Imitating the Fool

“I don't wanna,” said Carlton from where he sat.

“Well, Carl, sometimes we have to do things we don't want to,” replied Ms. Clarke patiently. “Now if you would contribute to the class."

Looking back, it was at that moment, Carlton (who hated being called Carl) began his long downward spiral into the person he is today.

“I don't want to read that part,” he said with lower lip protruding.

She blinked at him, her mouth beginning to stiffen into a severe, thin line. He noticed vaguely the other four people in his group begin to move away from him.

“I am only going to ask you one more time,” she said.

Across the room, a thin, pale boy with fair hair stood up and loudly proclaimed, “I think he shouldn't have to do it, if he doesn't feel comfortable.”

“Tobin brings up a good point,” Ms. Clarke said, looking around at the class. “Life will contain many events which may make you uncomfortable. But within this are contained two categories. Sometimes people feel discomposed because they are about to do something wrong. But other times we experience discomfort when we are asked to do is new.” With a smile on her face, she slowly turned, catching and holding the eyes of each child in turn, until they nodded in agreement. “As your 2^nd grade teacher, you will never be asked to do anything wrong in this classroom, but sometimes a new experience may make you feel awkward. Because we are learning together, we need to support each other to overcome this feeling.”

Carlton felt as if he was losing something which had been nearly in his grasp. He saw the eyes of his classmates turning to him as he opened his mouth to protest.

“I still don't want to read it.”

“Come on Carlton,” said Elliot, with an encouraging smile, “We know you can do it!”

He barely noticed Ms. Clarke stepping back to the edge of the classroom, as his classmates exhorted him to do his part.

“Fine!” Carlton said, desperately holding back the tears which threatened to leak out.

“The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs,” began Ms. Clarke.

“Mary,” read Carlton, “when I went to feed the geese, the one a bought yesterday from the pauper had a golden egg under it!”

“We're rich,” he heard Elisa say from across the room.

“But if we carve that goose open, we'd be richer.”

“Oh, no, we mustn't expect such a bounty. Hold your hand dear.”

Disturbed by something he didn't understand, and resisting but bent to the task by the will of his classmates, Carlton kept reading. Imitating the foolish, irascible farmer of Aesop's fable something was bound to change within.

“Tomorrow then.”

The words of Ms. Clarke, Elisa, and the accompanying cast faded as his attention narrowed to the words on the page.

“Again this bird has laid its treasure. I must have all it contains. Now!”

With a triumphant movement, Carlton slammed his fist onto his desk, and leapt from his seat. As the class laughed at his enthusiasm, Ms. Clarke and Elisa delivered the closing lines.

“But there were no eggs in the belly of the bird. It was empty.”

“Oh, how could you be so impatient and greedy?” wailed Elisa, acting in earnest.

“Let this be a lesson, that those who are shortsighted and covetous will end with nothing.”

Let's stop here a minute, shall we?

As an adult, the farmer in the fable of the Golden Eggs, appears incredulous. Doesn't he understand the basics of biology? All the chickens don't have a supply of ready-made eggs inside them. Or he fails to recognize the spatial requirements of internal organs and eggs. What sort of farmer is he?

And even if the goose is dead, they already have an egg or two or solid gold. A pretty good investment.

To return, much later:

“Why are we taking this three hour drive Carlton? Where are we going?” asked Alexandra.

“We're going to right a wrong which was done to me many years ago,” he said, eyes on the road, but occasionally glancing at the two books he had on the armrest.

“What does that mean?”

Carlton refused to say any more...

Until they arrived.

“This is my second grade teacher's house,” he said as way of explanation.

“What?”

“Just watch.”

They walked up the path to the house, and Carlton observed its blue shuttered windows, its newly painted walls, and the well maintained bed of flowers enclosing the the front entrance.

“Before I ring the bell, I want you to know, I couldn't have become the person I am today without Ms. Clarke's help.”

“Good,” Alexandra said.

“No, not good. Bad, very bad!” he said, after shaking his head, seemed to be looking for something.

“What is it?” she asked after a moment.

“I've got it,” he said, but clearly without an it.

“You haven't.”

Alexandra watched Carlton run back to the car and return.

“You forgot the books in the car.”

“And these,” he said, holding each out to her in separate hands, “Are the reason we're here.”

“Those don't make anything clearer,” but she motioned for him to continue.

Carlton walked up the brick steps and knocked on the door. After waiting a minute, he knocked again, but when no one answered, began to back away.

“I guess,” he said, “there's no one here.”

But as Carlton and Alexandra turned and walked down the lane to the car, the door moved. They paused, awkwardly portioned halfway between two choices of doors. A woman, fifty or so, stood framed by the white trim doorway, and she beckoned them back. Alexandra began to walk toward the woman, but Carlton called, “Sorry to bother you, wrong house.”

He found himself being dragged to the door. With many emotions fighting to escape, he said from the bottom of the steps, “Imitation instills behaviors, both good and bad.”

“Carlton, still overwrought by a particular class activity, I see,” Ms. Clarke replied.

“Well, I...” he said.

“I think we'd like to come in for a moment,” said Alexandra.

“And talk over what we learned in second grade,” said Ms. Clarke. “I'd be delighted. Let me serve you something, and that will give Carlton his opportunity to discuss the lesson which has been bothering him for so long. I can see he came prepared with reading materials.”

As anyone who overcomes their sense of embarrassment to even engage in dialogue with a foe undeserved, the outcome will be unsurprising. Carlton and Ms. Clarke spoke at length about the compounding factors of that day, two decades old, and both, perhaps, still believed what they believed, but for one the gravity of the event was lessened, possibly erased, while the other realized the astounding effect a single act can have.