CRAZY PEGGY

I worked real hard and Master rewarded me with shiny new manacles. They was so beautiful. I paraded them around the plantation and everyones wished they was me. Everyones except Crazy Peggy. Peggy didn't give a damn. She didn't work hard. Never. 'Why's should I works myself near dead for another's profit', she'd protest, unable to see the bounty she'd be awarded if only she'd apply herself to her duties. She never had nice manacles. We used sneer at her rusting chains. She didn't seem to care though. She was a strange one for sure, always sat there daydreaming in her dirty shackles. No self-respect that crazy girl. She let things get so bad those manacles clear rusted right off her. Middle of one night we awakes and she's gone. We wondered where the girl could have got to. We looked out and saw the faraway confusion of stars. We heard the night wind, hissing through the trees. It was just wild out there. What could a body do but keep running through all that? How could a body fill its days without the reassurance and structure of cotton picking? What of a body's hopes? What of a body's dream to one day wear the shiniest manacles on the plantation? But Peggy never gave a damn for any of that. She just sat and stared and pondered something we'd never understand. Something crazy. Master was right about her. He said she was nothing but an animal. Well, she's out there with the wild animals now. That's what comes of not working hard and partaking of tasks. Your mind wanders and sooner or later so do you. Chances are you never come back. You is lost. Lost forever. Hell, I ain't never going to wind up like that. Master says if'n I keeps working likes I do he just might find me in such favour as to take me with him on one of his trips to Dundrum Shopping Centre. Says he'll buy me the longest roll of gingham you ever did see and manacles so shiny I'll be able to look upon them and regard my joy reflected.

UNDER GOD'S CAR

The invisible confines of your perceived freedom: The body you inhabit. The landmass that restricts your movement unless you have the money and authorisation required for foreign travel. The languages you speak and your inability to speak. Your need for air and nourishment. Your fear of opprobrium. The ideas that come out of the telly, the awful fuckin telly. The ideas that come out of the mouths of your friends. What your parents told you. What your parents failed to tell you. What your teachers taught you. What your teachers failed to teach you. The money you save. The bills you pay. Your responsibilities and your irresponsibility. Those new shoes you have your eye on. The people you have your eye on. The people who have their eye on you, or keep an eye out for you, or the people who might scratch your eyes out. Your eyes. Books and magazines and papers and the words in those books and magazines and papers. Street signage. Streets. Road signs. Roads. Gardens. Buildings. Rooms. Houses. Cars. Car alarms and house alarms. People who are easily alarmed. The alarm on your clock and the clock itself. Especially the clock - the big hand, the little hand, all the numbers they point to and what they mean. The places you should be. The way you get to those places. The time it takes you to get there. The guilt you feel when you don't go. The guilt you feel when you don't go anywhere. The shame of loitering. Your dirty secret life of taking it easy. Your need to contribute. Your unease at accepting contributions. Your tolerance of frequent acts of officially sanctioned theft. The benefits this theft brings you. The things that are stolen from you. The myth of the meritocracy. Your utter mediocrity. Your hypocrisy and your inability to see that you are a hypocrite. The threat of heavy fines or custodial sentences. Guns – even if you never see them, you know that they are there.

But the waft of ineffable liberation is occasionally detectable, in the quieter moments. Fully asleep or half awake. Day dreaming under a dead tree - gazing at stratocumuli drifting above a crooked creaking lattice – floating beyond the bars of a cage. Stuck here but it's not so bad. It's a bit of a laugh. The holidays are coming up. You might win some money. You might 'get lucky'. You could go to the movies. Maybe there's something on the telly, the awful fuckin telly. Did you see the thing that was on last week? It was mad. The Devil put a bomb under God's car.

1 + 1 = ?

One and one do not make two. One and one make one. You can’t add something to itself to make it something else. For example, there is only one me (‘thankfully’, says you) and I can’t be added to myself to make someone else. I and I do not make you. Got it? Good.

Now, to add one with another one is a different matter. One plus another (different) one is not the same equation as one and one, which is adding one to itself. However, the answer is still not two. One plus another one makes two ones, not two. Two is something else entirely. The idea that two ones make a two is absurd. Two number ones don’t even look like a number two. They’re not even the same shape. In fact, two number ones look like an eleven and it would make as much sense to say that one and one makes eleven than to say they make two. In fact, it would probably make more sense.

Now, I’m not denying that one and another one share some mathematical/numerical notional value with a two. I’m just saying that one and another one are not the same thing as a two. They are just two ones. Let me put it this way, imagine that I am a fruit seller and I have two oranges. Combined, these two oranges weigh the same as a grapefruit. When I put the items on sale I charge the same for the two oranges as I would for a grapefruit. So, the two oranges are the same value as a grapefruit but that does not make the two oranges an actual grapefruit. A grapefruit is larger, tastes different, is a different colour and there is only one of it. If you thought that the two oranges became a grapefruit just because they weighed and cost the same you’d be insane. So why is it acceptable to think that two ones somehow become a two? It doesn’t make any sense.

What disturbs me is that we actually teach this shite in schools. We fill the heads of kids with this rubbish and then expect them to be able to deal with the bubbling, popping, fizzing, stretching, bending and wriggling contents of reality. We teach kids that one and one makes two not because it’s true but because it just seems true. It’s like everything else we teach kids in school, it hasn’t much to do with the real world at all. It’s just enough to get along with in what we’ve decided to pretend is the real world. It’s unreal, anyone who can add one and one knows that.