These Little Flames - hs

preface

                                                                   These Little Flames
                                                                             PREFACE

People can't seem to decide whether ambition bleeds fear or the other way around. Either way, a classroom is a bloodbath. Life, in general, is a hierarchy. Everyone has to get everywhere. No one knew this better than the freshmen at Darkyn U on their very first day.

The students filed into the lecture hall, the ambitious ones eager and the lesser-so ones fidgety, even anxious. They'd all heard about the new professor, of how she commanded everyone's attention, of how eloquently she spoke and of how easily she could insult. When they'd signed up for a major in Philosophy, they hadn't expected this much stress right from the get-go.

She walked in at exactly 9AM, according to their synchronized watches. And after placing her briefcase on her desk, she walked up to them and stood front and center.

"I have one question for all of you sitting here today. If you had the chance to speak directly with god—the god—what would you say?"

She looked past their faces.

"Anyone? Anyone at all? Come now. There must be at least a hundred different religions being represented here! Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Humanists, Satanists—where are you? Speak, people. I can't enlighten you if you refuse to speak."

A girl in the middle of a row raised her hand. She was squirrelly and had a necklace with a rather large cross on it.

"Well..." she said, standing up. "I'd just thank god for creatin' me, and blessin' my family, ma'am."

"You bore me. Sit down. That was terrible." the professor said. "Anyone else? Someone with an imagination, this time, please. Yes, you!" she pointed her pen to a young man in another row.

This student had a beard, and wore a kurta. He said, "I would ask him if the life I've led is good enough for heaven."

"Hmm. Better. We're still not there yet. Give me something blasphemous. Something real. Give me the truth." She then annunciated each word, "What would you say to god?"

"I'd tell him he's an ass!" someone yelled in the back-row.

"Who said that?" the professor asked. She saw a hand rise from the row. The person stood up. It was a boy. No religious indicators this time. Just a plain and simple boy.

"And why would you call him that, young man?"

"Because he's an ass. Look at all he's done. He created Hitler, he let the Jews go to concentration camps, he let the Muslims be blamed for 9/11, the blacks be enslaved, and that gay-village be burned back in '34. With all due respect, ma'am, god's an ass-- a useless, if not indifferent, ass."

"Now that I can work with." the professor said, smiling. "Don't worry. None of you are conversing with god anytime soon. Funny, isn't it? It's 2040 and we still haven't made contact with him. Talk about dead-beat dads."

The students laughed lightly.

"I'm going to tell you all a story. A story about a boy and a girl. A story that will quite possibly, for lack of better words, screw you up. Now this place, this lecture hall, isn't where our story begins. It starts in a dilapidated old SUV back in August of 2015, with an angsty 17 year old in the back seat..."