Mr. Brandolini's Assignment

Essay no. 2 - Jürgen Lilienthal

Essay no. 2 – Jürgen Lilienthal

When something you thought was true, isn't.

Florida Is Separated From Illinois By A Large Kitchen Garden Crawling With Angry Dogs: A Poem

 

There was an incident in geography class in the fifth grade once,

when this girl called Ann Marina couldn’t point out north-west

when our teacher asked us where Illinois was in relation to Florida,

And this teacher was also of the annoying variety that assumed

the entire class’ dumbness because of the intellectual incompetence of

one child, that is,

one thirtieth of the class, that is,

based on information from approximately 3.34% of kids in the room.

Ann Marina’s little slip was a blessing in disguise

because in our next PE period our coach,

whose name I forget and is anyway irrelevant,

designed an exercise to ensure that our class

would never again forget compass directions,

(instead of the perilous high-jump otherwise scheduled).

 He lined us all up in the football field, facing the side wall,

 on the other side of which was a large, ugly, mustard-coloured house

 with an enthusiastic, barking German shepherd on the first-floor balcony.

 On our right was the outdoor basketball court

 And on our left was the kitchen garden where

the kindergarteners grew their gazpacho ingredients.

Behind us was the other end of the football field.

So Coach told us to fix the ugly house as North,

so we were facing North.

Then East was the basketball court,

West was the kitchen garden,

And South was the end of the field.

What we had to

Was run towards the direction he would yell out,

so if he said WEST!!!

we had to run and touch the rotting wooden fence of the garden,

And if he said EAST!!!

we had to run and touch the post of the basketball mast,

And so forth.

We did this exercise for almost an hour and a half,

after which our geography teacher would’ve been proud

And Ann Marina was sufficiently educated

And the German shepherd was nearly off his rocker watching a horde of kids

running in all directions and screaming.

And I was sure that I would never in my life see directions in the same way,

And I was right; even today I picture East

As a sunny cemented basketball court

And West

As a potato-and-carrots kitchen garden

And every time someone mentions heading north I imagine

running straight into a horde of manic German shepherds.

But then, as existentialist angst sets in

With the due course of time,

I realized that perhaps Coach had affixed arbitrary directions,

And perhaps the house was not really North,

And we were just being taught how to judge directions

in relation to an assumed position,

And maybe the basketball court is South,

And maybe North is actually the kitchen garden

Where the kindergarteners grew their gazpacho ingredients

maybe the German shepherds are West or East,

      And not near North at all.