A Reckoning

I did not write this, it was something I found many years ago and held onto long after the site containing it passed on. As far as I know, the original author has been lost, but I post it only in good faith. Just absorb it right now. The magisterial world in the eyes of a child is but the minutiae of the adult's daily experience, but there is no reason to deny a child the majesty of the world. Every minute detail of life has to start out as a blinding revelation.

A Reckoning

My name is Jacob. I am the last brother born in my family. I have 3 older brothers, all of which have gone through the reckoning. It is a coming of age tradition that has been in our family for several generations. A test of survival in the 'real world', and it was done at a very early age.

Now it was my turn to carry on the tradition of the Reckoning. I was turning 6 years old today. All of my brothers had turned 6 when that day arrived for each of them. My mother had awakened me early and she fixed me a big breakfast. My father was also downstairs, and upon my arrival, he was sipping on a cup of coffee. For some reason, all my senses were heightened. I could smell the caffeine in my father's cup. I felt the heat from the toaster and I was 10 feet away. The sound of a knife spreading butter on a piece of toast was almost deafening. I could hear my breathing, and my own heart beat.

I sat down at the oaken table and began to eat. Not a word was spoken between the three of us. My mother and father spoke not to each other, but you could see the fear in my mother's eyes. My father was a rock. Unemotional, stone-faced, unflagging.

After breakfast, my mother ushered me up the stairs to my room where I found a brand new suit laid out across my bed. The 2 surviving older brothers, who had gone through this when they were 6 years old had purchased it for me. The reckoning required formality as opposed to normality. As I put on the white shirt and black pants, I started thinking about little things that were said amongst my brothers about the reckoning. Just bits and pieces were picked up from overhearing the conversation, but I was never able to make any real sense of it. The tone was clear, however. It was one of fear and foreboding, and if a conversation ever came up about this tradition, it was never meant for my ears to hear.

Dressed, and down the stairs, my mother and father took me by the hand and led me to our car. I got in the back seat, and father began to drive to the place where IT was. The trip took an agonizing 23 minutes as I saw it on the clock on the dashboard. Each second ticked away to the flash of a colon between the hour and minutes, and I felt each one pass through me. Perhaps counting the last minutes and seconds of my existence on this planet.

The conversation between my mother and father in the car was slow and deliberate. Many words I did not understand, yet the mention of IT was ever present to the point that it made the air thick with dread. Then we arrived at my destiny. My mother and father, again, led me, by the hand through a silver arched entryway into a place I did not recognize. It was dark inside, but soon spots of illumination broke through the blackness. I was too frightened to look around, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see statues of boys dressed in all manner of clothing. I thought that this might have been, in some grotesque way, a remembrance room to those boys who did not survive the Reckoning. Under a single spotlight, directly ahead of me, I saw what my mother had feared and what my father had remembered from his day of reckoning.

It was at least 50 feet high, it's small serrated teeth glistening in the precise light overhead. It's long black arms, stiff and shiny, lay on either side of this unspeakable thing. It was sleeping at the moment, but I knew that this condition would not continue much longer. My mother let go of my hand and stayed behind. A small, oval tear ran down her cheek and she said her silent "goodbye". My father and I continued toward IT. After a few more steps, my father released my other hand and took a couple of steps backward. He looked toward my mother, then looked down over his shoulder at me. His voice was unswerving as he said to me, "Approach it, boy. Hold onto it's arm and stand fast."

It was at that moment that I finally realized my fate. I was to be offered up as a sacrifice to this hideous thing, and if I survived the offering, I will have gone through the Reckoning with honor and dignity. The monster was still in its nocturnal slumber as I silently stepped nearer and nearer. The closer I got, the stronger the fear welled up. It got to the point where I my heart pounded in my chest almost beating to punch free. My breath came in short, heavy heaves as I lifted my hand and touched IT's arm.Then the beast awoke with a tremor and a whine. I clenched its arm even harder as I tried to stand fast as my father had told me. I was slowly being picked up by the thing and lifted into the air. The beginnings of a scream started to form in the pit of my stomach. I had opened my mouth, but even the sound was too terrified to came forth. Higher and higher I was lifted toward an opening near the top. An opening into what, I did not know, perhaps the opening to the end of my short existence. Sweat started sheeting off my forehead stinging my eyes, but I dared not close them for fear of what could happen next. I was breathing so rapidly, that I thought I was going to faint, but I held on with both hands and let out a yell that ripped from my being as a bolt of lightning is ripped from the heavens above. This kept me conscious as I was being pulled up, up, up, into what?!

I glanced over my shoulder and looked down to the ground where my mother and father stood. My mother cried and held out her arms in futile frustration. My father cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled out, "Look ahead, boy. It's almost completed". I broke my gaze with my parents and concentrated on this black opening that lay ahead. I was STILL alive. It was almost over. Suddenly the fear had turned to determination. Determination to last this ordeal. To face the unknown and be able to tell my children about it. In that split second, my mind raced to my future and I vowed I would NEVER put my boys in this situation. EVER. I closed my eyes and wished the ordeal were over and done. This was the moment that I would either survive or the monster would take me quickly. Then, the movement stopped. IT had been silenced for reasons I could not fathom. I had survived the Reckoning. I was alive and my small body was quivering and tingling at the sensation of success. Slowly and carefully, I walked off the escalator.

Slaying the Dragon

In the town of Silene there was a large lake that housed a monstrous dragon that cast a shadow of fear on the community. In order to subdue the dragon, the townspeople began setting loose two sheep a day on its territory, and when they ran out of sheep, they began giving it their children. Every child was put onto a lottery to be sacrificed, just to keep the dragon appeased, and therefore, non-threatening. This happened until the lot fell down on the king's daughter, and though he bargained his riches and his kingdom in exchange for her to be spared, the townspeople revolted, and had her sent out to be sacrificed like all the others.

At that time, St. George was passing through, and he heard her cries. With her help, he was able to bind the dragon and bring it back to the town. He'd kill it if they converted to Christianity, and they promptly agreed, so he raised his sword Ascalon, and killed the dragon in one blow. This is the story of St. George and the Dragon.

I just can't help but be moved by how similar this story is to the situation we find ourselves in, even with the hint at a possible redemptive end. If we frame this story through the perspective of CL, the independent volunteer could be said to be represented by St. George--the outsider who took interest in the girl's plight when all of society had sent her out to be killed. The girl obviously represents children, boys and girls, who are the unwitting pawns of society's fear, cultural oppression, and bureaucracy.

The dragon represents that hysteria to which we see parents willingly "give their children up" to appease (and thus turn the laws made to protect children on the children themselves) if only to douse the fear they've been filled with. How many times have we heard the "protect kids at any cost" line, only to be let down by the fact that part of the cost is the security and happiness of the children themselves? This is what could be meant by the townsfolk and their willingness to feed their children to the dragon to subdue it.

Ultimately though, the outsider prevails, even if it's just in the life of the one child they've made a positive connection with, and in doing so, they slay the "fear society" with their own version of the sword Ascalon... genuine love. The CL does not get the same heroic status as St. George for accomplishing the same feat, but it could be said that even just one out making a child's life genuinely better through genuine actions is a "small victory" over the dragon that is our fear-fed society.

The part about conversion is admittedly the only part that doesn't fit, because it is too idealistic to say that independent CLs will actually end up swaying our culture off its self-destructive fear--our victory isn't something instantly attainable, it's a continual process of good works and charity working parallel to the destructive elements of society. The way I see it, once you decide to be a force for good in the world, that's one small victory against the "dragon."

Aaron's Backyard Battlefield

Test post, let's get this ball rolling.

An experiment with his toy soldiers, the kid kept his plastic close to heart in his G.I. Joe dreams--his head a constant Sunday morning ska song, burbling and bouncing in the muck puddle he'd built around his rockets. He could have been a contented oyster if not for the back fence blues, a boundary short to his sneaker but so endlessly expansive beyond he could practically make out the bug lords of Galaga warping and firing off their blue lasers in the star field. He let out his bodily compression with a good spit on the fence--the "you gotta be kiddin me dude!" delivered to the adult block towers that stood higher than the Vietnamese jungles of the shaggy grass he's kneeling in.

This is the dog-day sweat-soak of summer sun the adults have no control over (even if they think they do). Somehow kids aren't supposed to have thinking brains until they reach the age of majority, so how are they supposed to make it through school with Jello heads full of plastic and Pop Rocks? Really. Some guy named Mill over a hundred years ago decided to leave kids like Aaron out of the reality scene, called them "minors" and gave them all a patch of lawn to launch their wars against. "Minors" have no rights they can make any use with. And why is that? It's because those who granted themselves rights decided one day that being smaller meant you couldn't handle anything outside the patch of grass, as if that patch didn't have it's own rights and limits--it's own jungle law.

Is Aaron's backyard battlefield really the shining example of innocence plopped down angelic and muddy? Here the savagery is considered pure--the dirtier the sight in the adult mind, the more the innocence shines through. Lord knows what wars will be launched and how many people will be killed or thrown through prison just to make sure the dirt and snot that boy smears on his shirt is kept preserved. Intact. Forever.

But they'll only exalt his killing spree as long as it fits within the fence. Not that there's anything wrong with a good old killing spree so long as the kid is stomping out anthills, but the second he turns on the flowers, that's when you'll see the fangs come out! Then he'll be evil just like everyone else.

Some lifeforms are apparently better than others in the eyes of the adult. That's just the way they think. That's how they designed the planet they believe is theirs and the laws and codes they made up off the top of their heads to try to build a civil society for little Aaron to launch his battle against the ants in. Smaller is purer but bigger is better. He's learning.

How could it be any different? Sex is evil unless you can fill a billboard with it. Money is a trap unless you have a lot of it. Aaron's brain would surely explode at the very suggestion that money and sex--and not G.I Joe--run the world that keeps him on his patch of soft grass. And yet, despite all the evils unleashed to keep him there, he'd rather be bigger than pure.

That's kids for you!