HEAVEN IS FULL OF ARSEHOLES
a short story by
cseanmcgee
Heaven is full of Arseholes
“an unconventional take on unconditional love”
Copyright© Cian Sean McGee
CSM Publishing
The Free Art Collection
Araraquara, São Paulo, Brazil 2014
Second Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, scanning or digital information storage and retrieval without permission from the author.
Cover Design: C. Sean McGee
Interior layout: C. Sean McGee
Author Foto: Carla Raiter
this short story was written under the influence of:
California by Mr. Bungle
THE INCIDENT
“I’ve never felt so…” said The Headmaster, unable to finish her words.
“We’re really sorry. He’s not usually like this, I promise. I‘m sure it’s just a phase he’s going through. He’s never done this kind of thing before, I swear” said The Mother, lying ingenuously and twisting a small, colored, cloth butterfly nervously between her fingers.
“That is so true. Yes, a phase, that’s how we should look at this. Something he is transpiring. Something we are all going through I think, wouldn’t you say?” said The Therapist; her highly inflected nasal tone slapping at the decency of The Mother and The Father, sitting scolded by the spark of their son’s inner villain whilst resting against the subtle defense of the genuine goodness of a boy, who; through an Arctic stare, looked vacant and desponding at a small insect with a broken wing, hobbling on what could have been a crushed limb, up the length of the wall that divided the tense air between The Headmaster and The Therapist; the latter, dancing on tentative toes around the obvious truth that no amount of doing could ever undo the do that had already been done; this boy was seriously fucked up.
“And what do you have to say?” asked The Headmaster in a tone that was less of a question and more of a prodding into an expected expressing of guilt, remorse or a simple apology.
The Son said nothing. He continued watching the insect in its slowed ascent towards escape, hobbling up the limestone wall and sputtering about to the left and to the right; to and fro, like an old drunk staggering about in canting solace with his no change in his pockets, no thought in his mind and humming a tune to a song that he could not sing, as he strayed into the path of oncoming truck as suddenly a ruler smacked against the wall, crushing the small escaping insect and returning the boy to his state of discipline.
“Well, speak. Don’t make me look stupid. Answer the question? What do you have to say for yourself? What were you thinking? You thought’ you’d get away with it? What did you think was going to happen?” said The Father.
“Well?” asked The Headmaster.
The Son started to drift away once again, his heart rate slowing with every long and drawn breath, filling and heavying his lungs like a bag of sand, pulling his consciousness overboard into an ocean of imagination. And before the currents could completely sweep his care away, he looked to The Therapist bemused.
“I dunno, I was bored I guess,” he said.
“You guess? It’s not a test. Tell her what she wants to hear” said The Father.
“What?”
“Say you’re sorry,” said The Mother.
“Yes that would help,” said The Therapist.
“Say you’re sorry,” said The Father.
“Say you’re sorry,” said The Headmaster’s stern look.
“Say you’re sorry,” said The Father again.
“They’re right you know. Just say you’re sorry. It’ll all be better” said The Therapist, winking at The Son condescendingly as she spoke.
“But I’m not sorry,” said The Son.
“It doesn’t matter what you feel, it matters what you do and what you say, now do the right thing and say you’re sorry for everything you did,” said The Mother finally stepping out of her passive umbrage.
“I’m sorry,” said The Son, falling flat against his own empty words, simply sounding them out like an ignorant tourist as if his heart and soul were not connected to their literal meanings. And when he spoke, nothing changed within himself; no remorse, no growth, no closer to the fidgety hand whose fingers tried precariously to curl against his own and canvass some affection and no closer to the ‘himself’ that others were debating he be.
“What now?” asked The Mother. “He did apologize.”
“That is so true,” said The Therapist winking at The Son condescendingly.
“I’ll have to expel him. I have no option” said The Headmaster.
“You can’t expel him. Just give him one more shot. I’ll speak to him. He won’t do this again, trust me” said The Father whitening his knuckles as his fingers clenched the rounded tip of the arm rest, his nails digging into the leather as the extent of his rage and disappointment was kept carefully detached from his words but The Son knew that when his father spoke, his lips would not move.
“If I don’t expel him then what sort of example am I sending to the other kids? You saw what he did; there are videos of it circling around. Do you know how embarrassing this is for me?” said The Headmaster inviting a smear of shame across her cheek so as to make her point.
“Look, I know what he did was wrong”
“It was more than wrong,” said The Headmaster.
“Oh definitely, worse than wrong, it was terrible, yes terrible that’s what it was,” said The Mother.
“That is so true,” said The Therapist winking at The Mother condescendingly.
“Ok, what he did, it was disgraceful. We don’t condone this sort of depravity and I am really sorry that we’re in this situation. Like I said, I’m not condoning what he did, but I think maybe there might be a more fitting punishment than expulsion. Are we really teaching him anything if he gets expelled?” asked The Father.
“That is true,” said The Therapist winking at The Father suggestively.
“And how do I know he’s not going to do something like this again?” asked The Headmaster.
They all turned with pinioning stares, fixed on the boy who was slouched in his chair with his fingers tapping at the leather curve in the arm chair where on his own chair, his father had clawed.
The Father’s eyes glowed and every part of him tried to be the dominating threat that he had been in the boy’s infancy when a single glare was enough; like a boring drill into the earth, to extract a well of tears and a blubbering apology. Now that he was older, The Father’s stare couldn’t dig deep enough through his son’s rock of cynical expression and his glowing stare only sufficed in straining his eyes and scolding his own inner sanctum so that he in turn made himself the whipping boy of his own surmounting shame.
“I can assure you” said The Father, lifting his heavy weighted stare so that the effect of his anger stowed like a heavy carriage upon the crux of The Headmaster’s attention, dressing every word in a disappointed veil, “if you can see it in your heart, in your intellectual restraint, if you can; this one time, overlook this stupid event from my son I, no we, and my son included, would be gratefully appreciative and I’m sure we can find some way to make it up to the school for being so… generous” he continued, engineering his words with careful consideration.
“It seems a shame you know, to expel him, he is so smart,” said The Mother doting on an imagination.
“That is so true,” said The Therapist winking condescendingly at The Son and again at The Mother before turning her emotive reference to The Headmaster who sat decided with her fingers
firmly entwined in negated attention.
“I have spoken to his teachers,” she said to The Headmaster, nodding distractingly, like the bobbing head of a new born child, “and you know, they all say that he has great potential. He’s a smart cookie” she said like any mother would to their entirely average child.
“I’m sorry. My decision is made” said The Headmaster bluntly.
“Please, you have to reconsider” pleaded The Father.
The Headmaster seemed to address little concern to The Father’s plea. His words pulled on her empathetic string with the strength of a grain of sand holding back a hurricane. His look of desperation; which welled in his widening eyes, did little to erode her mount of humiliation that was invisible under the lathered mold of her unstrained expression; that sticks and stones stare of a trained professional that she wore like her favorite blouse.
She blinked once; clearing dust from her eye, as her hands delicately turned the notebook she had been guarding so that the a look of shock and dissenting dismay slapped The Father and The Mother affectionately across their unexpected faces, shortening their defenses like the creaking of footsteps on wooden boards would, to conspiring hands, busy, painting themselves red.
The Therapist gulped and swallowed deep into her belly; into her special vault, the negation of human indecency, the wondering belief that people only dressed as monsters to survive the plight of monsters, that underneath, they were all innocent, merely the effect of scorned fragility and that this trembling innocence needed to be plucked from the darkness of one’s emotional and sentient abandon and loved so that it had no reason to fear and its fear would no longer boil at its core and serve to erupt in violent, anti-social depravity such as what played to her eyes on the screen now before her.
“This poor boy” she thought to herself, wanting to unshackle The Son from the sweet affection of his growing insanity, imagining him as a small kitten, trapped deep in a well where only her kindness and her other perspective; the gift that god gave her, could help to pull this child out into the light so that the warmth of love and reason could once again wash the discontent from the pores of his skin and steady the shiver in his soul that trembled and quaked by the time it reached his devising hands, a cry of desperation that by the time it touched his tongue, sounded more like the howling of wolves.
“So you see what I mean,” said The Headmaster, “I have no choice. His actions are beyond reproach. And this wasn’t the first occasion either and it won’t be the last. Your son has made an art form of obscenity and I really worry where this will all end up. Who’s next and to what extent? He’s inhuman” said The Headmaster.
“I agree,” said The Father, “but what can I do, he’s my son.”