Tired of their dance and song, The Children left their instruments of design scattered about the room and made their way to the centre of the class. The Woman was waiting for them, seated on the floor with her legs tucked beside her body and her hands pressed gently in front of her, holding open pages on a book.
She tried not to think of what had just been. It was so typical of him to be so damn inconsiderate, but that’s who he was; it’s how everyone was deep down and so, she tried not to think of it. Instead, she wore the same resplendent smile as when The Children first arrived, trying to make believe her contentment, for herself and for her apathetic Children who too wore trained smiles but inside, their hearts skipped a beat.
“Come my Children, form a circle around your Mother, let the love from my heart warm you” she said as The Children aligned themselves in planetary position; each Child laying on their back with their eyes focused on the ceiling where the loving and assuring orange hue, spreading out over the shadows of the collective in circle holding hands, fell upon their sight.
Unlike their morning lesson of fear, The Children waited for their afternoon story without any bustle. Instead, they lay in content submissive trust, into the loving subconscious embrace of their Mother. They did not chant in voice or in mind, instead, they looked longingly into the orange hue, into the collective huddle and put themselves inside the image. Their minds felt warm and The Children were At Love. When The Woman could feel the sense of continuity, she continued:
“Jonathon and The Collector”
When The Collector got home he dished up a feast, he cordoned his bag and he put up his feet. On an old rocking chair, he rested his rump with his tiresome feet on a rickety stump. It was back and then forth that he swayed in delight with a lick of a finger after every bite. He ate cat he ate dog he ate rat he ate frog he ate fox he ate ox he ate minks he ate lynx he ate mice that had lice he ate maggots for rice, twere the nastiest things twere the things he found nice.
For dessert what he wished on his grubby old plate was the boy he collected, no older than eight.
He cast out his belly and turned on the telly for the air in the room was now thick and was quite smelly. The stench from his farts and his burps and his feet were then made all the worse by the stifling heat.
A scary old man on an old rocking chair with long fingernails and grey greasy hair; skinny white legs and filthy back toes; distracted by thoughts of maundering prose.
Out of his reach and still far from his sight stirred the making of trouble; the start of a fight. From inside his bag well now wouldn’t you know, there now wriggled a wriggly wriggling toe. Then came a foot and from there came a leg and a hand and an arm and a little boy’s head. Out of the bag, the boy jumped for his life and he carried in hand an old hunting knife. He motioned toward the old man and said, “I’ve something to tell you before you are dead.”
The Collector was startled and screamed to the night for a prisoner was he, of distraction and fright. “My boy if you do you’re no better than me for to kill of one’s will is to set hatred free; for desire it rules from the heart to the hand from the seat where I sit to the stance where you stand.”
Jonathon smiled and shook of his head and leaned in and hugged of the old man and said: “To live is to die and to fail is to try and to be an old man is to seldom ask why hath the hole in your heart and the dread in your head be the burden you carry from the road to your bed and these things you collect and forever keep near hath done nothing to vanquish the state of your fear, for this hell you preserve above one, above all; it deepens your downing it heightens your fall. You siphon the past through a memorial sieve as a bitter old man with a life gone unlived.”
The Collector sank into a sad empty stare as Jonathon pulled on the old rocking chair and the old man he hummed such a dark mournful note as the young boy he plunged the knife deep in his throat.
The lesson to learn in this tale of a boy is to caution of conscious, a dangerous toy. For just as a rattle keeps a child at distraction; the thoughts that one keeps tend to speak of inaction.
The Children all cheered in apparent glee but fell empty and silent upon the realisation that the story had ended. Still present on their faces was the common detachment to the underpinnings of the story; unfelt and unmoved, The Children sat awaiting instruction. They had not grown any closer to caring or further from tiding their fears. The Woman rested the book on the floor and the room fell quiet, into sleep. The Children closed their eyes nesting in the orange hue in the depths of their sub conscious dreaming.
When they were asleep, The Woman motioned towards the door and slipped out gracefully holding it open with one hand as she looked down the hall, riding once again, the tail wind of concern for her lover, a sensation that caused her great concern, for herself.