Spring break is past and the rivers have crested. I'm sitting at IVYtech, Harshmann, Adjunct Lounge. Listening to others talk about the flood and the amount of sewage that runs through the water which led to a discussion of sewer systems. Sewer systems and the subterranean lands underneath. Hidden worlds beneath our feet. Secret tunnels. Follow Jean Valjean down the sewers of Paris, a place of excitement. Tours are given daily. Step in the boat but please don't let you fingers trail in the water (or whatever the liquid may be). I'm going to stop this because I have to go teach in a few minutes. I'm never quite ready but it usually goes well. I'm goin to add more to this later.
Now I'm home. It's late. Everything has been graded and Pat Benetar is wailing on Barracuda. Four Gummi Bears are living in fear because the gods are going to snatch one up deus ex machina but not in rescue but in sacrifice. One will be taken and three remain. Which one? Because three are red and one is green, the red ones assume the green will be gone. That, in red Gummi Bear logic, is justice. The odd one is justly removed, restoring homogenity to the system and their world is in equilibrium. What they don't know is that the gods they fear are capricious and have no logic. Only desire, only hunger and a lust for Gummi blood. A rather primitive religion. And yet... Don't we often see life in this way? Don't we have a sort of Gummi logic, or Gummi theology, fearful of what the gods might do to us? Forgive me, the theologian creeps out once in a while. (The red Gummis were wrong; one of their kindred was taken from them. Now there are three.) I must be in a theological mood because of reading "The History of God" over spring break. I find that what I read often gets under the skin and influences my thoughts, at least for a while.
One of the things I did not get done was clean up the study. I did, however, come across a card with a note. I like to use blank 3x5s for random notes and ideas. The card reveals a work that was birthed by a spelling error: worskopping. Sounds sort of Scandinavian. With the mood I am in, I could apply it to the Gummi to describe the taking of one of their kind by the gods. "What happened to Fred? Worskopping. And the Gummi crowd suddenly quiets at the word, the word they would rather never hear, a word that strikes terror into the hearts of all. Worskopping, when the fingers of the gods blacken the sky, throw shadows over them suddenly and then one is gone, never to return. Some have suggested that in worskopping the Gummi is assumed into heaven, but that is a pious lie told to soften the blow. The truth they wish not to see. The writer brings a mind to the Gummi and creates thoughts and language into lumps of gelatin and high fructose corn syrup. The writer's task to give life and voice to the dead and voiceless.
Want a Gummi?