman’s hands folded in her lap. As they should be. They gesticulated. Destiny looked to the carpet. “You should rest now. That’s the secret. Here is your pillow. This will help.”

Destiny lay down and her friends left her there. Destiny must have hit her head for the world looked different. It felt thickish. It smelled sweetish and brackish. She sniffed. But her head did not hurt so she couldn’t have hit it. Except on the carpet. She felt it. There were ridges like the swells of the ocean. She’d not felt them before. She was used to washing her hair and running her fingers through her hair. That’s what it felt like. The carpet. Wet hair wavy ridges.

As her eyes could not focus well, she lay down as she was bid. Perhaps she’d feel better later. All of this was so unreal.
When Destiny woke the friends were outside the little window over her desk. They were peering in at her. When Destiny woke they began telling her what she should do. How she should handle herself. Because of the accident of course. You can’t be too careful. You know. If she wasn’t careful there would be friends standing by to take care of her. Though. To tell her what she should do to insure her well-being. What are friends for if not to help you when you need it, eh?

That night, Destiny had dreams. Vivid dreams. In the morning. She wasn’t sure if they’d been dreams or real happenings.
She was being taunted by the couple downstairs. Her new neighbors. They had a radio and would turn the dials and make a screeching noise in her head. She shouted at them to stop but they refused. Running away laughing like roguish mischievous children. They disappeared off the end of the veranda. They disappeared off the end of the balcony. They were not at home when Destiny knocked on their door. She was a little timid about it for fear of a close-up encounter with the magic radio. The noise hurt. She left them a note. A furious note of self-preservation. Of course, it was not on the door the next morning when she passed by their door on the way to work. Despite the harrowing night she felt rested.

On the way to work there seemed to be more traffic than usual. Vehicular and pedestrian. At times it seemed to be following Destiny. But that could not be. Still. . .hadn’t she seen those cars and motorcycles more than once? And were there people she’d never before seen on the train? She’d been riding that train for the past year. Same car. Same people. But now there were new faces. They were staring at her. She would look up from her book and see them. Their eyes securely focused on her. Some of them got off at the stop before hers. One of them got off at the same stop as Destiny did. The others must have gotten off later. No one ever stayed on the train forever. Riding up and down the railway line aimlessly. Though it must be said this is exactly what she and her friends had done one day on the city buses in Edinburgh when she was young.

One day. These new people were not on the train. But. Then. A couple days later. They were there again. Staring at her. Getting off at the same places. After awhile they wouldn’t be there again. And again they’d be there. Just when she relaxed a little. It was unnerving. Without wanting to she kept looking for them when they weren’t there.

Her friends were always with her at night. In her apartment. They would be looking out their windows at her as she moved around. As she sat at her typewriter. As she sat at her table eating and drinking and doing her school work. She began stopping off at the store and buying more beer. Every night. Four or five bottles a night. More often than not. She’ d drink it all. But she wouldn’t sleep. Her friends’ voices were there too. In her dreams. Talking to her. Telling her things. Accusing her of “knowing what you’ve done.” Those voices were there every evening. Sometimes she’d talk back to them. There would be a conversation. Telepathy. And Destiny learned how to hide her thoughts while thinking or saying something else. Something told her not to give them certain things. Certain feelings. Certain beliefs. There were. After all. Some things that not even friends were privy to. And. Of course. They told her they were just there to help. What else are friends for?

Destiny would stand at her balcony window and stare at the windowed house on the hill. The glass house. There was someone staring back at her. But they’d rush away when they saw her. The same thing at her kitchen window while she was washing dishes. But there she could get away with watching them watch her. Once. She fell to the kitchen floor sobbing. Breathless. Aroused. Aroused. For no reason at all. She heard them tut-tutting her. “Bad girl. There’s no reason to be doing that. We’re only here to help you.”

She went into the bathroom to take a bath. To wash herself clean. She stood beneath the warm water as it cascaded onto her shoulders and ran over her breasts. She turned the water hotter. It coursed over her abdomen and between her legs. Down her thighs. She turned around. The water beat on her back and ran down her buttocks. Destiny stood in the water increasing the pressure. Letting it plaster her hair to her head. Run down her shoulders. Breasts. Belly. Cunt. She put her hand to her mons and massaged. She found her clitoris. And. Crying silently. Brought herself to orgasm. Despite ragged breathing Destiny made no sound. But she was crying. She raised her face and the water crashed against her eyelids. Her lips. And when she turned around there were shadows looking through the window at her. Destiny sank to the floor and cried only rousing herself when the water turned tepid.

Destiny found. Too. That her friends were with her when she wasn’t there. That is. She would find evidence that they had been in her apartment while she was away. Books would be moved. Ever so slightly. Just enough out of whack as to cause her to wonder. . .wonder if she had done it. If she weren’t imagining things. She was terribly meticulous when it came to her books. She kept them neatly spined and in alphabetical order within specialty. She knew them by name and color and therefore placement. The notes on her desk would be not in the way she had left them. Perhaps just one paper turned the wrong way. Destiny’s writing tablet was kept at a 45 degree angle to the desk edge. Always she left it this way. Ready to be written in again. But it would be found. At night. Straightened up. The bottom of the pad parallel to the desk edge. At first these little manifestations only troubled Destiny. But then she began to use them in order to prove to herself that she was not imagining these incursions into her private life. So she began setting things up. In the most natural way. Nothing untoward. If the arrangement was disturbed someone had been there. Sometimes. She would not push the book back in to be even with the other spines. Later it would be pushed back in. But not by her. She’d been away. She would find it that way upon returning. Still. It was Destiny’s word that these things were happening. That friends were invading her precincts. So she began taking pictures. Before and after shots. But she would hide what she was doing by taking pictures out of doors too. Scenery. People’s faces. Rolls and rolls. Even of insignificant things like the old Coke cans lined up along her street and on the stairs leading up between the houses to the high street. Neatly done so. They were only there one day. So it’s good she got the picture.
One night she took out the roll of film and set it on her table. She would develop it later. When she got home. The store was not open when she went to work. When she got home there were two rolls of film on the table. Destiny did not know which was which. She tried to remember how far from the edge she’d placed her roll. Then she took the other and threw it away. When she developed the pictures there was nothing. The roll of film had nothing on it. Never exposed. Destiny knew then that her name was Cassandra. That there was no help for her.

Destiny’s head and apartment were so full of noise there was no space for her to think. No space for her to relax. So she began walking for she found that when she was outside there were no friends sounding off. They were all around her. Cars and motorcycles following her. Leading her. Around and around they went. The same cars and motorcycles. The same people in and on them. They made lots of noise. Their mufflers had been removed. Even at two in the morning. They were surrounding her. Destiny became like the eye of a tornado. The eye of a hurricane. All around her raged the storm but she was alone by herself in the middle. When they were not surrounding her she felt unattended. As if something were wrong with the world. Except when she went to the temple. She found that they were not with her when she sat before the doors to the main hall. She pounded the floorboards and cried out, “Why me? Why me? Why is this visited upon me? What have I done!” And of course there was no answer. So she sat in silence. Night after night. She did want to talk to someone. Someone not a friend. Someone who wasn’t there to help. No one ever invited her to do so. She took to meditating at home for these were times her friends could not impinge upon her.

It is odd how friends who are not inimical or hostile can be the enemies of affection. It is odd how protestations of help can turn into manifestations of distress and destruction. There are friends. Though. One can do without.

One night. After coming home and drinking her leftover Coke–she had stopped tasting things at this point–and imbibing her four bottles of beer she laid down somewhat earlier than normal. Destiny felt inordinately tired. But she did not sleep. Not really. Or maybe she dreamed she was not really sleeping. At any rate. It was this particular night that her friends got into her head. “I remember,” she wrote in her journal.

hands turned my head to the right and something entered my left ear. I felt it wriggling into the canal and then my hearing became impaired, as if I were flying in an airplane. Then they turned my head to the left and I felt the same thing in my right ear. After that, my thoughts were not my own. My head was filled with clickings and high pitched tones that would vary in intensity. When there was no sound there was white noise, as if I were a radio between stations.

Her thoughts. Her actions. Now controlled by others. By her friends. Who were only there to help. Her. Destiny would fight this manipulation but she could not overcome the influence of her friends. She knew what her thoughts felt like and these were not hers. But they had her. Their wishes were her commands. She realized the extent of this one day when she headed for the station after work. She put her finger to her ear to stop the buzzing that had become a constant companion and was told not to go to the station. Destiny recalled a similar dream life as a child. She would put her finger in her left ear and would hear voices. Conversations. Then they were not telling her anything. Then they were not trying to help. Now. There was nothing she could do. Her friends always caught her off guard. So she did not. She wandered around the streets until very late. The followers were with her. Friends roaring through the streets just to let her know they were there for her. She met people in the strangest places. A man who spoke into his watch. Repeating what she had said. “She’s going down by the river.” The police suddenly gathering along the water’s edge as she sat by the river writing beneath a lamp in a dingy dusty parking lot. Were they sent by her friends? They were not dredging the river for anybody. They were waiting. The restaurant owner staring at her as he made a phone call. Nodding in her direction. She left before her friends could rescue her. On the way home on the train. A man sat across from her staring at her. He got off and another man took his place. There was no one else in the car. She had chosen that car because it would be the farthest from the gate when she got off. And there would be nobody on it. Another man followed her from the station to her house. Friends do not try to hide themselves. “You know who we are, don’t you? We’re here to help.” She did not buy any beer that evening. She could have. There were vending machines outside the local store. It wasn’t 11 o’clock yet.

Destiny sat up all night. She had no classes the next day. This time she could afford no sleep.

It was shortly after this that Destiny disappeared. I don’t know why she came to me with her journals. We were not intimate friends. And I had not seen her for at least a year. She had become reclusive. Receiving no visitors. Talking to no one. Only smiling politely if spoken to. But suddenly she was at my door. “Here. Take these. Remember me. Here are the keys to my house. Go there. There is proof there. There are notes. Please. . .believe me. Read the story of my life. I’m sorry.” And then Destiny disappeared through the garden into the soft night. Into the quietness of the snow-filled streets. The flakes fell on her. Big wet teardrops. I did not try to stop her. I saw no friends. But then it was dark there being no street lamps on my street.
I went to Destiny’s home a couple of evenings later. No glasses or bottles lying around. No papers or books scattered on the table and desk. Even her thesaurus was appropriately shelved. Destiny’s typewriter was empty. Awaiting a new sheet of paper from the neat stack to the right. There were no dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. No trash in the garbage can. Destiny’s house was in immaculate condition. Why had I come here? Was I supposed to be here? I felt out of time. Destiny had been a lousy housekeeper. She did not live in a museum. I sat on the floor right where she used to sit. Before her squared away writing tablet. For a long time I looked about the room. I dared not open the curtains. I’d seen the glass-eyed house on my way up. There was no one downstairs. No lights. No shirts. No noise. In her journal, she noted they moved out using the same car. Piling the car in the same way it had been when they moved in. As if nothing had really been moved. She never saw the car the entire time the people were down there below her. Putting out their shirts. Not putting out their shirts. Never any women’s things.
Eventually I found the answer. I spoke to my friend John about Destiny. He said, “People don’t do such things.” I told my friend Larry about Destiny. He said, “People don’t do such things.” Now I am telling you. People do do such things.

No one ever found an unidentified body. So Destiny is probably roaming around lost in the streets. Looking for herself. I do not know if her friends are still with her. Her helpers. These friends. These good friends. Destiny’s Apollo with a curse. And that curse will be mine. For no one will believe this story. No one. For that is how they hide themselves. Surely there are no friends of this ilk. Surely not. So I must be making them up, right?

But then. Destiny met them. And though I have her writings they are no more than the rantings of a mad woman. Friends will see to that. Unless you have your own thoughts.

The People Solution Solved

They were all sitting at table. It was a longish table, holding eight people. Six along each glistening mahogany tableside in matching art deco mahogany chairs and two at the end. One end for the master of the house, one end for the mistress of the house. The two children were there, dressed accordingly, sitting in the middle chairs on either side. Grandparents and aunt and uncle were there, too, on either side of the children. It was a family gathering. As meals should be.

In the centre of the table was a lavish sterling silver candelabrum with five never- before-burned white candles in their cups. And they would never be burned, melting wax being so outré. The only drippings in this house were in the kitchen, reserved for the servants. The lace table cloth was smooth and without a hitch or wrinkle. As should be the case. At each place was a setting. A China plate, somewhat large, with blue dragon design, a dessert fork, a dinner fork a soup spoon, a dessert spoon and a knife. A glass, a wine glass–white for this evening–and a tea cup, of matching China, of course. The water glasses and the wine glasses were crystal. Listen to them “ting” when you flick them with your finger or ring when you rub their rims with a wet finger. Be sure to wipe off after, please. At the head of each place was a crisply folded mountain-shaped linen napkin, stark white.
The balcony windows were appropriately curtained by diaphanous white silk, the doors closed. The wallpaper was of huge, white, intertwined cymbidia, red pistils poking out like tongues. Glossy finish white wainscoting and door frames, ceiling frames. The ceiling was textured stucco-like and in its centre hung an elaborate crystal chandelier of 13 little lights with dangling crystal “drops.” Light was shattered everywhere.

There was one door into the dining room, opposite the balcony doors, of course. And one door into the back rooms, the kitchen etc., behind the mistress’s chair. She it was who would pass judgment on the looks of the incoming repast. At her place was a crystal bell that tinkled every so delightfully, indicating to the kitchen staff the appropriate time to begin serving dinner. Of course, the mistress awaited the master’s nod. And there was no conversation until the food had been brought, everyone being careful not to talk with food in their mouths. How gauche that would be. Even today.

The archeologists who stumbled upon this early 21st century tableau were careful to point out the exacting nature of dining etiquette of the time, as evidenced by the several apparently popular books on such behavior unearthed in ancient libraries and bookstores. Archaic as these may seem to the present day, they were de rigueur during the 21st and preceding centuries when print culture was held in high esteem. A very slow time indeed compared to our own, to be sure. And costly. The amount of money spent on creating books, as they were called, and in buying them is unimaginable. We must be careful, historian Dr. Arlen Grabitchikov-Spasky has advised, that we do not condemn such as being wasteful, as this was the going concern for much of the time. Although, he was careful to point out, by the 21st century reading had become somewhat passé. It was the beginning of the ethereal intellectual culture we are so familiar with today. Books and reading were everyday.

So it is, by engaging in archaic activities such as reading, that we know anything at all about our sometimes oddly funny predecessors. And that this found tableau in the House of Yabu or Yahoo, depending on whom you apperceive, has been understood.

These people, it seems, have been waiting for dinner for eons. You would expect, from the furnishings and whatnot, that they would be more than affluent enough to warrant house servants, those persons we now consider slaves, albeit indentured slaves who could, at the termination of their contract seek freedom and self-respect. Nevertheless, it appears that they never appeared on this particular scene. How the table was set and the lights put on we are unable to ascertain but, from further excavation of the Yabu remains there is no evidence of other skeletons. There was no one else in the house. No servants at all. No one else at all except for the dinner guests.

This baffled scientists until eminent socio-psycho-historian Dr. Stefan Prinkah- Schtinkah, Chair Emeritus at Haavaad, uncovered documents–written, of course, as befits the times–that shed light on the matter.

It has been difficult to transcribe and translate the texts, much diminished by time and worms, into the modern idiom, at least until the key was found via a letter known as ‘e.’ This was the most used letter in the language and once we had unearthed this moment, we were able to gain ground quickly. Languages change, evolve, so quickly and without apparent direction that this was a good stumble-upon discovery. It has thus led to discovering the going intellectual concerns of the day.

What has been discovered, much as it might amaze my readers, is that there was a concerted effort by the elite of the age to decrease the number of lesser sorts, as they were considered, so that they would not be “over-run,” as they termed it. Apparently, as far back as the late 20th century, these people were frightened of being displaced from the top, from being the majority, the dominant race, as it were. The people of this time were entranced by race and racism, being one of the more racist of times, it appears, according to Dr. Prinkah-Schtinkah. “Racist and classist,” he says. “The common man, as he was called, placed himself in constant enmity against the rich and those of other races. It was, to them, only common sense. Both were seen as attempting to undermine the system.”

This elimination by the “upper” of the “lower” was managed through education, employment and medical care and led to a near extinction of the species. As is evidenced by this recently unearthed Yabu tableau. So successful had the decadent upper classes been in their bid to rid the world of the “lesser sort” that there was no one left to do for them. No one to clean. No one to cook. No one to even drive for them.

Education was coapted by turning over general resources to private corporations that were only interested, it seems, in profit from increased test scoring. So that teachers were awarded increases in both monetary recompense and status via the number of students who scored high in their recitations of approved statistics and approved knowledge and the number of students who assessed them as likable and “good.” Higher education was so extremely expensive that only the monied, dominant elite were capable of affording it. Thus, there was a kind of incestuous situation.

Employment was attended to by removing all industrial endeavors to out-of- country situations. No compensation was offered to replace this dislocation. And, thus, people went without homes as well as jobs and died off in droves. So much so that cemeteries became over used. Costs of burial were so out of order, according to Dr. Arlen Grabitchikov-Spasky, that many people could not afford to bury their dead. This, apparently, is the reason for the recently discovered mass grave sites around the country. The people’s bodies were simply dumped in multiple shallow graves and, after awhile, covered over.

Medically, coverage and care was simply denied. Either people were able to buy into one plan or another, either being less than advantageous to health and welfare, or they suffered and, of course, died. Millions died. This has since become known as The Last Solution.

This Last Solution was legislated by the government of the times, it has been recently discovered. The governing bodies were made up of the elite and privileged, the self-same people who were afraid of being displaced. Delusion strikes deep and seems to have carried the day, not only in governing but in creating wars hither and yon. The 21st century has become known as The Last of the Wasting War Years. Even the more ancient Trojan Wars were not so devastating to both sides. Unlike the Trojan Wars of so very many, many centuries ago, no uplifting or heroic literature was produced. A decidedly noteworthy point.

There was apparently consideration at one point, according to recently unearthed government documents, of building what were then called “space ships” and filling them with volunteers to seed colonies on distant planets. The hope was that they would die off on the long and treacherous journey or when they got there. If not, they would be indentured to make money for their betters back on Earth. Nothing came of this, fortunately. It paralleled, Dr. Arlen Grabitchikov-Spasky says, the populating of the Americas by the tendentious and unwanted Protestant Christians, the Puritans, who were allowed to ship off to the “New World,” as much in hopes of their discovering great wealth for their betters as of their dying in the attempt. History repeats itself no end and we should take note of this.

In attempting, then, to maintain their status at the top, these people effectively brought themselves down, for they were incapable of doing anything themselves. They did not even know where they got their water! And, Dr. Arlen Grabitchikov- Spasky says, if they’d known where to find it, they’d not have known how to retrieve it, so distanced were they to the realities of living.

It is truly amazing that the lack of imagination of our forebears did not doom us all to extinction.

The Yabu Dining Room can be seen at the Yabu Estates any time between 8 and 10. Admission is limited as digging is still going on. It will take two swipes of your ID. Brochures are, of course, free of charge.

Can Even the Dead See This and Forget to Weep

She came into the room, the scars on her arm too numerous to count. She had her old polishing rag in one hand. The polish was in the other. The room was an unimportant room. It was very ordinary. Along the east wall was a window. Below the window was a large buffet. On top of the buffet were three large doilies. They overlapped. On each of the doilies was a gold-framed picture.

She stood before the buffet. She sprayed her wax on the open surface. Wiping it down took some time. Her swirls shone in the sunlight until they disappeared into the wood. The buffet top sparkled. Out of a drawer she took a feather duster.

She dusted the first picture. Then she set it down. She picked up some trinkets in front of the first photograph. They were Army regalia. She fingered them daintily. Great care was taken with each piece.

She said, “You were my husband. I loved you. You were mine. I cooked for you. I cleaned for you. I made babies for you. I loved you. But that was all taken from me. They killed you and gave me these. That I might better remember you. They said. I should be proud. That I should have something great to live for now. Your honor.”

Then she put them back before the picture.

She dusted off the second picture. She set the duster down. She picked up the medals in front of this picture. They slipped through her fingers into her other hand. She did this over and over.

She said, “You were my first born. The apple of my eye. Such a tiger you were. I loved you with every ounce of my soul. I helped you grow up. All by myself. I watched you excel in sports. And school. Here, take this, they said. I have lived with your memory. My memory.”

And she put the memorabilia down before the picture.

She took up the duster and dusted the last picture. She put it down and reached for the mementos before it. She held them tightly in her hands.

She said, “You were my baby. I spoiled you so. I raised you well. I remember when you would go down to the road. You would throw yourself against the cars. Bound off. And run away laughing. I would scold you. But when you grew to man-hood, your luck did not hold out. You came home on a stretcher. Then they gave me these. Take these, they said. In remembrance of him.”

She put the keepsakes back down.

She squatted down and began polishing the Army boots. There were five of them lined up below the buffet, awaiting their wearers. She made each black and shiny.

She picked up her rag and her spray can and moved to the end table. It did not receive any direct sunlight by the sofa. She sprayed the surface. She was careful not to get the doilie wet. There was a picture on it. She dusted it with the feather duster. She held it up. She looked at it for some time. Then she kissed it and set it back down.

She moved to the drop-leaf table against the wall. The west wall. There was a large doilie on it. There were two pictures. She polished the table. Then she dusted the pictures. She picked them up and looked at them awhile. Then she hugged them to her breasts. She squeezed them to her. Then she put them back in their places.

She returned to the kitchen. She came back with a bucket. She set it down before the table. Then she took one of the long objects from the pile on the table. Kneeling down on the floor, she placed the bucket between her knees. She held the Army-green object before her. Then the bayonet was unsheathed. She quickly sliced her arm open. Blood coursed down her arm. It collected in her hand at the bottom of the pail.

She said, “Take and drink this. I want you to remember me. I died for you. Ooo-wuwu!” She whined like a dog.

She said, “There is nothing but this for me. There is only my blood. Take and drink of this. May you choke on it! May you be cursed till I die–and I will never die. This is all that is left me! Tell me the reason you have cut off my legs and arms. Tell me the reason! I would know why you joy in my suffering. I want the spear out of my side! Ah-ooo-wawoo!” Like a dog she howled.
She rent herself again. She watched the blood well up and spill over the eviscerated flesh.

She said, “Let me tell you how the wound will not heal. It suppurates. you give me trinkets to staunch it. I do not want your pieces of the true flame. Your medals. I want my men. When will you hear me? There are no heroes. There are only burdens. I carry the burden of mankind in my soul. Can you not see? I am called Earth and you do nothing but rape me! Woo-wowo-wooo!” A beaten dog’s yelping.
* * *
She came into the room, the scars on her arm too numerous to count. She had her old polishing rag in one hand. The polish was in the other. The room was an unimportant room. . .

The Fate Article

Most “in the right place at the right time” stories are stories out of context. They are non-sequitors of life. In life the good outcome is an earned one. The situation out of which it comes is not necessarily edifying; however, the experience, the process has more worth and therefore more is applicable to the rest of life. Out of context right time-right place stories are one-time occurrences with minimal effect on subsequent life and they are only end results. Like taking a test: the next day, we forget the knowledge we needed to pass it. The “right place” in my story was a horrifying situation. It was, nevertheless, the right place to have been to get to the good end.

I am manic-depressive. In Japan, the medication that worked to control my depressive symptoms was taken off the market. I had to revert to an American prescription that was of inadequate dosage and, I later learned, wrong. It should not be surprising that my condition (depression) worsened. I suffered through four years of mild to moderate depression, putting up with it because I had done so my entire life and so it wasn’t anything new–until I crashed. I crashed in a big way. I had a mixed-type episode that started out bouncing up and down every two weeks and then mutated in short order to daily catastrophic changes of mood from feeling good to deep depression. This had never happened before. But both of the mood swing effects were known to me, so I attempted to ride it out. As I had so many times before.
My behavior became very uncharacteristic and erratic. It–I–became socially inappropriate. It’s difficult to cry out for help when you don’t know what’s happening. You are disoriented one moment and stone cold sober the next. You put the two together on a daily, even hourly basis and there is only disorientation: which situation is the right one? You have no control of your emotions. You have no control of your life. You have no impulse control but a lot of guilt. You begin to doubt yourself. You have to rely on others’ reactions to assess your functioning–and you don’t trust them.

But my supervisor at the university, an American, knew I was manic-depressive. I told him. He said, “Ah. I understand.” He did not. After a year of dealing with me, he interpreted my uncharacteristic behavior as no more than the real Jimsecor I had been covering up until the opportunity arose to show my true, perverted colors. Along with university officials, he turned me over to the Secret Police.

Now, you say, he’s paranoid. Secret Police? The stuff of fiction. The stuff of schizophrenics. Don’t need to read any further!
We read about the Secret Police in other countries and we believe what we read but when they surface, when someone speaks about having “met” them, suddenly they become a figment of the imagination. Not real. He’s crazy. He’s paranoid. That’s exactly how they protect themselves: by the very psychiatric condition they work to effect in their victim. After all, who will believe a paranoiac? You’re sick, Secor. People don’t do such things. Catch-22. Abe Kobo wrote about them. He called them “friends.” The Secret Police in Japan are more of an insidious culture police now, not the rabid fascists of the pre-war and war years. But they do work in conjunction with the “real” police.

Inappropriate behavior is unacceptable in Japanese society and there are very specific rules and such an individual needs to be taken out of society for fear of contamination and there are no mitigating circumstances to behavior. No motive. Behavior is behavior. End of argument.

By the time I figured out what was going on, I was had. I had become a well-prepared Skinnerian rat. They began their brainwashing by drugging me and preparing me for future behavior modification techniques. First the medication, the hypnotics. They started on me in a semi-conscious dream state of awareness. I could hear. I could not open my eyes. I got lost in the sensory input. It was wonderful. Just what was needed: a malleable subject. Then the information that I was being watched and that I should obey or bad things would happen followed by an example of punishment. Then the offer to help me out of the quandary they’d put me in. Aren’t we good to you? We’re only trying to help. We want to help you. We’re your friends. And then, when trust had been effected, traitorously destroying the confidence.

Hard hitting manipulation. Leading me on. Teaching me behavior and then, when learned, punishing me for it–or not giving me the expected stimulus/reward. Not allowing sleep. Clips and pops in the walls. Vibrations in the floor. Sensory hallucinations just for me, for when my fiancée was visiting, these intrusions were absent.

Watching me always. Following me everywhere with great to-do and lots of cars and motorcycles. I took walks at 2 AM to get away. No one in his right mind does that, takes walks in the middle of the night in Japan. So I had to be crazy, unsocial. They followed me on my nightly trek to the local temple. They followed me to and from work, even to the point of making sure that only they and I were on the same coach of the train.

Entering my apartment and moving things around just enough for me to know that something was not right but not noticeable enough for me to point to it. Until later, when I began to look during those moments of lucidity. Adding things, like an extra glass of warm coke. Drugging my drinks–there is an entire weekend that is gone from my mind after drinking a coke that tasted funny. Infiltrating my classes. And then pulling back, stopping all manipulation til I felt comfortable–only to begin the attack again.

Paranoid. Your paranoid, Secor. Crazier than a loon. People don’t do these sorts of things.

But of course. That’s the whole point. Only I knew I was paranoid and I knew it was not my paranoia. I was familiar with my paranoia: it is an overactive suspiciousness and blame. It was part of my depression, which didn’t happen in the summer, only from October to February, like clockwork. In March and April, I was usually slightly high, hypomanic. So I knew something was wrong. So these couldn’t have been delusions. You believe delusions. You don’t know they’re distortions. To be delusional is to believe the delusion is real. I knew what was happening was not normal. I kept diaries. There were no hallucinations. These sounds and voices were not hallucinations. They didn’t tell me to do anything. I remember once half-waking up to somebody putting something in my ears. I was able to “hear” better after that. High pitched, irritating ringing that never stopped, not even at night. Nothing other than disruption, for it worked to amplify the sounds around me, especially voices. White noise.
I remember. That was one of my survival techniques: remembering. But of course, you were paranoid, Secor. You don’t remember correctly. Catch-22.

My writing saved me, too. They apparently had never dealt with an artist before. Not a foreign one. I wrote all the time. I wrote about my orientation toward life, the world about me. I wrote about them. I wrote about me and what I felt like inside. I wrote about the disturbances–and the inconsistencies. The mistakes in their judgment. Finally, my intelligence was useful. Finally, the Scientific Method of careful, diligent, deductive thinking was applicable.

My disease saved me because they didn’t acknowledge it. I always had a piece of me watching me. I had always had, waiting for the horror of the clockwork cycling 4-5 month long depressions.

And I began meditating again. That’s when I started visiting the temple. That’s when I knew I could escape for a time. Find a respite from the assault on my senses.

My entire life became getting alone. Shutting them out so I could think. But they had gotten me so I doubted myself. I didn’t know whether my motives were mine or theirs. My inability to talk to others was exacerbated to the point that I was afraid to go shopping because I would have to speak to the shopkeepers–and they would know! I didn’t want to be ostracized even though that’s what the Secret Police had done to me anyway. Spread rumors. They had isolated me and then they had watched me to keep me isolated. I had lived in isolation before. Isolated from my family while in the same house. But this was a heightened, more insidious kind of isolation. It was not self-generated.

I called my friend, a psychiatrist who ran a psychiatric hospital. There, I would find some solace. He said I would be free to move about, go off grounds. He said he would call me back the next day. He said, “The police won’t be here to bother you.” I had not mentioned the police to him. I mentioned them to nobody. I didn’t want to be labeled paranoid. After all, I couldn’t point to them. They were there, of course, and my life in hell only worsened. They had me at close quarters. I’d called him before. They’d gotten to him. My phone was tapped. I’d thought so but this was the proof.

My drive to get alone, nursed by writing and meditation, led me to searching out an isolated place where they couldn’t get close to me. Physically close. I’d discovered walking and that my walking caused some hysteria because I walked aimlessly, without warning. So, while at Dr. Fujii’s hospital, I took walks. Every morning. Long, circuitous walks. I was able to watch them watch me. I led them on wild goose chases. Once I lost them. Usually, though, they were right there. Behind me. In front of me. Beside me. They even called in the real police when I went into busy downtown to the pharmacy.

But I found my place. About 50 yards from the roadside in the middle of several rice paddies in the middle of the city I found my solace. Sitting in the middle of a pathway between paddies, I found a place where they could not get near me. I watched their followers in their vans and cars and motorcycles go up and down the deserted street. They were not farmers. Farmers invariably drove pick-up trucks. They stopped to watch. I waved and smiled. I had finally gotten the better of them. Peace!

I carried my pen and tablet with me, moving through a fog, a fog that distorted the world, to my rice paddy haven. Every morning early I spread my jacket on the damp ground and sat down. I wrote. I watched the world around me, particularly the birds, the herons, symbols of long life. And I meditated, finally alone without fighting to find the space.

Out of this horror, out of this fear, out of this feeling of weakness because they had managed to control me, I found my life. I found out who I was and what I was here for. I found that spider web-thin thread at the core of my being that they had not touched. I realized they could not touch it. Me. They had ripped away the social markers of identity, the cultural crutches of identity, the masks we hide behind, and bared the real me. I felt like an electrical cord had contacted my skin and I was so very tender from the flow of the current, on and on and on. There was no off-switch. They had flayed me and left me flailing in a vacuum filled with what life they wished to give me. Took away from me. I was scared. I was confused. I was psychotic. I could not think. I could not make decisions. But I found myself. I found my life. It had been there all along. That little bit that knew all of this was wrong. I could think.

When I found myself alone, I experienced that life. There was just me. In that moment, I found I could make decisions. I found that no matter how distorted they had made me, I was stronger. But, too, I knew how weak I was–and that was the major point. I knew what I could tolerate. I knew my breaking point. I knew how easy it was to be had. How easy it was to have control taken away from you. I knew what it was to live and to have life taken away. To die psychologically. I discovered how tenuous “I” was. Because of the invidiousness of the Secret Police, I came to understand me and life. They would be furious to know that their best efforts at destruction actually brought about epiphany.
Back in the States it took me three years to recover. They followed me there. I got so distressed at not being believed that I began notating, in my journal, what was going on. I have photos showing my apartment before and after their intrusive little games. I set things up. I protected myself by sending the lot off. I sent out manuscripts so what was another envelope to them?

I was more shaken than ever because I hadn’t been able to escape after all. I watched myself being sick. I watched myself healing. I watched myself becoming more and more capable of thinking. I sat in my rocker and stared out the window at the birds for two years. I read books when I couldn’t remember what I’d read from one paragraph to the next. I realized there as no sense in fighting it. That fighting only made things worse. So I rode the wave of sickness. I rode out the medication that didn’t work, that only made the situation worse. But I never lost the touch of that thread I’d found in the rice paddies. My raison d’etre. I knew what I was here for. What my life was about.

The experience was terrifying and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But if I hadn’t been in Japan and if I hadn’t met the Secret Police, I’d still be deluded and lost and out of touch with myself, as most people are. Until you’ve been taken to the very edge–physically, psychologically–you have no idea who you really are or what you are truly capable of. This kind of learning stays with you, like Hammurabi’s code.

But being in this right place at this right time has had its downside: I have PTSD. I have nightmares. Certain social situations evoke panic and confusion. Reading John LeCarre can trigger the PTSD. He’s one of my favorite authors. But knowing I’m so afflicted, knowing where it comes from, knowing how it manifests itself, I continue growing because each time I confront them, the symptoms and occurrences lessen.

Psychologically I died and was resurrected in the middle of a rice paddy.

I continue meditating. I continue writing. By writing I teach. That’s what I’m here for. I would not trade this time with the Japanese Secret Police for anything. This was being in the right place at the right time without any doubt. It was about time my long search for identity and meaning took shape. At 46 the opportunity was handed to me on a silver platter, like Salome her St. John. I had no choice but to take and eat. And like Cassandra, nobody believes me.

Status-quo Vitalis

Sweat drooled down my temples. Sweat gathered on my eyelids and stung my eyes. My arms shone with it and my once clean, sweet-smelling shirt stuck to my body, a somewhat darker color than it had been but two hours ago on its hanger. I smelled like a salt factory. How could I possibly land a job in such condition? It wasn’t that I was the only person so aggrieved; I wasn’t. But I perspire profusely. Around me, along the street, old men and women sat before their houses and stores fanning themselves–or their grandchildren. Slowly, methodically in order not to do it wrong–all the time they talked and laughed.

There was, too, the occasional group of younger men playing cards. Over lunch, I knew from experience, they would add a little drink to the gossipping and gaming. Although it was their wives who were working, these men were traditionalist and would, of course, not be involved in the housework. Homework, some called it. I wondered that they did not become overheated from the intense involvement in their game; though, from the rounded shape of the cards, perhaps only the palms of their hands sweated. Voices grew loud with enthusiasm or frustration. Cards were slapped or flung down on their low table. The occasional strolling grandfather, woven bamboo fan slowly moving the thick air in a kind of thoughtless breeze, would stop and watch the play and then continue ambling down the street.
Indeed, what was the use of doing anything strenuous in such weather? Three yuan for a shower every day mounted up. For a family of three, that would eat up roughly 270 RMB of the household income, perhaps 90% of the wife’s pay. Worst case scenario: showering every day. So, not breaking a sweat was socially necessary.

“So, you’re going?”

“Yes, I’m going.”

“You shouldn’t work so hard in this weather.”

“You’re playing cards.”

“Not so lazy as sitting in your air conditioned house.”

“As if I don’t.”

“We can’t play cards in your house.”

“Fussy old woman, aren’t I?”

A small hand sought mine.

“Where are you going, uncle?”

“What makes you think I’m going somewhere?”

“Where ya goin’?”

“I’m going for a job.”

“Is it a good job?”

“I hope so.”

“Don’t you know?”

“I’ve never worked here before.”

“Do you always do things you haven’t done before, uncle?”

“I’ve done this kind of work before. Just not with these people.”

“What kinda work?”

“Ghost writing.”

“Is that good work?”

“If you can find it.”

“Wow! Hey, grandpa! Uncle’s gonna get a job!”

“That’s great!” shouted his grandfather. “Now, you leave him alone to get on with it.”

“Are you really gonna git a job?”

“Yes. I have a letter here.”

“He’s got a letter, grandpa!”

“Will you leave the man alone? He’s got business to do.”
And so I would become the day’s topic of discussion after I was gone. I smiled ruefully. Amazing how much mileage could be gotten off the most mundane activity when there was nothing else to do.

Though not so well off, I was better off than these people. I lived in this area, still, and knew some of them. I nodded and smiled and voiced the accepted greeting. Smiles and joking. But, after all, I had a little money. More than these my neighbors. So wasn’t I one of the greedy horde going out in search of employment when necessity wouldn’t be demanding as Mother Hubbard’s dog for three or four moths? The truth of the matter was that I wanted a little bit more of a comfort margin. People liked to visit, sitting and talking in comfortable chairs in my cool rooms with their wall of windows (my balcony was enclosed unlike most of theirs) and drinking my tea and water. I did not mind. Loneliness is something I do not handle well. And, of course, why should I be miserly with my comfort? Jealously guarded riches are a source of fear and trembling, as if sharing would somehow contaminate the lucre. Of course, the occasional young thief–usually of frivolities or little luxuries like music or my collectables, an occasional book–these people, discovered more by circumstance than red-handed, found themselves uninvited by my always being busy whenever they called.

Well, I was lucky. True, I had opportunities that these people for the most part did not; but on the whole I struggled. I survived times of only one meal a day provided by friends and houses with no bathrooms–even homelessness–on the way to obtaining the great mythical panacea of an Education. And what did I have? A small nest egg that was fast becoming a hole in the bucket, a few creature comforts and no job. It’s not as if I hadn’t had or didn’t want; it’s more like. . .things happened that conspired–I like to think–to put the kibosh to whatever I was doing. Not a few of my educated friends said I just didn’t know how to play the game. Why would I want to compromise my beliefs in order to get ahead? I knew the rules. I just didn’t want to play by these rules. As I found having a job with a clearly defined objective yet being encouraged to undermine my own dedicated efforts to be hypocritical, I often found myself in contentious situations. You know, I was expected to do my job but not too well. Job security: if you’re too good, too efficient, too successful you’ll find you’ve worked yourself into being dispensable. Unnecessary. I arrogantly considered myself above such behavior. That is, I was a social failure. Pariah, perhaps, is more like it.

Well, not everyone can be a hero, right?

So it was that I found myself walking down the street and out into the mass of human traffic seeking another means of keeping me out of trouble and more assiduously involved in the market economy that kept society going. That is, I would be able to buy more artwork with which to brighten my white walls and more books with which to waste my time. It was not true, however, that I was going about my job-seeking in an arbitrary manner. I had been doing that for months from home, so that now I had an invitation in my pocket, as it were. To truly have had it in my pocket would have meant presenting a soggy piece of paper to the woman at the front desk. A sure means of keeping my unemployed status intact. As this was my entry ticket into a somewhat exclusive world, I had it safely stored in my little bag–a clutch purse we might have called it 50-60 years ago–along with other papers that might serve to keep me inside the door for a time. It was, after all, air conditioned in there.

At the end of the street, sitting on the wall outside her house, sat L–.

“So, you’re going for a job?” she greeted me.

“Yes. I have a letter of invitation here.”

“You are lucky, K–.”

I sat down on the mat next to her. She began fanning me.

“It took me two months to get this.”

“Ah! The postman.” I nodded. “Some of these men should be so diligent.”

“Perhaps they’re not so lazy as–”

“Look at them! Wasting time. They should be out working.”

“You know, jobs are hard to find–”

“K–, wake up to reality. They’re lazy. Look at you–ten years older and you’re out pounding the pavement.”

“Oh. If I pay attention to reality, I complain a lot. How are things with you?”

“I hope you get the job, K—.”

“I have the letter.”

“Well. . .you just be careful they honor it. You know how they can be.”

I waved good-bye and she moved her air conditioning back to herself.

“Ah. Yes. You’re expected, Mr. K–. Through those doors and to your left. The elevator to the thirteenth floor,” was my greeting upon entering the building.

Mister? I had a title. I wanted it used! I had worked hard for the status it carried and I wanted all due respect. A tad elitist, perhaps, and only unwarranted because of my unemployed condition–which she didn’t know about. She did know my title, plainly printed in the salutation of the letter: Dr. K–. She knew my name so she did know how to read. How inattentive of her! No possibility of ever being more than a front desk clerk for her. Odd, isn’t it? How behavior works to limit your future. Keeps you in your place. Like a neurotic rat that keeps running after the goal when the pay-off’s not there any more. So it is that behavior marks the man–or woman. Well, fashions change and no-title referents were the equitable rage. Still, I bristled. . .and did what I was told.

“The thirteenth floor?”

“Yes, sir. We’re not superstitious here,” she replied with offhand snottiness. How outré of me to think otherwise in this modern day and age.

“And that is a very nice ankh you have there. Steel?”

She put her clean, well-manicured fingers over the pendant, rubbing it tenderly. “I’ve had this since I was three. I never take it off.”

“I see. Thirteenth floor?” I confirmed.

“Yes.”

Imagine! A good luck charm and a thirteenth floor.

The elevator doors opened to the Human Resources Department. Mostly, the floor was filled with file cabinets. There were, though, a few people about, including a woman sitting at a desk behind a sign that read “Information.” She was watching me. The only unfamiliar thing in the room. On the floor.

I walked up to her and, greeting her, handed over my letter. She read it. She read it all. Occasionally she looked up at me. I tried to look unconcerned.

When she was through reading every word, she picked up the over-sized telephone and dialed three numbers.

“There’s a Dr. K– here. Supposedly with a letter you sent.” She paused, “Alright.” She hung up the phone. “It’s the big office there, in the corner.” She handed me back my letter and I ceased to exist.

“Thank you.” And then I was on my way.

He was waiting for me at the door to his office, standing in a pool of light from the windows behind him. This glow of lucency was the only way I found his office, glaring as it did off the ceiling and latex-painted file cabinets. Shortly after I’d been cut loose in the maze of files, his door opened, as if to say, “I’m over here!” So it was I found his office, actually tastefully arranged partitions, some with Plexiglas uppers. A desk, two chairs other than his own and two file cabinets were the only furniture. The two framed pictures had most likely been picked up for a song at the local wholesale furniture mart. Anything real would have been too heavy for the walls to hold up.

Ahh! Dr. K–! Dr. K–! You’re here. Hello. How are you? I’m Mr. T–W–.” He stuck out his cool, dry hand. When I put my rather clammy one into his, he covered it with his other pink hand. Although pleasant enough and filled with good intention, I was a captive. He beckoned me into his office, gesticulating for me to sit in the nearest chair. I sat in the other. He shut the door, shaking the walls, and took up his seat behind his desk, spreading his hands on the immaculate desktop.

“You have come. We are so glad.”

“I am pleased as well. It has taken me a long time to get here.”
“Yes. Yes. Now. Let’s see. . .” And Mr. W– opened up a side drawer that, by the sound of it, was empty and took out a folder. When he shut the drawer, with finality, I could tell by its hollowness that it was, indeed, empty. He set the file–my file obviously –on is equally empty desktop and opened it. “You have marvellous credentials, Dr. K–. Very impressive. We are pleased to welcome you to KS Enterprises.”

“Thank you,” I said, wishing to escape praise that was frankly embarrassing. I knew, when compared to others, I had not accomplished much. I published, it was true, but not a plethora of articles. My creative work was considered, by these types of people, inferior. Possibly because they could not do it. I had been to too many places, all for short periods of time. A sure sign that there was something wrong with me, like the people on Internet dating services: if they were so wonderful, why were they there? It is a truism, however quaint and clichéd, that the good ones have already been gotten.

I did, however, suffer from a most grievous malady: I could not tolerate irresponsible behavior or incompetence. These characteristics were so easy to come by (and spot), I tended to be quite vociferous about such people and had, as a consequence, acquired the reputation of complaining. And of being arrogant and demanding. My fault, it was, for I was the only one to complain–only partly true, for others complained amongst themselves and to me but never, never to the people who needed to know.

For instance, I was livid at G–S– at my last post. Never had I encountered such mindlessness and inadequacy. He could not address letters, forgetting recipients’ names. On the train, he did not know the way to his own home; that is, he routinely rode by his station, maintaining that he knew by the look of things where he was. But the big man liked G–S–, rewarding him for a job well done by using influence to get him into graduate school at a good university. He was to study English, though he could speak only torturously.

How could you not complain! Though the rationalization that nothing will happen anyway always springs to the coweds’ lips, the logic is, of course, infallible: it proves itself when, having done nothing, nothing improves. As it was with the youth of U– in the middle of the last century who decided not to have children: who wants to bring children into this world?

Alas–I complain and I bring children into this world.

Incompetence comes in many colors.

Certain kinds of people, when given even a modicum of authority, like to wield said perceived power status in most heinous and self-aggrandizing ways. I suppose one cannot blame them, the world to them is such a hopeless, impotent thing; but I do. And I tend, in my conceit, to not accord them the respect they feel comes with their position; that is, you will do as I tell you! Put another way, that might be, don’t defy me! “Can’t” is not a word found in my vocabulary–except perhaps as relates to certain biological limitations.

As I was thus engaged in revisiting my error-driven ways, Mr. W– continued thumbing through my CV, carefully turning each dog-eared corner. Six one-sided pages.

“Yes, yes,” he said, coming to the last page and returning them all to the face up position. “Very impressive. We are happy to offer you a position with us. Very handsome package, if I may say so. Now!” He snapped the file that contained but a brief yet important part of my life shut and looked directly into my calm, pre-occupied face. “There is a matter of formalities to be gotten through. Nothing difficult. Nothing unpleasant.” He opened up the central drawer of his desk and deftly took out one sheet of paper. He set it on his desk and turned it around and pushed it across the policed wood. “Here is a list of our requirements. I’ll go over them with you.” He pointed with a very sharp pencil. “We need a health certificate. We like our employees healthy. Copies of your identification papers and your work permit. And we need a reference from your last employer.”

“That was three years ago.”

“Nevertheless. It is necessary. A necessary formality. I am sure you understand our position, hmm?”

“All but the reference letter are possible. I have them here.” I took out the necessary papers.

He took them and laid them aside. “We must have a complete file, Dr. K–.”

“Let me see if I can make this clear.” Mr. W– continued, leaning across the desk, pointing his sharp, sharp pencil and smiling timidly. “At my last place of employment, I bucked authority and prevailed. This authority figure is the one who would write the referral. A year later, when I revisited the city to see friends, he threatened my friends. He could do this because he employed my friends. To remove the threat to my friends’ livelihoods, I left the city. Now. What kind of referral do you think this man is going to give me–if indeed he even bothers to write one?”

Mr. W– came to life and sat back in his chair. “Referrals are important, Dr. K–. Without them, who knows what type of salacious or downright bad character we might hire?”

“Mr. W–. . .this man will write reprehensible things about me.”

“Are you listening to me, Dr. K–? We must have a letter of referral from your last employer or we cannot finalize your hiring. It is a part of the application approval process. We all have rules we must abide by, else this would be an unruly place. I have my guidelines. They are in the HR procedures manual. These guidelines assure a smooth-running and efficient business. They are in place to assure the continued high quality of the business. Tried and true. If I break them and if everybody breaks the rules–hard and fast rules–there would be chaos. Arbitrarity. Surely, as a man of intelligence, you see that?”

“Did you follow my story, Mr. W–?”

“What were you trying to say, Dr. K–?”

“The man who would write the referral does not like me.”

“Yes?”

“So, he will not write a positive review of my time there.”

“Yes?

“It will be a negative referral.”

“Do you actually believe employers like nothing about their employees? How very petty of them. And how very petty of you to think so, Dr. K–.”

“May I tell you another story?”

“As it turns out, I’m not pressed today.”

“A certain employer, having a dislike of one of his employees, sought out a means of ridding himself of her. It so happened that this employee was going away for three months for further training. While she was gone, this employer concocted a story and bought evidence to prove it, that this employee had cheated the company. She had paid someone to take a proficiency test for her. This employer pressured the Board of Directors and she, the employee, was fired on the spot. When she returned from her training, she had no job.”

“Yes?”

“I know this woman and–”

“Personal bias, Dr. K–. She must have done something wrong. Going to the Board of Directors was just a formality. Like your referral letter.”

“I see.”

“Well, then! There is no problem, is there?”

“There is the problem of personal bias, Mr. W–.”

“Easy to ascertain. As you see I did with your story. Thank goodness it was a story! How incredible it would be if such people truly existed. Wouldn’t you say so?”

“But it is a true story.”

“Well, well. But it doesn’t concern us here, does it, Dr. K–? You’re not that female employee.”

“She never got another job.”

“That is quite understandable.”

“She couldn’t get a positive referral.”

“Of course not.”

“My past employer does not like me. He will write a negative referral.”

“If we get a negative letter of referral, there will be no way for us to hire you. We can’t have disreputable sorts working at KS Enterprises.”

“Well, then,” I stood up and reached for the file on Mr. W–’s desk. “You won’t be needing this.” And I took the file, turned and strode to the door.

“Where are you going with that, Dr. K–?

“Home.”

“But that’s the property of KS Enterprises.”

“Here, then,” and I returned the manila file. “But I’ll just take what belongs to me. I wrote them. I will take them with me. Thank you. It’s been nice knowing you.”

“But, Dr. K–!” Mr. W– shouted after me. “I can’t hire you without those documents.”

I do not know whether Mr. W– ever filled his vacant position. In general, there was an inexhaustible supply of human resources; in my specialty, perhaps in the neighborhood of one in a million. However, the question is not one of qualifications but one of satisfying formalities.

So it is that between playing cards and visiting friends, I write stories. That is, I tell lies. For what else is fiction?

When the Stone Man Nods His Head

It was a long journey and I stopped to rest. My legs ached from hanging loosely down from the saddle blanket. My ass from the donkey’s backbone. My lower back from the animal’s steady plodding sway. My hat shaded me but sweat oozed out around the brim and coursed down my face, collecting in my moustache and beard. I halted the donkey and slid off. I shambled to the edge of the road hoping the bow in my legs would straighten up. The dusty air was no better at the side of the road but I perched atop a rock anyway. My donkey lumbered off to graze near-by, content to be free of my lead. I tried to clear the dust from before me. I sneezed. This was not the first time. I decided that resting here, in such tainted air, was not such a good idea. But where was the surcease? I led my reluctant ass back to the roadway, mounted and continued my journey.

Not too much farther along, I came upon another traveller. I stopped. He sat on the side of the road. On a stone. His staff lay at his feet, covered with the detritus of his travels and collecting more. I saw no pack beside him. He was travelling light. He rocked and moaned as if asking pity of the relentless gods. Clutched in one hand, the veins standing out against his dusky skin, was a little pouch. A medicine or herb bag. Perhaps a magic charm lay within, for he occasionally shook it.

“Is that medicine in the bag?”

“Yes. Here. Take it.”

“I don’t need it but it might do you some good. What’s the problem?”

“Nothing can help me. I’ve lost my way and don’t know where I am.”

“Well, then, come along with me. We shall be two.”

“No. I can’t.”

“I don’t understand. We must find you–”

“Where are you going?”

“Down the road. To my destination”

“Where is your destination?”

“At the end of my journey. And yours?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“I see.”

“A sword blade cuts things but eyes do not see themselves.”

“Then what can you tell me?”

“I can tell you why this road is so dusty.”

“Can you?”

“Yes. I can.”

I thought about this for a moment. This powdered air was a bit unnatural. There was no wind. As he didn’t seem inclined to continue, I thought I might humor him and dismounted, taking a seat beside him.

“Why is this road so dusty, then?”

“Do you really want to know or are you humoring me?”

“Yes. I have sat beside you.”

“I see that. Are you sure you don’t want this medicine? It’s good medicine. No explanation needed.”

“I have no disease.”

“Well then. . .I’ll begin my story. It isn’t a long story. As stories go.”

“I have plenty of time.”

“Are you some kind of holy man?”

“No. I wouldn’t say so.”

“Ah. . .a wise man!”

“I wouldn’t call myself that.”

“It’s what others think and say about you that makes you what you are.”

“So wise men and fools live together.”

“Yes! That’s it. And they travel down this road. But that’s not where the dust comes from. That is from the digging of Jeppe. You don’t now Jeppe. You’re not from these parts. This dust is because Jeppe became obsessed with digging. So much so that people avoided him. And this road. One day he found a tiny gold nugget beside the road. A little farther on he spied another. Jeppe was a fool. He did not look up to see that there was a rich merchant ahead of him with a hole in his saddlebag. Jeppe ran home to get some digging utensils. His wife caught him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ ‘I’m digging for gold.’ ‘You put those tools back before I beat some sense into you.’ ‘Oh woman of little faith! What do you think this is?’ He thrust the gold nuggets in her face. She took them from him. As was her wont. She took everything from him lest it slip through his fingers. Jeppe scampered off to his digging.

“Jeppe dug pits all along the roadside. He dug furiously. There was no gold. Never had been. Jeppe, though, could not see that, immersed in his cloud as he was. Once he had dug up one side of the road, he started on the other. The clouds of dust he raised became thicker. So thick he could not see where he was going. Or what he was doing. Travellers began taking other roads than this to avoid the dust and discomfort. The way was longer but what could they do? They raised the prices on their goods to make up for lost time. Around town, it began to be asked, ‘When will the fellow who plays with dirt ever be done?’

“Well, one day Jeppe struck his gold. ‘Eureka!’ he cried. ‘I’ve done it!’ By this time he had dug himself out near the lake. You’ll see the place a little farther on. There’s a marker there. He had covered that lake with dust. The townsmen said that at night the frogs could be heard coughing and choking in Jeppe’s dust. People couldn’t eat fish any more. They died from lack of oxygen.

“Jeppe saw his little vein of gold and shouted. Thinking one more thrust would unearth more gold, he jabbed at the sparkling metal. His shovel clanged. Sparks flew. Dust and debris were tossed up around him. Jeppe screamed, grabbing at his face. He twisted and shouted and writhed about until he fell into the lake and drowned. Jeppe hit gold alright. And then he blinded himself with a shard of the precious metal.”

The man became silent. He still rocked back and forth. He still held the bag of medicine out and up, an offering. I waited for more but as no more seemed to be forthcoming, I spoke up.

“So that’s why this road is so dusty?”

“It is.”

“That’s very interesting.”

“You must take the medicine.”

“I have no need of it.”

“You will. It is medicine. It will cure you. If you go along this road.”

“Let me tell you a story.”

“Eh? You have a story?”

“Yes. I’ve travelled a bit.”

“Ah. Have you? Well, then. I’ll hear your story.”

“In a far off land there was a doctor. He was a very good doctor. People liked him. One day a strange epidemic came into his town. It crippled children and killed adults. It threatened to sweep through the district, leaving a decimated ruin of a world behind. Luckily, however, this good doctor stumbled onto a cure for the disease. Instantly he became famous. For the epidemic was not just in his district. It was throughout the land.

“As the ravaging disease was taken under control, more and more uses were found for his medicine. His fame grew as did the stories about him. But his practice at home suffered. He fell under the spell of Super Doc. His diagnosing became superficial, always ending with a treatment of his curative. There were deaths and defections. This doctor had stopped paying attention to people.
“This went on for some time until he had lost all his old patients. He then turned to treating out-of-towners who wanted a personal infusion of his magical curative. The doctor, coming to believe that it could cure anything, was more than happy to oblige. Until he gave his medicine to a young girl who promptly died. When questioned about this, it was found that the doctor had not diagnosed the girl but simply given her the miracle cure as a matter of course. The girl was his daughter.”

“So. . .you will take this medicine?”

“I’m not sick.”

“You will be when you get to the other side of this dust.”

“Hmm. . .since you are staying here in the middle of this dirty fog, I should think you will need it more than me.”

With that, I gathered up the halter rope of my donkey and set out on my journey again. The man had been right. The dust did get worse. But once past the lake, the air suddenly cleared. I took a deep breath. I felt this was the first I had breathed in weeks. I sat down to rest and clear my lungs. I sat back and looked at the clouds and thought about the meaning of life.
Interesting that there were as many meanings to life as there were people. Everyone was ready to fight for the preeminence of his meaning. How silly this was. There is a saying, all voices are the master’s voice, all forms are the master’s form. Still, there are those that think one voice is many voices. If it’s all one, why does anyone fight over it? Why does anyone try to change others’ minds? There is no miracle cure for life.

I took a deep breath and rose. I could not stay here forever, lost in the ramblings of an aging man. A common man on a journey of no particular importance. I gathered up my donkey’s lead and led him down the road into the sunset, happy to walk at a time like this.

Steven Pinker’s Linguistic Sounding Brass and Tinkling Cymbal

Jonathan Swift showed just how silly an “enlightened” stance can be in Gulliver’s visit to the land of the Houyhnhnms. The Houyhnhnms, huge horses full of alot of horse sense, spoke beautifully and convincingly of themselves and their brilliance and intellectual superiority; but they, in their reason and rationality, enslaved Yahoos. These superior beings also believed that Gulliver could not have come from some island across the ocean because they believed, rationally and reasonably, that such an island did not exist and, therefore, it did not. Despite having no experience upon which to make such a judgment. Yet, experience is a state of consciousness. Karl Popper maintains, in Unended Quest (p. 218), that “it is silly or at least high-handed to deny the existence of mental experiences or mental states or states of consciousness; or to deny that mental states are as rule closely related to states of the body, especially physiological states.” Which would seem to confirm the Houyhnhnms in their intellectual behavior for, after all, they are basing their judgment on the experience of themselves and their superior knowledge and intellectual ability. They never met any others their superiors.
So, it stands to reason, that they believe as they believe.

So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut writes in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. And other novels of absurdity. Novels of people with individual mental states of consciousness.

On and off throughout history, science has had a bad name because of such thinkers, men (in most cases) who have a particular mental experience. More often than not via the same lingual pyrotechnics as Jonathan Swift used to elucidate such foolishness. With this in mind, it would be good if critical appraisers could be a tad more discriminating in their choice of scientists to congratulate and hold up as shining examples of their art discipline. Steven Pinker is considered to be such an enlightened one by popular publishers and science journalists. Steven Pinker is considered the leading figure in language and linguistics studies in the US, especially via neurological investigations. Dr. Pinker is a psychologist, which of course means he knows better via an understanding of the deeper reaches of motivation to behavior. And Dr. Pinker is a Houyhnhnm thinker, a man who runs in the face of David Hackett Fischer’s Historian’s Fallacies and Stephen Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument and any of Karl Popper’s assumption-questioning writings–even though he cites Popper in The Stuff of Thought–because he hasn’t the experience of them. A few examples will, I think, suffice to elucidate the priceless thinking and intellectual cerebration science writers hail as Dr. Pinker ’s ground-breaking theories.

To begin at the end, as Edgar Alan Poe suggests writers do:
“[N]ear death experiences are not the eyewitness reports of a soul parting company from the body but symptoms of oxygen starvation in the eyes and brain” (The Mystery of Consciousness). This presupposes that there is a separation of the body and the soul. But it is just a tautological dismissal that, in reality, proves nothing because death/near-death is a time of low oxygen in the brain. This happens when people smoke and drink, too, but they report no similar experience. Occasionally, those who ingest LSD or magic mushrooms relate such experiences, without oxygen starvation. Dr. Pinker is saying is that these people did not experience what they experienced. There is no scientific evidence to verify this dismissive judgment, yet it cannot be dismissed as it comes from Dr. Pinker’s Houyhnhnm thinking, as supported by Dr. Popper. It is, then, of no import that such a statement as his is an opinion of science; for, as a Houyhnhnm there is no reason not accept his say so.
Indeed, he’s from Harvard, a university that consistently produces the superiorest of the superior. Dr. Pinker engages in characteristic Houyhnhnm tautological perseveration to prove his point that alternative states of consciousness are not real. He believes they can be explained by some kind of physical state: they are the result of oxygen deprivation to the brain because, well, oxygen deprivation is part of the experience. Like smoking or drinking. This is Houyhnhnm science.

Earlier in the same essay, published in Time (19 Jan. 2007), Dr. Pinker states, “Consciousness surely does not depend on language.” How unfortunate that, in fact, it does depend on language, for without language no one would know of anyone’s consciousness, no one would be able to admit of it, nor would one be able to talk about one’s own consciousness of one’s self, outside of consciousness of the world around one. We are languaging animals: our world is described and built and adapted by our language (Cf. Humberto Maturana generally). Without talking about it (expressing it), how is one to communicate that one is conscious? And, indeed, which state of consciousness one is in, for there is more than one consciousness. Well, perhaps being an experience and experience, as we’ve already noted, is a Houyhnhnm characteristic, it is not out of order that Dr. Pinker, can maintain that it doesn’t exist just because someone says so.
Yet, in this essay (The Mystery of Consciousness), Dr. Pinker makes the most amazing and contradictory statement: there is a seat of consciousness and it is in the “higher” part of the brain. He supports himself by citing Crick, the other half of the DNA discoverer duo. However, earlier on, he maintains that consciousness consists “of a maelstrom of events distributed across the brain.” He even notes that Bernard Baars “likens consciousness to a global blackboard.” Perhaps it is premature and somewhat arrogant to ask: Which is it Dr. Pinker? Is there a seat of consciousness, like the seat of language in Wernicke’s or Broca’s areas? Or is it a brain-wide phenomenon? But let’s not talk about that.

Let’s talk, rather about how consciousness can be only “neural computation” while conveniently excluding soft matter physics. If consciousness is a physical seat in the grey matter of the brain, it stands to reason, I think, that there may be external stressors that affect a cell’s functioning on the cellular level as well as the macroscopic level: swelling in the brain effects behavioral aberrations which, I think, have something to do with “neural computation.” If a change happens on such a large scale, a change must have happened on the cellular level since the cells themselves are not static entities–or perhaps there is some other reason for the brain to pulsate. That is, the environment in which nerve cells operate affects their operation and this tee-tiny alteration creates, in the aggregate as cells do not operate in isolation from other cells, a greatly enhanced alteration in the behavior these cells cause to happen, as an expression of themselves. Even the pulsation affects, macro- and microscopically, of “neural computation” of the cells in the body react to contiguous and non-contiguous cells’ “neural computation.” Dr. Pinker’s thinking seems to be quite linear and rather simplistic and very, very concrete and does. Indeed, his thesis that you cannot talk about consciousness because he can’t talk about it. Dr. Pinker is a genius Houyhnhnm.

His dismissive Houyhnhnm attitude runs throughout his writing, that is, “I don’t believe it, so it’s all pish-posh.” At the same time, Dr. Pinker is attempting, via classical science (physics), to explicate consciousness/perception/emotion when in fact classical science divides the world into two–body and spirit–and cannot explain what happens in the mind via the physical brain because the mind is not a physical reality. (Show me the mind, Dr. Pinker.) Classical science has trouble seeing that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; that is, the brain and all that goes to make it up creates something greater than itself. As if to thwart the thinking of the Houyhnhnm, Karl Popper says the mind is the producer of human language, it is “the producer of theories, of critical arguments, and many other things such as mistakes, myths, stories, witticisms, tools, and works of art” (Unended Quest, p. 221). Dr. Pinker could not get his mind around Bertrand Russell’s grandmother’s plague upon him: “What is mind? No matter! What is matter? Never mind!” What Popper seems to be saying is that the mind is what allows Pinker to say and do whatever it is he says and does, albeit this is a decidedly un-Houyhnhnm thing to believe.

Dr. Pinker also says, “everyone agrees that the hard problem (if it is a problem) remains a mystery.”

Who is “everyone”? (Perhaps a rather un-Houyhnhnm-like query because everyone knows who everyone is.)

The hard problem is “explaining how subjective experience arises from neural computation.” That is, consciousness is a mysterious physical anomaly in classical physical bio-chemistry. There is a kind of tyranny of the to biological, to the physical, here in that Dr. Pinker purports to be able to explain the non-physical by the physical, which is, in and of itself, a mystery. Not to mention the apparent opposition to what he’s already said. If consciousness is physical, Dr. Pinker, show me it because I’m only a Yahoo. Simply saying it is so doesn’t make it so, unless one is a Houyhnhnm or a religious leader.

There are some people, notably I.N. Marshal, who do not believe consciousness is a mystery or, rather, that it is a mystery by way of being a problem for which there is an explanation. Marshal, Zohar and others approach consciousness from a quantum mechanical viewpoint. (Dr. Pinker’s flippant speaks to this science later.) Dr. Pinker sees the brain as a computational entity; it doesn’t do anything else but computer neurologically. David Deutsch, on the other hand, believes that to call the brain a computational thing is not only limiting but wrong (Cf. The Fabric of Reality). Truly an anti-Houyhnhnm proposition that seems to point to Dr. Pinker’s confusing brain with mind or, rather, considers there to be no difference: brain is mind and mind is brain (The Stuff of Thought, p. 259). Everything is rational and reasonable and solely to be found in the neural functioning of the physical brain. Everything for Dr. Pinker resides in the physical brain. The brain’s functioning is the answer to everything. The brain rules! The brain also leaves us no choice. We are at its mercy. But it’s a mystery as to how this happens and what this mercy is. Even Pinker admits it’s a mystery when he says we have an innate language instinct. Why? Because instinct is a mystery in and of itself. And so it is that Dr. Pinker is talking in circles. This is Houyhnhnm science.

What happened to environment and heredity in Dr. Pinker’s theories is also a mystery.

Dr. Pinker even talks of language as if it were bits and pieces that are put together according to certain rules–like the brain is bits and pieces put together according to certain rules–implying that to not follow the rules results in non-language and–perhaps I stretch the point here–stupidity. (Where does that leave James Joyce, Antonin Artaud or the Absurdists?) Stupidity is Dr. Pinker’s forte: all his argumentation is reducing ideas he does not agree with, including Lakoff and Johnson’s, to the ridiculous, using bits and pieces of their writings in order to lambaste the entirety of their theories and impart to them ideas or beliefs that are, in reality, his conclusions based on conscious misinterpretation such that the argument to ridicule is itself ridiculous and therefore his ridiculous statements don’t sound so ridiculous, that is, they sound sensible (Cf. The Stuff of Thought in its entirety). Houyhnhnm scientific thinking.

Dr. Pinker never bothers to prove his opinion; corroboration by his own testing is not scientific proof, according to Popper; it is more in the way of a laboratory simulation. Laboratory simulation always produces what you want to prove so it proves nothing, in fact. Except that it is Houyhnhnm science.

Dr. Pinker, in “Words Don’t Mean What They Mean” (another Time Inc. article, of 6 Sept. 2007, an excerpt from The Stuff of Thought), lays lines on his listeners, role plays, sidesteps, shilly-shallies and engages in “all manner of vagueness and innuendo.” We also do as he tells us we do, without apparent thought: assume “that the speaker is rational.” Dr. Pinker’s rationality is of the Houyhnhnm variety. So Dr. Pinker is seen to be eminently intellectually gifted and full of astounding insight, as gullible Gulliver saw the Houyhnhnms.

The most insidious Houyhnhnm argument Pinker makes results in his debunking quantum mechanics. To wit:- “Some mavericks, like the mathematician Roger Penrose, suggest the answer might someday be found in quantum mechanics. But to my ear, this amounts to the feeling that quantum mechanics sure is weird, and consciousness sure is weird, so maybe quantum mechanics can explain consciousness.” Well, Einstein thought quantum mechanics was weird, too. It’s of no consequence that Einstein’s been proven wrong on this point. Of course, the logic that uses one extremist to debunk the entirety of a science and Richard Feynman is Houyhnhnm logic. Isn’t it? Gulliver was a maverick.

Dr. Pinker wishes to take the mystery out of language via scientific examination and neural explanation and, to do so, he posits that language is an instinct. . .a very mysterious thing indeed is instinct. Instinct is, I think, something that cannot be explained: it just is. And as it is, it is mysterious in its being. In his infinitely regressive method of analysis, Dr. Pinker ever reaches the point where he can explain nothing and it’s at this point that language becomes instinct (Cf. The Stuff of Thought). So, in truth, Dr. Pinker explains nothing and keeps language in the realm of the mysterious. But it sounds good. Wow! Language is built in. We’re different. The Houyhnhnm cerebration is that if I say it is thus, it is thus. And therefore it’s science.

A fool (Yahoo) might ask, “How?” and show his stupidity in thinking that debunking the mysteriousness of language by attributing it to the mysteriousness of instinct is ridiculous. . .if not mysterious. Even so, Dr. Pinker cannot explain the languaging of deaf people or Koko the gorilla–unless his definition of language is in its speaking; that language is not language unless it’s spoken. Which makes writing not language, maybe?

Again in “Can’t find the words? Make ‘em up,” Dr. Pinker resorts to Houyhnhnm-specious thinking in his Chinese example of onomatopoeia and sound symbolism via the Chinese for light in weight (qīng 轻) and heavy (zhòng 重). However, qīng has many meanings in Chinese, such as light green, clear and innocent. So does zhòng; middle, hit, numerous. In Chinese, mostly, the sound of the word is just the sound, but the pitch changes the meaning. For instance, qīng 青 (light green), qǐng 请 (please), qīng 清 (clear, usually referring to river, stream, lake), qíng 情 (passion). All “qing.” All have the sound “qing,” But their meanings have nothing to do with each other. The implication Pinker is making is that there is a parallel between sound and meaning that holds across the language and therefore all languages (even though he debunks this in The Stuff of Thought). It doesn’t. Especially as Chinese is a tonal language. Dr. Pinker is not aware, apparently, that there are at least nine characters in Chinese with the pronunciation of qīng (first tone); some do not have opposites.

If a Yahoo looks at large (dà 大) and small (xiăo 小) he might find that, yes, da is the strong fourth downward tone but xiao is the sing-song third tone. Not only this but da changes its tone with usage, that is, in context. And what are we to make of inside (nèi 内) and outside (wài 外) or up (shàng 上) and down (xià 下)? These opposites are the same tone. Using Pinker’s Houyhnhnm mind, we can easily take gāoxìng (高兴happy) as, at best, so-so and bēishāng (悲伤sad) as good feeling. This is ridiculous. Gāo 高 (high) and dī 低 (low) are both high tones but, according to Dr. Pinker’s Houyhnhnm theorizing, mean differently, that is, dī cannot be low because its tone is high. What is worse, we can take bái 白 (white) as the same as hēi 黑 (black), that is, as white, because black is dark and the tone is not: if we follow Pinker’s statement, then we confound black and white. It’s a terrible Yahoo argument, of course, for how could a top Houyhnhnm psychologist lead his readers to confuse black and white, right and wrong?

There are only four tones in Chinese (five if you count the neutral tone), so onomatopoeia and sound symbolism via tones is extremely limited and apparently has little to do with sound meaning, according to the Yahoo Chinese who developed their language. Further, all these also challenge “families of words share a teeny snatch of sound and a teeny shred of meaning.” In Chinese, word families share a shape, not necessarily a sound or meaning. For instance, the shape family of kŏu口 (mouth) yields gē哥 (song), dīng叮 (mosquito bite), jiā加 (add), nà呐 (no meaning by itself), xuān喧 (noisy), zào噪 (chirp, as with insects or birds)–just a few of the 300+ kŏu口family characters.

This association of sound with meaning is the kind of thing we used to do as children and laugh about. Dr. Pinker, here, is making a Houyhnhnm-specious argument. He also does not speak or read Chinese–nor does his audience, which is why he can get away with such a Houyhnhnm statement. Further, generalizing from one instance to the entire corpus is intellectually indefensible. Factual errors on the part of an academician and scientist are not acceptable. Though, perhaps, the superior mentation of Houyhnhnms can be forgiven.

Except that in the early part of the 20th century, the onomatopoetic theory of language had already been disproven by linguists and philosophers, though, of course, for many modern doctorate holders, that’s ancient history: it is often the case that, in scholarly writing–especially dissertations–references more than 5-10 years old are verboten. Not only history is lost in this way but knowledge. Yet, Dr. Pinker is a follower of X’s universal grammar theory and that was put forth in the early part of the 20th century. A conundrum, to be sure. Indeed, “the names which occur in human speech cannot be interpreted in any such invariable manner. They are not designed to refer to substantial things, independent entities which exist by themselves. They are determined rather by human interests and human purposes. But these interests are ot fixed and invariable. Nor are the classifications to be found in human speech made at random; they are based on certain constant and recurring elements in our sense experience” (Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man, p. 134). It seems, then, that Dr. Pinker is taking words not only out of context but isolating them as individual units and attempting to build a theory of language from these bits and pieces that have no relationship to each other and no relationship to use or culture. There is no juxtaposition. For Dr. Pinker, words are, well, just words. They don’t appear with other words and they don’t change their meaning in association with other words, of course. Writers, those picayune Muse-inspired applied linguists par excellence, who are never taken into account by linguists as knowing anything at all about language (and therefore never consulted or, heaven forbid, studied), know this to be untrue.
Indeed, for Natalie Goldberg, this is a major aspect of writing: words rub up against each other and change their meaning or connotation (Cf. Wild Mind). And Gendlin’s theories are based on contextual usage (Cf. X). Dr. Pinker seems to be measuring language–and he seems to be confounding la langue with la parole–as if it were a scientific thing, a state of being and this is not possible. He is trying to deduce the characteristics of an electron solely by figuring out where it is and how big it is. It and its action, its behavior when moving in context, are different things. But, then, that’s quantum mechanics and that’s already been displaced into File 13 by Dr. Pinker.

Thus, as the name of an object has little to do with the truth of the object but, rather, emphasizes particular aspects of the object, we come across the many words for “snow” in certain Eskimo languages and “hit” in some Amerindian languages and the various counters in Japanese for different entities: long and thin (x), round (x), flat (x), people (x). Or, if we look at the moon, as Washington Irving did in his History of New York, we find that the Greek word mēn emphasizes its measure of time while the Latin word luna, luc-na refers its brightness. How many “heavies” are there in Chinese?

But even more to the point, Chinese words are made of two characters, for the most part. In fact, in Chinese, a single character does not often have meaning. So, what does he make of bō 玻 and lí 璃, which have no meaning when in isolation but when used together, as in bōlí 玻璃, mean “glass.” There are many similar examples, such as pútáo 葡萄 (grape), yīngsù罂桃 (opium), luòtuó 骆驼 (camel), pángxiè 螃蟹 (crab), to name a few words in which the individual characters (the first ones in this instance) are meaningless by themselves.

This fact also challenges Dr. Pinker’s statement that “long words may be used for things that are big or coarse, staccato words for things that are sharp or quick.” “Staccato” and “ratatatat” are long words–and staccato–yet are for sharp or quick sounds. There is nothing short here, which is the implication in Dr. Pinker’s thesis above. The problem is that almost all Chinese words are short, which means, according to Dr. Pinker, that Chinese cannot talk about big and coarse things. Actually, Chinese can: let’s see. . .zhéxué 哲学 (philosophy) and zhū 猪 (pig)–that’s big; xīnguì 新贵 (parvenu) and cūsù 粗俗 (vulgar)–that’s coarse. Taking into account all these factors, we can safely come to the conclusion that Dr. Pinker’s theory is as right as he thinks because it is appropriate Houyhnhnm thinking.

Dr. Pinker’s definition of onomatopoeia is that it is solely sound-based; but in Japanese there are two major types: giseigo and gitaigo, the latter referring to actions. A third group, of which gotcha-gotcha is a good example, refers to states of being (upset stomach or being mixed up). In Chinese, onomatopoeia is used, mainly, for giving strong impressions, expressing things realistically and representing the rhythms of various activities. Dr. Pinker is a follower of Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, yet he cannot uphold this thesis in Chinese or Japanese. But Dr. Pinker is a cutting edge Houyhnhnmist!

Dr. Pinker also notes that most “sn~” words refer to the snout (nose). This kind of assertion plays because: 1) he’s an authority; and 2) no one’s going to actually count all those words. . .except for a second language learner who counted and found 60% of the “sn~” words had nothing to do with the nose. Not a very worthwhile observation, of course, as students are your penultimate Yahoos.

In his Language Acquisition, Dr. Pinker engages in the most egregious Houyhnhnm analysis of how children gain an understanding of how to use language given that they are not open to hearing constant repetitions of patterns: he shows us how they, children, use higher intellectual functioning to come to a conclusion, his conclusion. In truth, children are incapable of even the simplest of arithmetic computations. Not only do children not have this ability to logically analyze backwards from a given until they are much older, Pinker is going about his explanation backwards, as if the end product is the cause when it is more probably the effect of the learning (Cf. Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species, for a different take on this).

Dr. Pinker first slides around issues by using ifs, shoulds, coulds–suppositions that assume much but prove nothing. “[C]hildren should start off assuming that their language requires the largest possible governing category, and then to shrink the possibilities inward as they hear the telltale sentences” resulting in “this subtle pattern of predictions.” But they already don’t hear constant repetition. Children are also supposed to “assume, by default, that languages have a fixed constituent order. They would back off from that prediction if and only if they hear alternative word orders, which indicate that the language does permit constituent order freedom. The alternative is that the child could assume that the default case was constituent order freedom.” Eh? “Constituent order freedom”? What kind of children does he know? Children who can classify at age 2 or 3?

Dr. Pinker is thinking, it seems, that children have the same mental agility as he, an adult Houyhnhnm, and can engage in axiom-making and assumption-getting that go with higher inductive and deductive reasoning. He is having children reason as an adult Houyhnhnm might. This is fallacious reasoning. One that, perhaps, Jonathan Swift perhaps might could have used in Gulliver’s Travels or any of his other satires. Children can’t add one and one, Dr. Pinker. Children can’t tell that 10 cc of liquid in a short, round glass is the same as 10 cc of liquid in a tall, thin glass. Unless, perhaps, of course, there were Houyhnhnm children, little people full of horse sense. Again that ancient philosopher of language, Ernst Cassirer: “If a child when learning to talk had simply to learn a certain vocabulary, if he only had to impress on his mind and memory a great mass of artificial and arbitrary sounds, this would be a purely mechanical process.” But, of course, Dr. Pinker does believe that the brain is only involved in mechanical processing. However,

It would be very laborious and tiresome, and would require too great conscious effort for the child to make without a certain reluctance since what he is expected to do would be entirely disconnected from actual biological needs. The ‘hunger for names’. . .reminds us that we are here confronted with a quite different problem. By learning to name things a child does not simply add a list of artificial signs to his previous knowledge of ready-made empirical objects. He learns rather to form the concepts of those objects, to come to terms with the objective world. . . . And language, taken as a whole, becomes the gateway to a new world. All progress here opens a new perspective and widens and enriches our concrete experience (Essay on Man, p. 132).

So it would seem that learning all of these words is learning an objective world. As Suzanne Langer posits in many of her writings, especially Mind, the brain’s job is to find meaning.
The brain we humans have took millions of years to evolve but the language we use evolved (evolves) in hundreds or thousands of years. So, language cannot be an evolution-dependent item, as Dr. Pinker posits. But it could be, as Dr. Deacon notes, a co-evolutionary item, à la Baldwinian evolution/selection (Cf. The Symbolic Species). But Dr. Terrence Deacon is not among the media’s edge-defying Houyhnhnm scientists. Who knows why. Perhaps because he’s not colorful enough. Or maybe he’s too fond of gorillas, especially gorillas that symbolize (Koko). And gorillas are a lower life form. They are not Houyhnhnms. And–horror upon horror!–Dr. Deacon consults with Koko.

Dr. Pinker does not like Dr. Deacon. Actually, Dr. Pinker doesn’t seem to like anyone who doesn’t think as he does. This becomes obvious in The Stuff of Thought, especially as he cites himself 20 times, twice as often as any other writer/theorist–and Terrence Deacon not at all. His weight in the corpus of linguists around the world is evident via their not citing him at all in their work.
But Steven Pinker is colorful and animated and popular and that’s what’s needed in selling a Houyhnhnm science. As long as it sounds great, it’s good. As long as it’s making fame and fortune for a previously unknown psychologist, it’s cutting edge.
It is of no account that the Yahoos in the Old West called these kinds of people con-men or snake oil salesmen and Medievalists charlatans. They are not, of course, Houyhnhnms and, therefore, jealous in their jibes.
_______________

Bibliography
Brockman, John. Edge. http://www.edge.org/
Cassirer, Ernst. An Essay on Man. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944.
Deacon, Terrence W. The Symbolic Species: the co-evolution of language and the brain. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.
Deutsch, David. The Fabric of Reality. New York; Penguin Brooks, 1997.
Fischer, David Hackett. Historians’ Fallacies. New York: Harper & Row, Pubs., 1970.
Goldberg, Natalie. Wild Mind. New York: xx, 200x.
Langer, Suzanne. Mind. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 19xx.
Pinker, Steven. Can’t find the words? Make ‘em up at http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article2474562.ece
__________. The Mystery of Consciousness at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580394,00.html
__________. The Stuff of Thought. London: Allen Lane, 2007.
__________. Words Don’t Mean What They Mean at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1659772,00.html
Popper, Karl. Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge Classics, 1969.
__________. Unended Quest. London: Routledge Classics, 1994.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. London: xx, 16xx.
Toulman, Stephen. The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.
Vonnegut, Kurt. God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. New York: xx, 19xx.

*Huang Jia’ning is a tri-lingual interpreter: Chinese-English-Japanese. It is thanks to his input that I was able to discuss the problems with interlanguage onomatopoeia, despite my years in both China and Japan.

Chinese Education: The Plight of the Foreigner

The caveat here is that, for the most part, the foreign contingent from America are without qualifications; they are in China to travel and only teach to make money. They possess a Bachelor’s degree and are native English speakers. That is all the qualification they need to find a job in China, jobs that, because of them, are a dime a dozen and, so, the pay is accordingly low. Albeit that housing is included into the bargain. They give, by their incompetence and uncaring attitude, the rest of the foreigners who really are qualified a bad name.
One of the reasons this situation exists is that incompetency is liked in Chinese universities. It is the going thing amongst the Chinese themselves. Of less satirical nature is the need for warm bodies to fill slots to show the government that the university is really employing foreigners teaching oral English and the ubiquitous and totally meaningless Western culture. Sometimes, they will attempt other courses but their incompetence is usually too glaring even for the Chinese. So, foreigners are seen as teachers of oral English and culture, c’est finis. I was cut out of teaching writing at one college because “a Chinese teacher can teach Chinese how to write better than a foreigner.” Never mind my credentials or my 40 years’ experience or the fact that the college’s student performance was not very good. And never mind that my students score higher on the almighty test or post better written theses or show all-round improvement in their English abilities. A Chinese knows better.
Oral English is a throw-away course since there is no need to speak English well and certainly there are no oral English components to any nationally standardized tests until the frightening, to the student, TEM-8, the final test of English competency for English majors. The national fail rate is 60% on this test. The oral component to the test is a very small percentage of the whole, however.
The method of attacking such a failure rate in many colleges is to do more of the same by teachers who may be able to speak English but teach in Chinese. Beating a dead horse? The students are lectured to. They are told how to write, how to memorize scads of information that can only satisfy test-makers but has, in truth, nothing to do with English competency. There is no vocabulary component to the TEM-8 but they are pushed, pushed, pushed to memorize 10,000 words. Most of the students run around with an ultra-thick pocket-sized book of “10,000 words you need to know for the TEM-8.” No one actually encourages these students to read more.
I did a study of English testing in China and the TEM-8 is the only test I came across that had no mistakes in it. Not only no mistakes in answers but no mistakes in grammar and word usage in the directions. The only one. All of the other tests are defective in both answers and English usage in directions, as if the country wants its students to be incompetent or deficient. The TEM-8 corresponds to an SAT or ACT verbal component. The only time a Chinese major in English can take the test is during the last semester of college. They get two more tries.
Note that passing the TEM-8 is not a requirement for teaching.
I have had good success with my approach to teaching writing, resulting in higher test scores. But it is of no account. I am a writer. But this, too, is of no account. I am an editor. This is not worthy of consideration. I am a foreigner: what am I doing here? And it is by way of this question that foreigners are bashed and held to be incompetent, whether they are or not.
It works this way: if you have a higher degree–that is not TESOL–and you are in China, you are in China because you are incompetent to teach in your own country. This isn’t just an unwritten law or unstated attitude, we will be asked this outright. I was even asked this question by a Canadian private International school! The Chinese do not understand that there might be other reasons, including personal choice, because they are fully aware of how low their educational status is in the world. They’re not, however, into improving themselves, just maintaining the unthreatening status quo. When I tell people, no one understands but they say, anyway, “Oh. I know.” (This actually corresponds to “I see” but the Chinese translate the Chinese我知道wo zhi dao literally, “I know.”)
We’re also tagged as being stupid: stupid foreigner knows nothing about China and Chinese institutions and Chinese bureaucracy and Chinese ways of doing things and Chinese. . . . We are continually condescended to, even to the point of not understanding our own language. More than once, I’ve been instructed in how English works, why I don’t speak it properly and why I can’t understand my Chinese peers. These people never attend my lectures on English language; in one case, one of these kinds of people actually arranged the lecture.
We foreigners are constantly battling this “stupid foreigner” label and the Chinese Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) personnel deem us to be without resources when they treat us badly or break contract. Indeed, just recently, I received an e-mail from the FAO telling me they would be not fulfilling their end-of-contract monetary obligations. That is, she wrote to tell me she would be breaking contract. The audacity of such behavior is beyond my ken. However, I do know what to do and had already taken steps via another route over this woman’s behavior. I’d had occasion to try this route several years before. It is the legal route. The problem is that many universities have such a reputation within the community that they can pressure the lawyers and nothing happens. The US Embassy’s American Citizens Bureau is useless: when you contact them with these illegalities, they send you a long list of lawyers and tell you this is all they can do. In fact, they are not in the business of protecting or helping American citizens; they are in the business of protecting Embassy personnel.
For this individual FAO secretary, Hu Jia, at Hefei University of Technology, there is another problem that she is not aware of. Even after my troubles with these people over my seven years here, I was not aware of this: it is not legal for her to tell me I’m not going to have my contract renewed via e-mail, she must do it on letterhead paper. I was very pleased to have this information. But now, with her stated intent to not fulfill contractual obligations, my situation is doubly viable. (I am going with a major firm that does an immense amount of international business.)
This particular person, Hu Jia, embodies all of the worst characteristics of the Chinese in relation to the foreigner. She is rude, she is inappropriate, she is condescending, treating us as if we’re stupid beyond belief–and we all avoid her. In truth, she does not do her job: she sits in her office and has her hired graduate student help do it all. They all dislike her, 100% across the board: not one of them likes her or will work for her past the end of their work-study obligation. That she lets her personal dislike color her decision-making is evident in my being at this university. From the day I arrived she has been rude and sought to cause me trouble. Indeed, she decided that not only could I not have, much less understand, contacts in China but that my nice recommendation from a college I’d been with for three years was not acceptable because there was no problem there. In her own words, she was “looking for trouble.” In her bid to discredit me, she let my visa expire. Without resource to her contacts, the university would have been liable for the fine: 400 RMB/day. I’m the one who came up with the argument to get around this problem (that she caused, in the name of finding trouble with me). The grad students who were with me at the Public Security Bureau (PSB, police) relayed the reasoning to her and it was followed. Since then, the needed repairs to my apartment have not been undertaken despite repeated requests: her excuse is that she’s “just an office and can do nothing.” Promises made to me, that enticed me to choose this school, have yet (8 months later) to be kept. Yet I am the one who is rude and uncooperative.
Let us look at this “cooperation” concept a little. Chinese society is known as a society of harmony and cooperation. The foreigner is inveigled with this and told to learn cooperation, for they are dealing with Chinese. That is to say, all adjustment to culture is from the foreign side and none from the Chinese side. Why should they adjust to the foreigner, to any slight degree, as they are Chinese and this is their country. There is no conception that they are dealing with a foreigner and that some knowledge of foreign culture and behavior might be in their favor. No. They are Chinese and this is China and the foreigner is dealing with Chinese. About the only concession is the contract: Chinese get no contract. They are kind of held in thrall and if they are dismissed they are screwed for the rest of their lives. So it goes.
Being culturally sensitive after several years in Japan and China, I am aware of the vagaries of the Chinese way of doing things, though I’m constantly beset by Chinese telling me I know nothing: after all, I’m a stupid foreigner. I am told I must adjust, I must give. No Chinese has any idea how much a foreigner gives in this equation. We must sift through their faulty use of English before we decide to be insulted or not, for half the time they do not know what they are saying when they speak. We must sift through their use of our language in order to make sense of what it is they want or intend before we can appropriately respond. That they are forever not understanding us is not their fault, it is our fault for not adjusting and cooperating with them.
There is a belief that English is an informal language and is not polite, as Chinese is: polite and refined. This is, of course, not at all true. English is an understated language at its best and very polite: an inappropriate level of politeness in a business situation will get you no business association. The Chinese use “want” for just about everything and certainly for every situation where English would use “I would like” or “may I have” or “would it be possible” or other soft and polite phraseology. Everything is want, want, want in Chinese–unless subjective feeling is involved. Or so I’m told, for in restaurants Chinese say “I want” where we’d say “I’d like.” The Chinese do not say “thank you” very much, certainly not to the extent that an American does. I’ve been told more than once to stop saying “thank you,” for it sounds like an insult.
Every time I have used polite English, I have been misunderstood. It hurts me to be grossly forward and demanding, using “I want” and “give me” where I feel I shouldn’t. My mother raised me well, I suppose you could say. “I’d like to see. . .” = “I want” whatever it is. My teeth are on edge just writing this! When they are this kind of foreign impolite, we foreigners must decide whether they are being rude or demanding or just culturally dependant; that is, they know no other way to speak. This sure points up the interference of native language in learning a second language. But. . .the problem isn’t theirs: it’s the foreigner’s. We’re in China: adjust!
It also points up a profound attitude problem that smacks of Houyhnhnm-reasoning. The Chinese have a cherished belief in foreigners, particularly Americans. They see us all through this filter, preferring not to hear or not believe anything to the contrary, even their experience. As if to say, because I believe it is so, it is so. As in: because the Houyhnhnm didn’t believe there was an island across the sea, it didn’t exist and therefore Gulliver as speaking untruth. End of subject.
Foreigners can’t win at this level and they can’t win at the cultural level. No matter how long a foreigner is in China, the Chinese will always have the advantage in any kind of bureaucratic or legal dealings since they know the slippery ins and outs. They are forever telling us we can never fully learn Chinese culture–but we must adjust 100%. And, though we also can garner guanxi关系, they are much more adept and much more capable of using it to their advantage and another’s disadvantage. I’ve never used mine except for personal benefit, thus creating owed guanxi.
The dictionary defines guanxi as “relations.” But there is far more to it than this. I think it is an untranslatable concept, though something similar to “the old boy system” comes moderately close. You build up guanxi and you give it away (owing guanxi). It’s a must in politics. Resource building might be another way of looking at it, though with resource building there’s no influence-type pressure being exerted at any time. Right now, I have no guanxi but I am ending up owing alot, for people are helping me in ways I do not know how to thank them for–and I will certainly pay them back with whatever I can do.
Guanxi: I was personal friends with the head of orthopaedics at a hospital. Whenever I went in about one problem or another, I could just bypass registering (a mighty one yuan per visit) and go directly to his office to be seen. He had other contacts that he used to help me. Guanxi. Sometimes, I would be seen before people who were in the clinic before me simply because I’m a foreigner. I do not like this and turn it down; doctors, though, can be very insistent. However, I gain an immense reputation for being thoughtful and considerate. Hefei University of Technology gives us the ability to travel to our apartment house by taxi; no Chinese staff in a taxi can take the taxi past the campus entry gate. We don’t use this very often. But these kinds of favor are looked on as giving guanxi and we ought to be thankful.
Guanxi is part of harmony. . .and foreigners are always disharmonious because we don’t understand Chinese culture and we don’t know how to communicate, especially inter-culturally. Never mind that we might already have experience in more than one cultural context: this is China. The Chinese believe this is the defining characteristic of their culture, their society, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. It is, however, more correct to say that they want it to be the defining characteristic with such intensity that they will not see it’s vast disharmoniousness.
Harmony is equated to balance, evenness, such that any action that causes an imbalance one way or another, is unwanted, bad. That is, Chinese believe that flatness equals balance and harmony. No emotion, up or down. Getting upset at injustice, for instance, and doing something about it is injurious to balance and harmony, for everything was fine before you raised up your ugly head. And it is right here that bullies and people like Hu Jia with even the slightest amount of authority or power gain the upper hand. They abuse their culture, society’s wish for ideal harmony. Never mind that in life, as in a chemical reaction, there is a constant shifting back and forth from one side of the equation to the other in order to find and maintain balance as the conditions are always changing. Nothing in nature is constant or flat, except the line on the monitor when you die.
This is how the Hu Jia’s of China abuse their culture. They get rid of someone they don’t like for some unfounded reason, no matter how outrageous, no matter how unsubstantiated, and no one does anything. They will not move from their position (they will not cooperate, I think this might be called). Now, if anyone confronts them in order to right the wrong, they are seen as making waves when, in fact, it is the Hu Jia type of individual who has begun the wave-making because everything was fine before they stuck their fingers in the mix. As she is challenged, she must rise to the defense, which is upsetting the balance–which was fine with the unilateral decision, she shouts–and that makes the justice-seeker a disturber of harmony. In actuality, it is the original decision that is disharmonious in motion. But, because someone is confronting the original decision, they are disharmonious. It is a no-win situation. A Mexican stand-off. And, so, nothing is ever accomplished allowing the Hu Jia’s of China to control their world, their fellow Chinamen. In this perversion of balance and harmony, the foreigner is forever on the losing end. Because the foreigner doesn’t understand anything about how Chinese culture, Chinese society works. Simply by being, a foreigner is disharmonious. It stands to reason: a foreigner is not Chinese. Because of harmony, no one will move to help the foreigner. In the educational world, being disharmonious is the end of any kind of advancement of career. And getting somewhere, becoming somebody is the driving force in Chinese society.
In a society that is based solely on getting, on the economic well-being of the individual, meaning is in having more. And more. Without this, people are nobodies. Nobody wants to be a nobody. In Chinese society, people are basically without power, power or control over their own lives, or a sense of purpose: there is no other ethico- moral basis for guiding life than the economic material well-being (thank you Marx). Which translates to the bottom line. Thus, any amount of control, any amount of power one can grasp is a heady cup and those people, those who feel they are nobodies, go overboard when they get it. (That they may be incompetent is only added color to nobodyhood.) They must prove to all and sundry that they are somebody, that is, that they are indeed important: Look at me! Look at me! And so Hu Jia’s abound in society. For some reason or other, especially in the educational sector. As the feeling of power, of being somebody is easiest to gain by victimizing, it is obviously in their favor to victimize those who have no recourse for revenge–and then subsidize their bloated heads with abuse of their socio-cultural idiom (harmony). The easiest to abuse and, therefore, the easiest bully-boy technique to get away with is abuse of the hapless foreigner. As Hu Jia so succinctly put it, “That’s life.”
And so it is that Hu Jia can engage in that audacious announcement that she is not going to honor the obligations of my contract at term’s end. Why? Because, quite simply, what am I going to do about it? (Let’s not question where that already allotted money is going, okay?)
In her rush to exert power and control and her self-righteous hatred, she is placing herself above the interests of her employer (Hefei University of Technology) and the students, of which she used to be one (her oral and culture teacher–an eminently qualified individual–reports she was never in class. She is denying the best education to others in order to crow and strut about.
Hubris is a kind of blowback.