Freedom

“We are caretakers of Mother Earth,” said the shaman girl.

“I want to swallow the world but I am too full of sorrow,” said one.

“I’m going to start a club for procrastinators,” said another, “anybody want to sign up for unlimited access?”

“Are your needs being met?” said Rose.

“I have a need for freedom and a freedom from need. Perhaps I’ll end up taking care of people like us,” said a girl named Hope. “I’m the last myth that dies.”

“Yeah, you can work in a day care center for adults.”

“That’s a-dolts.”

“Hah. We are all death deferred,” said Martha Ann, fixing her glasses with duct tape.

Seeing her experiment with optical illusions, a kid said, “Remember James Joyce? He said, ‘Wipe your glasses with what you know.’”

“Are you plagiarizing again?”

“No. It’s taken out of context.”

“Textile, tactile, texture, context, content, abstract, where’s it all going?”

“Let’s not have this conversation in the abstract,” screamed an abused child being whipped with a fishing pole by his neurotic mother in a wheelchair.

“Are we wondering or wandering?”

“Where’s eternity end?” said the astronomer kid.

“I’m going to study the bottom line,” said a boy raising a digit testing imprecise global economic market index indicators based on assumptions. “If we control the debt, we control the country.”

“International financiers and corporations run the show, babies. Politicians are their slaves.”

ART

Mandalay Palace

A story for Grade 4

“Many world tribes love to look back. It’s all passion and illusions of suffering. A genetic molecule of fear, doubt, uncertainty, surprise and adventure. A childish innocent curiosity lives in the present. As people age they want & need the past.”

“Living in the past is time consuming,” said a genius kid.

“Yes,” said a teacher, “Focus on your needs not your wants. Your need for freedom and freedom from need. Needs manifest a desire for a memory or a ghost or a regret. We are all passing through. Humans look back to see if they see in their vivid reptilian imagination their ghost.

"A ghost from a family or friend looks for clues at their personal ground zero. They’ve evolved from distant galaxies. Java man was discovered here 40,000 years ago. Accepting an evolutionary premise, their DNA star chart continues its genetic dance today. Oh, and one more thing. Don’t let school interfere with your education. See you tomorrow.”

A wandering teacher lived in talking monkey zones. They eat rice. They drink water. They fuck. They breed. They wash one set of clothing and hang it on bamboo. They burn down the forest. They breed, work and get slaughtered. They harvest brooms. Shamans bring rain. Tropical downpours allow people the luxury to wash cars. They use faint energy looking behind them wondering, all the wondering and wandering and milling around. 

Food is cheap. Let’s eat mantra. This has nothing to do with simians. It has nothing to do with the two women sitting in a dark warung neighborhood food joint near a private school.

The warung faces a tall cinder block wall. Chickens, goats and cats prowl, peck and forage through garbage. One woman sits in a deep meditation. Her friend parts her hair looking for insects, cleaning her scalp. They take turns cleaning and inspecting. This genetic behavior is repeated in zoos, jungles and rain forests. Chattering storytellers play the gamelan pounding out 40,000 year-old tunes.

Heal people with music. Music is the fuel.

Males wash toy machines and study accumulated grime under long yellow curling fingernails. They play chess waiting for passengers. Checkmate, said Death.

They visit the warung to chat up girls while eating spicy rice mixed with tofu, chicken, veggies, green chilies and deep-fried snacks. One explorer creates a Brave New World. They forge new futures with cold, detached logical intention. They create an assessment on process in a data based star cluster.

Walk to Hospital #8

The gap between rich and poor in China - such is the reality in developing countries - is becoming more apparent.

Recent figures speak. Average city wages - $2,300 a year. Rural wages - $690 a year.

The central party hopes their economic stimulus will encourage rural people to buy appliances and cars. I need a 4x wheel drive washing machine so I can I take my family on weekend excursions to the beach, the Himalayas and deep tropical jungles where life is simple. Yeah!

The process evolved like this. I walked. I saved and eventually bought a bike. A Flying Pigeon. Black. One speed. It got me from home to the village rice paddies.  

We had a radio in the work unit. The local propaganda machine blasted revolutionary worker party anthems day and night. We got one for the home. My wife was happy. Then we had the required one child. We wanted another one but the forced abortion committee and local officials said, NO! you do not qualify for two children.

Then my wife wanted a TV. Ok I said, let's get a 24" flat screen with a remote.

What about a new rice cooker? Ok I said.

How about a used refrigerator? What's wrong with the box of ice? You shop for fresh vegetables at the market every morning. Why do we need a refrigerator? Because the neighbors have one.

Oh, I see. I scrounged around and traded rice for some chickens and traded the birds for some used teak wood smuggled in from Burma. I developed some connections. One trade lead to another and I eventually found a well used fridge. My wife was happy. Then we filled it up with baby formula.

The formula was tainted with a chemical to increase the protein. We didn't know this small fact.

Our little girl became sick. The Worker's Hospital #8 said I had to pay them a lot of money for medicine or she would die.

I sold my bike to buy medicine. Now I walk to the hospital to see my daughter. It takes forever and a day.

I want to move to a big city filled with neon and food smells and construction projects and appliances hoping against hope to find a job but party leaders say millions of unemployed workers are returning to their villages for Chinese New Year.

The radio and flat scream tell us to stay home. Be quiet. Don't worry. Practice social stability and harmony. My future opportunities look precarious.

I have to go now because they will cut off the electricity soon and I need to get some candles.

"Sometimes life is found in a desperate situation." - Chinese proverb.

Metta.