The Human Zoo A satirical essay.
As we are all aware, the state of our society today is rapidly declining from what it had been in past years. In our great nation there is not a single place a person can go where they are not forced to look upon derelicts and hobos lounging about on the street. Their presence and actions can be entertaining at times, but generally they are just eyesores and leeches on the generosity of productive members of society. Also, another drain on our great civilization are the households with three to ten people living in them supported by only a few people with minimum wage jobs. These households tend to be clustered together in districts sometimes known as "ghettos". This results in groups of low rent apartments with peeling paint, children with raggedy clothes running around in the street as their parents try to earn money to feed them, and gangs of teenagers scavenge the area like starving dogs trying to get ahead of the conditions they were born into.
Obviously, something must be done to stop this horrendous problem. Our country cannot continue to be a place where single mothers struggle to feed and cloth their emaciated children, and homeless old men beg in front of Wal-Mart with scummy cardboard signs. A number of different things have been tried to help these people - food banks and soup kitchens can be found in nearly every town - but these do not solve the problem, they simply help alleviate it. Of course, the problem would be nonexistent if these people could all get good paying jobs, but no one would hire a homeless person and no one should be expected to. And as for the homeless mothers, most didn't make it all the way through high school because they needed to help their parents earn money; their current jobs are obviously all they are suited for. It's not as if these grungy men and desperate women actually count as real people; they are closer to hairless apes in dirty rags. My proposal will solve this problem effectively and with little cost after the first initial steps are taken.
My proposal is to choose a large city somewhere in America and convert it into a giant human zoo. For instance, Oakland would be an excellent choice, especially since it is already heavily populated with the specimens the zoo will be filled with. So, after choosing a city such as Oakland for the site of this zoo, the next step would be to surround the entire city in a twenty-story electric fence. Once the perimeter of the zoo is secured, homeless people and denizens of the ghettos all across America will be rounded up and dumped by helicopter into the zoo. I propose that we call this zoo "The Oakland Grundgio-Homo-Sapian Zoo" or the OGHS for short. As soon as the zoo is filled with these creatures from all across America, little would have to be done to maintain the inhabitants. In the beginning there will be plenty of food left in the native stores for them to survive off of, but after a period of time they will run out. When this happens, the OGHS inhabitants will need to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. The lower class citizens of America are so close to animals already that it will not be a difficult step for them to make. This will be a wonderful development on all parts. Because of the self-sufficient, continuous food supply that people are we will not have to spend valuable tax dollars to feed them, and it will also prevent over population of the OGHS zoo facilities.
In addition to having a very low cost to create and maintain, the zoo could even become a source of prophet. After all the lower class citizens in America are rounded up and exist only in the OGHS zoo, they will become somewhat of a novelty and by offering guided tours by helicopters to the public, we will gain substantial sums of money, and people will be able to see the life and habits of these strange and foreign creatures. We could even sell hamburgers for them to drop from the helicopter to observe their eating habits.
Not only does my proposal eliminate eyesores in our community and the waste of valuable time and money in the useless endeavor of trying to help them, but it also helps the economy. It will create more job openings so that the youth of the wealthy middle class will be able to earn some extra spending money, so that more products will be sold and America will become more productive. Company owners and large stock holders will become even more rich off what will be not dissimilar to feeding cream to veal. America will become a place of rich, fat happy people, - much as it is today, only more so - and all eyesores that are not will be placed in the zoo. Also, the places where the lower class people's "ghettos" and soup kitchens had been will make excellent sites for new houses and shopping centers, alleviating the over crowding problem, and the lack of job opportunities at the same time.
My proposal presents a solution to almost every problem in America today. It is obviously the best solution proposed thus far; in fact it may well be the only solution proposed thus far. We cannot allow these inferior creatures to continue roaming our streets unchecked. They need to be captured and controlled, right down to the very last one of them.
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The Sand Runs Out - A Carpe Diem Speech
Death, that dark cloaked messenger of fear, whose skeletal fingers cut the golden threads of every life in due time, holds the hourglass measuring your life. His mouth, forever bared in a grin and a grimace croaks out the passing of each falling grain of sand. Every second of every day, another grain of sand falls, and every day of every year we have one less day to live. The unforgiving sand never ceases; it's steady unrelenting flow varies not until the sand runs out.
We are all blind to the contents of our hourglass - it could be nearly full, with years of fruitful life before us still, or it could be close to it's end, the best years of life already spent. We know not how full our hourglass is, but we know that time is continually passing by. What if you have but a grain of sand left, and that pale-faced harvester now comes for you? What did you do with the fleeting moments of your life? Each grain of sand in passing is precious beyond all measurable worth, more than a thousand priceless gems, more that a kings supply of gold. Were the seas made of sapphires, and the waves crested with diamonds, it would be worth not even one tenth of a single grain of sand as it falls. The sand that still waits in the hourglass is worthless, for we know not if it exists, and the sand that already passed - worthless as well, for it can no longer be used. It is the sand as it falls that is rarer and more valuable than all the riches of the world, for we know not if there will be another after it.
When the sand runs out, the reaper comes, and he comes for us all in time. He cares not of our planes, of our hopes, of our dreams. He takes us, just as we are, to death when our time is up. He may come today, he may come tomorrow, he may come next year, or he may be here now. We have no time to waste to use our precious grains of sand, for our next may also be our last. We must value every moment, seize every day, or when we look back at our time spent we will see nothing but a worthless pile of sand.
~Fin
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Tragic Angels - a short story
The blind was bent in a way so that even when the shade was all the way down, Janet could still peer out the window stealthily. She sat in the dark in her living room, on Jared's big leather chair silently looking out into the darkness and the rain. She was waiting, as she did every night. Waiting to see him. She glanced at the clock. The rain pattered softly against the windows and the walls. It was three minutes to nine. She worried for a moment that he would be late. Maybe something was wrong...? But no, there he was, as usual. He ran quickly in a slightly crouched way from his house to his car. She didn't know why, but every night he would leave his house and go sit in his car for exactly one hour, and then go back. She watched him with a sad, lonely smile. Him - the man with the black tie. He wasn't wearing a tie right now... Now he was wearing a white wife beater tank top and gray sweatpants. The only time Janet saw him wearing the tie was when she saw him at church. It was a plain, common looking tie, not a good item to use to describe a certain person, but Janet couldn't help but think of him as the man with the black tie. She remembered the first time she saw him - wearing the tie. She had been walking up the front steps of the church, tired, weary, and had stumbled. He caught her gently in his arms. It was a thing he would have done for anyone, he was just a nice person like that. She knew it shouldn't make her feel as if she were in any way special to him. But somehow it did. She closed her eyes and remembered brushing against the soft silk of that tie when he caught her.
The rain streaked down the windows in smooth, ribbon like patters as she glanced back out the window. Peering through the sheets of rain was like looking through several of those beaded hanging curtains back to back, but she managed to see him clearly as he turned on the radio in his car. After watching him for a few moments, Janet realized that he was crying. She wished she knew a way to cheer him up...
David sat in his car, as he sat every night, remembering. Remembering that night, so much like this night, at this very time so many months ago. His memory of it was fresh, mostly because it hadn't really happened that long ago, but the pain in his heart was beginning to pale and fade like the newspaper clippings he kept of it locked in that box in his room. She deserved so much better, he knew. Her - the girl with fear in her eyes, the girl who was sick. He had wanted to turn that creeping darkness in her glances into a bright sparkling joy, he had wanted to turn her sadness into happiness. But that fear, that shield she hid from the world behind, wouldn't let him get close enough to try. Then it happened. At 8:58 that evening he drove to her house to see her, and there she was, dead. She deserved someone who would remember her forever, someone willing to die for her, someone whose pain over her death never subsided. But unfortunately, she only had him. He realized he had been crying, and cried more because he knew the tears were not for her, but for himself. Suddenly, he heard a gentle tap at his car window he looked up. The woman who lived across the street was standing there by his car, holding a steaming mug in her hands.
David caught his breath. The rain had beaded on her hair and glistened in the dim lamplight, like a surreal halo. She smiled her sad, gentle smile, and David thought that she must be some kind of angel - a tragic angel. He wiped his eyes and rolled down the window, half afraid that when he looked again she would be gone. The rain coolly dappled his face and arms as he leaned forward to talk to her.
"It's cold out." She said in a shy kind of way, almost as if she were slightly afraid. "I saw you and I thought you might like something warm to drink." David smiled and gratefully took the mug from her small, delicate hands. "It's just hot chocolate" she said, somewhat embarrassed.
"I like it." David said, taking a sip.
She stayed out there a while longer, making small talk and just being friendly. When she started shivering, David insisted that she go back inside and said goodnight. He didn't quite understand what had just happened, but he had a feeling that it might later be important.
Janet closed the door softly behind her when she entered the house so she wouldn't disturb Jared. She leaned back against it and closed her eyes. Her heart was racing. She couldn't believe what she had just done. If Jared ever found out...
"Janet" Jared's voice cut Janet's thoughts to a halt. "What are you doing" His voice was gravelly, as if it came out of a boulder. Sometimes when Janet looked at him she thought that that might actually be the case.
"I just went outside for a moment" Janet said, trying to think of some way to delay what she knew to be inevitable.
"You were talking to some one, weren't you?" Jared asked angrily, fear and suspicion creeping into his eyes.
"It was just the neighbor..." Janet started, knowing it wouldn't help, but knowing it would only be worse if she tried to deny it or lie.
Jared stalked towards her. "What did tell you...?"
David opened the car door and got up to go inside. It was then that he realized he still had the woman's mug in his hand. He smiled. He would return it in the morning. Suddenly, he heard yelling coming from her house. He would return it now.
He barley noticed the rain as he quickly walked across her front yard, remembering the fear in her eyes so much like the fear in that other woman's eyes, so long ago it seemed. He wouldn't let it happen again, not again. As he approached the door he could hear the voice more distinctly, yelling in what sounded like a drunken rage. He knocked anxiously on the door. The was a commotion inside and more yelling. David thought he heard the man yell "Is that him?" but couldn't quite tell. He suddenly felt that maybe coming over here was the wrong move... The yelling grew even louder than before, and David distinctly hear the sound of someone crying out in pain. He decided he had made the right move and opened the thankfully unlocked door door.
Across the room David saw a large, burly man. The beautiful woman was cowering on the ground before him, terrified of the heavy object he held in his hand and clutching her arm.
"Leave her alone" David said in a commanding voice that he couldn't quite keep from shaking.
The man sneered at him in a drunken way and took a few steps forward. Daviv realized that the object he was holding was a gun. David jumped forward and grabbed the gun. He knew it was pointless. He knew he would probably die. But he didn't care. For her, he would do anything. And he didn't even ask her what her name was... David grappled for control over the weapon. he rolled to the side fumbled, knowing at any moment it could go off, knowing that if the man weren't drunk he'd already be dead.
Suddenly a gunshot rent through the night, echoing out into the emptiness. David watched in disbelief as the man fell slowly, oh so slowly to the ground, watched and did nothing as the man grabbed the gun from his hands and in his last dying moments pulled the trigger.
David didn't even fell himself hit the ground. His chest was like a blossoming flower of pain, and the pain was like a toxin, slowly seeping through him, numbing his entire body. A blurry shape came before his eyes. He couldn't make out it's shape, but he knew it was her... He could smell her perfume. He felt her hair brush oh so softly against his face, felt a single teardrop fall onto his cheek, felt her lips gently press against his. He closed his eyes. He stopped breathing, and the last thing he smelt was her sweet perfume, he was numb, but he could still feel her lips against his. And the very last thing he heard was a single gunshot and a nearby thud, before he died for his tragic angel.
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In the Graveyard In My Mind
I wrote this in 2004, I think. It's very rough, but I feel like the power of the emotions in this peice would be dulled and watered down if I changed anything now. Too much has happened since I wrote it.
XXXXI closed my eyes and wandered slowly through my memories. Memories of a long dead past. In my mind, I wandered through a mist woven graveyard, littered sporadically with tombstones like teeth in an old gray skull. Here now was the grave of Travis. "Forgive me, Toni," I whispered as I knelt before it. I had no flowers to lie before this grave, and few memories to linger over. I ran my fingers across the lichen-covered tombstone slowly, trying to dredge up the wispy fragments of thought that remained there.
XXXXI mourned a great deal for Travis when he died. He was so young. I barley even knew my best friend's thirteen-year-old younger brother, but the few times we met had been enough to make an impression on me. He had been so full of life... I recalled laughing with him, bumping into him at the library. Feeling sorrow and regret when we went to a little youth group party without him because he was to ill to get out of bed. I dragged my fingernails across the name on the tombstone, as if some how by digging into the rock I could re-open those wounds and feel the grief I knew Travis deserved. But those old wounds had long scarred over. I wept a tear for Toni, knowing that it would grieve her, and I wept a tear for the young boy that I missed, but no more did I mourn over the grave. "Forgive me, Toni," I whispered again.
XXXXI stood and wandered a while through the graveyard, deep in thought. It was as if this graveyard was my entire life, stretching on and on forever. I came upon another tombstone, and knelt before this one as I had the last. The name on this grave was much longer, and the man deep beneath my feet was much older. Alexander Florence Lucero, it read. Grandpa Alex... I tried to pull away, to leave this grave marker behind me and continue through the graveyard without the sharp barbs of my memories that I knew would reach out to me, but as if in a trance I touched the tombstone. One by one, the memories came back to me, hazy and unclear as my reeling mind tried to suppress both them and the pain. I loved my Grandpa, but when he died I tried to tell myself that I didn't really love him as much as I loved my Grandma. I was always Grandma's little girl. But I knew that all this time I had been telling myself a lie. I most clearly remembered the nursing home. By then I had realized that my Grandfather, one of my only constant friends and advisers, was just a mortal man like any other. I had distanced myself from him, shutting down my heart and not allowing myself to feel the love and the pain of the moment. When he couldn't leave the hospital, I spent my fourteenth birthday there, in the cold, icily tiled room. I made him and Easter card, written in Spanish and carefully painted in watercolors, but I tuned out his joy and pride in receiving it. My heart wasn't in it so it couldn't get broken. I can vaguely recall the times before the nursing home, before the stroke. He had always been out in the garden, he always had his hands dirty and his Walkman on the Christian radio station, and always busy. We would all sit down to dinner together around 5:30, but Grandpa wouldn't come and sit down until about six. He was always late for everything... I can still clearly see his pale, cold face looking up from the coffin. He looked almost alive... So peaceful... Like he was sleeping. I touched his hand and realized it was clammy and stiff. I could bounce a spoon off it like I had done off his pureed peas in the nursing home. I was half tempted to try it, remembering how I had made him laugh. I lay a bouquet of withered roses before the grave and turned away. These memories were buried far deeper than the body; if I stayed any longer I would lose what little composure I had left. I felt as if I was cheating him out of my love, for I clearly remembered that I had loved him. I prayed that in heaven he had the power to understand.
XXXXAs I approached the next tombstone I wondered why I was doing this. I was tormenting myself needlessly, remembering what was best left forgotten. I shrugged. Any pain I gained from this I had brought upon myself, and I knew I deserved to suffer for the way I had treated Grandpa and Travis's memories.
XXXXThe next tombstone bore the name of a man who had perhaps been closer to me than my Grandfather, for he had lived with my family for a number of years. It was the grave of my late Uncle Bo. Yes, this behemoth of a man had been very close to me indeed. I gently ran my fingers across his name and then clenched my fist. I was surprised to find I was still angry with him. But then again, why shouldn't I be? It was his own fault! He was the one who had chosen to die two days before my sixteenth birthday, he was the one who didn't even wait to say goodbye to me before he died. It wasn't my fault; I had every right to be angry. After all, hadn't he told me I was his favorite niece? He should have at least waited till I was there, he could have at least said goodbye! My eyes blurred with tears to think about it. I rested my head against the cool stone of his grave marker, knowing I was being unreasonable, and not caring. He had been heavily into drugs in his younger years, and heavily into rehab and prescribe medications in his later years. He had to take methadone daily so he wouldn't relapse into whatever he had been doing before. Sometimes he would take to much and start acting crazy talking to cabinets and feeding ice cream to walls. But his eccentric nature was one of the reasons I loved him so much. He would talk to me for hours about anything at all. In fact, he would even talk to me when I wasn't there, not realizing I had left the room as much as an hour before. He would fall asleep while he was eating, and was constantly injuring himself, but it was more of a joke than a problem with him. Everything was like a joke with him. Though he was old enough to be my grandfather, it seemed like Uncle Bo was just a large and often foolish child. He was irresponsible, juvenile, and every bit as much my favorite Uncle as I was his favorite niece. For him, I laid down a single fresh apple blossom. I remembered everything about him so clearly, but I knew that it wouldn't be long before those memories faded away. "I miss you, Uncle Bo..." I got up and walked resolutely away.
XXXXThere were other graves in the graveyard, but they were for people I had barley known, or never met. All in all, the number of people buried in the graveyard was minute when compared to the number of graves waiting to be filled. I came across a hole in the ground, freshly dug with the tombstone already in place, waiting patiently what it knew would be a short while before it was filled. My heart filled with dread, I looked at the name engraved there. Lucy Francis Lucero. My Grandmother or, as I fondly called her, my "Honey Gran" I had known that was what it would say. When Honey Gran first started to forget things I had unconsciously drawn my shields up around me, trying to sever my past ties with her and protect myself from the pain of the inevitable, but I had always been Grandma's little girl. It wasn't nearly as easy with her as it had been with Grandpa. At first I was able to keep my distance, block out the past and treat her with kindness like I would with any old, forgetful lady. But this wasn't just any old lady, this was Honey Gran. In church I would hear her trying to sing the new songs, struggling with tunes she had heard before but could never remember and I would remember her singing in her cracking voice that I loved so much to the old Hymns, pointing to the words for me to follow in the hymnal. I used to think that there was no one in the world who was a better singer than my Honey Gran. Sitting next to her in the pew because she was now too tired to stand, I would remember sitting between her and Grandpa in that very church feeling so safe and sure of everything. I used to worry about her going so soon, because I had made a promise to her and was afraid I wouldn't be able to carry it out. Ever since I could talk I remember solemnly vowing that one day, I would grow up and take care of my Honey Gran. I regret that she probably won't live long enough for me to really take care of her every need, but I know that I have at least carried out a small part of that promise, looking after her and seeing to her comfort whenever I visit.
XXXXPerhaps more than Grandma, I'm also going to miss Grandma's house. It was my rock and comfort in an ever-changing world, and in just a little while it would be gone. I stood up, lying nothing on the empty grave. I would not mourn for the living. I would have more than enough time for that after her death.
XXXXI glanced around the graveyard one last time. Barren and lifeless, I knew there was nothing but old memories for me here. I turned to leave, thinking of Travis Grandpa, and Uncle Bo. They were no longer in the world with me, and I knew I would never see them again, but I could always remember them and all of the other dearly departed if I just took the time to walk through that lonesome graveyard in my mind.
Drakansa Community Member 
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