Article: 288666 of talk.bizarre
From: citizenx@phoenix.net (Yossef Mendelssohn)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: the importance of being
Date: Mon, 02 Dec 1996 03:09:03 GMT
Organization: You're kidding, right?
Lines: 75
Message-ID: <32a247fd.2034558@news.phoenix.net>
Reply-To: citizenx@phoenix.net

Well, I tried posting this earlier today, but it seemed my provider's
mail server just didn't feel like accepting my orders.  Maybe it was a
sign.  Maybe it was telling me I shouldn't post this for FTS day.
Maybe...but maybe not.  Anyway, I wouldn't really care.
And away we go....

--


"It is time."

"They're calling me."

He slowly gets up from his chair and walks to the door.  As he reaches
the door, he rests his hand on the knob for a few heartbeats before
pulling it open.  He looks down the long hallway.

"They need me."

He walks down the hall slowly, thinking about the people who were
laughing, playing, having fun just a few moments ago only to have it
all suddenly taken away from them.  Only he could set things right.
Only he could return to those people their source of joy.  The moment
he'd been waiting for his entire life had come.

He thinks back to his childhood.  Memories come floating back to him
from the days in kindergarten when all the children would stand in
front of the class and say what they wanted to be when they grew up.
The other children wanted to be firemen and nurses and astronauts or
simply mommies and daddies.  Then it was his turn.  He got up in front
of his classmates and told them what he wanted to be.  What he would
be.  What he is now.  He told them, and they understood.  They
understood he was truly going to be an important man - a man who would
affect a great many lives.  

They understood.

He recalls another childhood memory.  He's in fifth grade.  It's after
school, and he's still there in the classroom, cleaning up.  Not
because he's being punished, but because he wants to.  He's doing it
to help his teacher - the teacher he has a bit of a crush on.  He's
cleaning the blackboard with a wet rag as the door opens and she walks
in.  He smiles at her and puts the rag aside, leaving the blackboard
to dry.  He asks her if she always wanted to be a teacher.  As he
suspected, she says she did.  She asks him what he wants to be when he
grows up.  He tells her.  Her first impulse is to laugh, but she
suppresses it.  It's so unusual for a boy his age to think of such a
thing.  So mature.  So ambitious.  She tells him he made an excellent
choice and wishes him luck.  He smiles, thanks her, and leaves the
classroom, heading for home.

She understood.

His mind calls forth another scene from the past.  He's a junior in
high school now.  He's been called in to see the counselor.  He's been
goofing off again, and the counselor is worried he has no focus.  The
counselor is worried that he hasn't been thinking ahead - hasn't
planned for his future.  He asks the boy where he plans to go to
college after he graduates and is truly shocked by the answer.  Not
going to college?  But this boy has such potential!  The counselor
says so, and the student just smiles.  Then he leans forward and tells
the counselor what he plans to do after he graduates.  Now it's the
counselor's turn to smile.  He understood the effect this boy would
have on the world.  And to think he was worried about a levelheaded
kid like that.  He'll change the world someday, that kid.

He understood.

Brought back to the present, he smiles at the memories.  He's come to
the end of the hallway.  He pauses for a moment.  Then he steps forth
into the light, climbs up into his zamboni, and drives off across the
ice.


-yossef