I hope you are enjoying the fiction I am posting. This week a short story called The Cat that Lived which serves as a parable about a marriage. You can download the full story at the end of this preview (free). Do let me know your thoughts.
The Cat that Lived
by Andre’ Gensburger
The cat died on a Saturday morning amidst a blaze of activity designed to save its life. Hooked up to tubes, bandaged and shaved in crucial areas, the cat awaited execution atop the sterile metal table in one of the examination rooms. Howling dogs could be heard in the background.
It was Jane who called it “execution”. The veterinarian had softened such harsh realities to “putting the poor thing out of its misery” or “putting him to sleep.” But then the vet had also joked about putting her own husband to sleep and had not intended that to come across as a peaceful transition.
“There could be some spasms after the injection. It may not look pretty. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait in the outer office while we do this?” she asked.
Jane shook her head. Her husband, Jason, watched from behind. Despite the sadness of the moment, he found himself intrigued by the unfolding event, semi-detached as though he were watching a National Geographic television special or one of those made-for-T.V. movies that were so popular a few years earlier.
He noticed the calmness of the vet, the way her face would contort into a grieved expression without the substance of grief, as though she wanted you to believe that she was killing her own pet rather than yours. He did not feel convinced.
The vet-tech attached another tube, one into which fast-acting poison would later be injected. The first shot is only a sedative to calm the animal, he was told. The second one paralyses the heart. Ka-boom!
Robert could envision a future world in which the elderly were dispatched with the same precision and the consoling pre-eulogy of the attending physician “putting the poor thing out of his/her misery”.
“It’s better this way,” the vet said, her eyes offering another rendition of sadness and sympathy as she discharged the contents of the syringe through the tube leading into the cat.
Click HERE to download the full story.
MisterWriter
I was a teacher that morning that changed the face of the country. Arriving early to ready the classroom, and prep for the lessons of the day, CNN was on - that dumpy old television secured to the upper corner of the room in case a California earthquake would dislodge it.
Instead, I numbly watched first the one jet, then the other, chilled by the image of not only the rampant act of destruction, but by the final thoughts and terror of those on board, who must surely have known their end was a building toward which the craft was diving.
Stupidly, I half-expected the aircraft to emerge from the other side of the building, watched the wingtip slicing through, the last vestiges of the plane as it exploded within.
The numbness seemed to make the reality of the moment a slow motion event. My God, this cannot be real.
Watching as the first tower collapsed - I had been in that building once, so many years earlier - and then later, unexpectedly, the second tower, and the carnage left as an unplanned bonus by lunatics with a death wish for our "evil" country.
How do you now explain to a room full of fourth graders that they are now witnesses to a moment in history that will forever be a part of the fabric of this nation, embedded as firmly as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King, as deep rooted as Woodstock only the antithesis of it's purpose?
And I remember hoping that none of my students had parents flying that day; although I knew somewhere in the country some children in a classroom like mine, had just witnessed the death of one or both parents, relatives, friends or neighbors. It was inevitable.
This was a scene from a Bruce Willis action movie, only not. The heroes were dead.
The disbelief, the sense of separation from reality, the lack of hope that somehow this would turn out differently, although we knew that it would not.
Life is a fabric with a story woven into it. Here the fabric was tearing, ripping lives throughout the nation and the world; how false our sense of security had become, how complacent we had become that life was safe.
For the last decade we have run from that moment; turned defense into offense, entrenched ourselves into two countries and wars that have broken the financial spine of our country and caused the world economic system to begin a spiral downwards from which they may never recover. And while we may no longer live in fear, more so from finally, almost a decade later, having found and dispatched the mastermind behind Sept. 11, a being we created long, long ago in a war that is still not so far away, we still are haunted by our vulnerability, constantly reminded of the dangers lurking from all modes of travel, as well as the potential for dirty bombs and other weapons of destruction. And we know, in all likelihood, the enemy lurks from within.
A recent survey found half the country suffering from some form of mental illness. Is it surprising? Americans have the potential for greatness and the proclivity for naivety, all wrapped in a blanket of patriotic fervor.
I wrote a poem back then…
UNITED STATES
By Andre Gensburger
I was not born American,
But I am one whose
Stars & Stripes flag unfurls,
Goosebumps as the anthem sounds,
Neck hairs straight as soldiers,
Eyes swell like surfer tides,
Guiding my soul to the heart of my soil.
This immigrant, that citizen,
My colors, I stand
Stricken by the tragedy inflicted
By those who can’t understand
The States of Unity.
So here, a decade later and another life ago for me, looking back at those normal people who lived normal lives only to one day become the martyrs and the symbols for our lost innocence, I cannot help but wonder, despite the passage of time, how far we have come from the pain that stabbed at our very core.
A memory entombed forever.
MisterWriter
Here is a Wednesday story for you. If you would like to read the rest, click the link at the end and you can download it. Let me know what you think. Enjoy – MisterWriter
Wasp Men: Guts and Glory
by Andre' Gensburger
I watch the wasp flit around the back yard, checking out the nooks and crannies to be found under the overhang before zipping off. Like a fighter jet coming on for carrier landing, it flies with its carriage hanging low, stinger like the hook on a fighter that grabs the deck wire to stop it from going off the edge of the carrier, only this one won't be stopped.
Back again it passes my head, menacing because I have been taught that it is territorial and does not give a shit about my territory; and the fact that as spring slipped into summer heat and the onslaught of the wasps proved insurmountable, I was beginning to feel like a minority at racist rally, always on the lookout for the attack that would be aimed my way but never knowing where it would come from.
I stared it through its zigs and zags, my weapon loaded, oozing excess toxins out of the nozzles that I had adapted for this hunt, and caught it in the gun sights, trying for that Mister Miyagi ballet of movements that would allow me to Zen in on the kill; the fucker had to land sometime.
Pulling hard on its ailerons in snapped upward in an illegitimate movement from Top Gun, you know the one where crazy Tom Cruise pulls on the speed flaps and.…
To read the rest or download the story click HERE.
(and yes I know the photo is a bee and not a wasp…)
As someone who has watched the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, I understand that time changes and that efficiency gives way to nostalgia, especially when the 85-year old nostalgia has health issues himself. And after the fact, the first telethon held without him, cut to 6 hours from 21 still raised more money, so in terms of charitable intake, the MDA seemed to suffer little. What is apparent and a seeming fact of modern life is that age no longer deserves a recognition or respect, especially in the case of someone who has done a service for MDA since 1966. We are living in the disposable world where people are irrelevant, unless they have some sordid lifestyle worthy of broadcasting on a global scale.
At the least the MDA should have had a recognition or some public way to thank Lewis for the years (and the millions). It could have even been prior to the Telethon itself. I’m sure that there are reasons why nothing was done, but from a viewing audience it just seems that an old man was ousted and that was that. And that is, in my opinion, bad form.
There is no doubt that the MDA does good work. I hope that with the public scrutiny they have received from comics and others in the television community, that they may yet do something that would be a more appropriate farewell. You can read about this year’s telethon HERE.
MisterWriter
Look! It has been awhile since I blogged on education, but when I read that Fresno County Superintendent Larry Powell is giving up most of the next three years of his pay, with a value of about $800,000 in exchange for $31,000 a year salary, about $10,000 less than a starting teacher salary and without benefits I just had to add my fifty cents worth of comment.
“Well done, Mr. Powell.” READ THE STORY HERE. He said: “A part of me has chaffed at what they did in Bell,” Powell said, recalling the corrupt Southern California city officials who secretly boosted their salaries by hundreds of thousands of dollars. “It’s hard to believe that someone in the public trust would do that to the public.”
So many CA school districts are struggling financially and for a superintendent to receive $200,000 or more per year in the face of this while expecting staff to lose pay and benefits through cuts and furlough days, and the loss of high school athletics unless funded through donations and parents, is absurd.
I won’t name key supers but quite frankly, the job itself is, in my opinion, a multi-redundant one. Each district has a superintendent. Each county has a superintendent. The State has a superintendent. Of course, all these jobs are totally necessary, not unlike many government jobs and political posts occupied by over bloated blowhards who thrive on their salaries while shifting positions. I especially like the ones who demand government accountability while exploiting the press moment and ultimately doing little to change the process of lack of accountability. You don’t need names –just read the news.
The state is broke. Many school districts are broke. Cities are losing services. But those in charge, many of whom we foolishly elected, still enjoy high salaries, benefits and perks.
What Larry Powell did was to take a stand. Yes, perhaps the amount of money saved by Powell is small in the scope of the overall damage; however with inspirational leadership perhaps teachers would demand their unions follow along the same lines, with everyone in the trenches together and sparing the actual victims of this crisis – students - who no matter what are currently receiving a substandard education lacking in character development and personal responsibility lessons because the people in charge are showing the worst of leadership and not the best.
Instead of worrying about the gay, lesbian and transgender history textbook modifications at God knows what cost; how about getting down to the real issues. The English language, despite the slang, has changed little. History is about the same and still no one pays attention. Math may have more complexity but if your twenty year old cannot do percentages what good is algebra in second grade? Science deserves more attention, less theory and more hands on learning. Fancy computer programs only go so far. I want to build that laser beam that cuts through steel in the classroom. Textbook adoptions are the ultimate waste of money and time.
Perhaps the biggest lesson that Powell puts out there is one where schools face the toughest issues; behavior. Having moral fiber, accountability, integrity, responsibility, are best learned through doing and not telling. We do, after all, lead by the examples. He gave us a good one. Let’s extend that up to the national level – Congress?
PS: Election year coming up – get rid of the ruddy faced blowhards that simply play government instead of living it.
MisterWriter
