One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Next; change.
The class scapegoat representative to the student council was sweating it out in front of the 20 strong line. He was trying his best to look perfect, to be be the leader whom his kinsfolk, like me, right now standing behind him, are to follow. He was at what he did best – drum in the brute rhythm of the eight numbers, followed by a count-down, and a “next; change”, while demonstrating the perfect method to perform the physical exercises we are to perform. His female counterpart was doing the same, in front of her own 20 strong line. Physical Education class. Grade seven.
I remember that we never used to look forward to the first part of our PE classes. It involved a twenty minute long drudgery of going through seven to ten forms of stretching exercises, supposed to warm-up our bodies. Our PE teacher gave this pristine responsibility to the MSC (‘Member of Student Council’, also acronymed by kinder folk as ‘Mother of Stupid Children’), who took it up, the exchange now reminding me of a likeness to the colonised taking up the responsibilities the colonisers handed over to them – proud, exercising power, but ignorant of the fact that they were slaves being used to perform otherwise unattractive tasks to the whims of a self-established higher power.
The next part of the PE class is what everyone looked forward for. The PE teacher would come out with footballs and throw-balls. Kick-the-ball-around-and-sweat-in-the-devastatingly-hot-sun time.
Next; change.
Sometimes, our lifes are so simple. Its a simple next; change. Where we know what is the ‘next’, through lifelong brainwash and psychological feeding. We are made aware of what is the next, homogeneous inside the cartloads of information fed into our all time ill satiated minds. And ‘change’, its just a simple order, ordering us to move on to the seemingly undefined, but veritably quite pre-defined, next.
For people who are knowledgeable about the next, which is not an elite few, mind you, seeing that the whip-holders of the change constantly propagate the next, life is simple, easy, and non-chaotic. You can enjoy life in quite many ways – since the whip-holders define enjoyment and access to it, your abiding to their whims will definitely gain you privileged entry.
Its like a traffic light. Red, stop. Orange, fire engine. Green, go. Safe, non-chaotic, streamlined traffic. You are a perfect citizen.
But sometimes, life is not that simple. I wish it were never that simple. Where the ‘next’ is unknown, and the ‘change’ is not an order. Rather, the change is a dive deep into the unknown realms of the next. With trust centred not on an establishment, but your self. A steep dive into the dark cold exhilarating next, hand-in-hand with your beautiful self.
Because at one point in humanity, the hound was raped, and the heart slaved. It was from this point that self gave way to system, in the guise of selfishness giving way to selflessness. Every raped hound should come to think again, why?
And they will, oh rulers of the world, oh holders of the whip, oh dictators of the proletariat, oh Augustus of Rome, They will think again why. And that why will be powered by the love of the indomitable Spirit. That why will roll back the ages of education, which you indoctrinated in the name of your systems, and like a revolting ocean, made of the slew of individual waves which had their goings tough when you were the ocean, they shall lash the waters back against you, and ingest you, and love you. The hounds shall awake from the years of post traumatic stress following their rape. Beware, the light. And beware, the carriers of that light.
Next; change.
