had him put up at the entrance of the base camp. It said “Private”. His poor, befuddled brain could not make much of that single word, so he decided to add another word: school. He did not realise what the result would be: In another 4 000 years’ time all the posh Capetonians, Jo’burgers and Pop store owners would bring their children to this place to be enslaved. Yersinia would use a little marketing trick for schools: the word “privilege”, and by doing so, set off the global swindle called education.
Two thousand years later: a crisis
Yersinia is making use of some ancient airtime to keep her skin young and her eyes full of lustre. At approximately 2000 years of age, this has become vital for her. It is hard work making all these smoke signals and at a certain point she starts coughing uncontrollably. Her tousled hair smells of smoke, to the point that it would make any normal person choke.
At exactly that moment, the snake appears from out of the woods, and enters her boudoir without knocking.
“It’s happened!” it shouts. “I’ve been living in fear of this for the past two thousand years, - and now it’s finally happened! We’re done for!”
“Oh rubbish!” snarls the woman. “What can be so bad?” She is talking absent-mindedly, her attention focused on some unclear, ancient mirror that looks like a tin pan.
“The Breather – the Breather’s Word became human!”
“The Breather? Who’s that?” She is still checking her beautification progress. “Oh…” She suddenly stops and turns to the snake. “You mean to say…”
“Yes! The Star Breather’s Word! He is here, born, come to…crush…This is devastating.” The snake hangs its head into the dust on the boudoir floor. “If we don’t do something, the Age of Freedom, will start and we will be lost – utterly lost.”
The woman starts pacing her boudoir.
“So we are now in the Fullness of Times …Just be quiet. This is no time for panic. We must be calm! Maybe we can prevent this… this crushing business that the prophesy has … touched upon - I have an idea…”
She smiles at the Enslaver.
“Jealousy – and the fear of losing one’s power… such handy tools. We can just send off our own son Fear. He will know where to find that sorry little king of the mountain city…”
The snake starts flicking its forked tongue excitedly.
“Oh brilliant! You will become a Lady Macbeth yet! [That woman was willing and ready to kill her own children!]
She must just be created in the real world! All boys must be killed. How about that?”
“Maybe all males under a certain age. We never know when we might need soldiers, especially with this threat at hand. War is such a wonderful thing, you know.”
The enslaving snake hisses blissfully. Soon he shall have lots of blood, including that of the Word who was gullible enough to be born… risking his Kingdom for slaves? Well whatever; the only Threat that has ever plagued him will be destroyed!
Later that day, a legion of Roman soldiers approaches a rickety little building. “All young males must be killed!” shouts the centurion. The gifts that were left behind by the three kings are smashed with his sword. It becomes a powdery substance that seems to encompass the whole world. “Kill the boys! Kill all boys under the age of two!”
“The Word was in the world… yet the world did not recognize him” And for this reason the snake still enslaves, and has his lust after blood satisfied.
The winds of change, another 2000 years later
Jack Gullible the hundredth is lying in front of the red tourist bus. The ensuing hustle and bustle in the street does not deter the man with the old-fashioned briefcase on the pavement. The bus would obscure his vision, had he left the client’s house further up in Burnside road a minute later, but he was at the corner of the road when Jack came whizzing past, and immediately recognised him, with shock and surprise.
The bus driver is busy ‘phoning the police. The tourists are taking more photos, but the man with the old-fashioned briefcase pushes his way to Jack, grabs him by the collar and marches him off to a parked car. He takes no notice of the calls about being careful, because Jack might be hurt. Jack hangs onto his skateboard. For the first time he is frightened.
His father drives off with him in the front seat, without saying a word. Jack takes off the helmet, which unfortunately for him, did not hide his face, or his clothing, or his superb style; all of which his father knows too well. By the time the police arrive, nobody knows who took Jack. How do you report an incident, when the perpetrator-victim has disappeared so fast?
His father does not say a word.
“M...My b..back hurts quite b...badly, Dad.” Jack tries. Silence.
“Maybe I’ll be grounded for a month, this time. The previous time was two weeks,” Jack muses, but his father does not tell him to hand over the skateboard. In fact, he ignores it completely when he pushes Jack into his workshop.
“D..Dad, my b..back r...really hurts,” Jack vies for some sympathy. The fact that his father is not talking, not asking for the skateboard, is inexplicably frightening to Jack.
Apatheto Gullible, the father of Jack, now turns and looks him square in the eyes. Then he speaks slowly and resolutely, for the first time.
“You will know what a hurting backside is when I am done with you today, Jack. It is because I was disobedient for so long that you nearly got yourself killed today.”
His father walks up to a cupboard and takes out a very thin, but flexible cane.
“This,” he whips the cane through the air so that it makes a swishing noise, “belonged to my father. I always thought he was wrong.” His father flicks the cane a few times. “But it turns out, I was wrong.”
Jack is still leaning comfortably against the side of the work bench. What could all this possibly mean? Something is out of the usual, but if he gets to keep his skateboard…. He is surprised by the swiftness and strength in his father’s arm when he grabs him by the neck, bends him over his work bench. No matter how he struggles, he cannot escape his father’s firm grip. Jack receives three painful whacks over the fleshy part of his backside with merciless violence. Jack shouts out in pain and surprise. He tries to wrench himself from his father’s grip, but it is useless.
“That was for my breaking my rules about the skateboard,” his father says. “And this,” another volley of excruciating whacks follows, “Is for breaking the traffic laws of Cape Town.”
Jack’s shouts fall on totally deaf ears. Tears of anger and pain start burning in his eyes. He tries to free himself from his father’s grip, but he cannot move.
“And last, but not least,” his father declares before the next volley comes down on his burning backside, “is for shamelessly lying to me about your back that is hurting. I know the look of real pain in a man’s eyes, Jack. At least I have now changed that lie into a truth for you. Don’t you dare become a spineless liar under my roof.” [WHAT? How can this story begin in such a horrible way? It’s all the fault of 05, but I’m waiting for him. If he thinks he’s going to get away with this, he’s in for a surprise; one big nasty surprise. Those robots, and the brakes of the bus, and the polystyrene coming out of the boot: they kept me busy! I was so flabbergasted, Jack’s father got away with him! But don’t you worry 05, you are in serious trouble, believe me.]
Jack’s father lets go of him. He wants to make an angry dash for his room immediately, but his father holds him back.
“You will go when I give you permission to go,” his father snaps. Jack watches the cane in his hands and obeys instinctively.
“The reason why you are surprised about what I have done to you today, Jack, is because I have neglected my duty about this for too long. Had it not been so, you would have known, and with certainty, what was coming to you. You will find that, for the next few days, it is going to be extremely painful to sit down. Every time you feel that pain, I want you to remember that you are lucky t
o be alive and count your blessings. I would far rather see you in pain like this, than I would have to zip open one of those yellow body bags and beg you to wake up, knowing full well that you will never do so again.”
A voice sounds from some half-complete gadget – something that his father is busy building – on the table: “I rebuke and punish all whom I love.”
Jack looks at the strange device; inexplicably, without any indignation. It is as if this new gadget can talk some strange, illogic sense, but it is probably just a coincidence. What is really beyond his grasp is that he does feel loved by his father now; for the first time since his mother died.
However, when Jack looks up at his father, he is truly shocked. The man is crying! His father is actually crying tears!
“And Jack, you can be very sure, if you ever, ever do something dangerous like this again, I shall not even think once before I tan your hides again – just like today. You may go now, and take your skateboard.”
Jack feels a pleasant, warm feeling in his heart; a feeling of being safe, of being cared for. And he knows he won’t do anything foolish to hurt his father. What a strange man his father is! It is as if he sees him for the first time in his life, today.
Jack has given his first step into a new journey.
The next day, his father receives a note with a little butterfly in one corner.
“Your son won’t be so lucky next
JackG@killerschool Page 3
