Stories From the Old Attic
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Robert Harris >> Stories From the Old Attic
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At first the public was saddened to lose sight of such a popular
painting, and a few mild protests were raised, but eventually
concern for the painting was pushed aside by other more pressing
concerns, and it was forgotten (as are all things no longer directly
in front of us in this busy world) and life continued.
Only the museum curator and an occasional junior staff member ever
saw the painting now, hanging in the dim light of the basement well
away from public view. All that was heard of it was the curator's
occasional disparaging comment. "Every day I see new defects and
ugliness in this fraudulent outrage," he would say. "Just look how
false the sun on the leaves looks, how phony is the wisp of that
girl's hair, how ugly the clouds there, and how awkward that boy's
position in the dance. How we were ever taken in by this obvious
cheat is beyond me." And finally, shaking his head to show his
regret, he concluded, "What we did was foolish and shameful."
Matthew 18:3
"The door to this classroom is farther down the hall, sir," said
the student.
"How dare you try to tell me where the door is," huffed the
professor, as he turned around and walked abruptly into the wall.
While he held his bleeding nose, he was heard to mutter, "Now why
did they move the door?"
* A proud man never doubts, even when his nose bleeds.
The Boy and the Vulture
A young boy was playing in the desert with a bow and arrow he had
made, when a vulture, always looking for a tender meal, saw him from
afar. The bird flew over and, seeing that the arrow was only a
barren stick, swooped down and pecked at the boy. "Why don't you
shoot me if you don't like my pecking?" it taunted. The boy shot
his arrow repeatedly, but the bird was too quick, and the arrow
always missed.
Finally, exhausted from chasing the arrow and deflecting the bird,
the boy sat down in the sparse shade of a dead tree. The vulture,
lighting on one of the dry branches above the boy, sat triumphantly
preening and smirking, and even plucked a few old feathers to drop
on the boy's head in contempt. "There's for your pains, feeble
one," the bird said haughtily.
The boy, however, would not be defeated. Carefully he collected the
feathers, fixed them to his stick, and with the resultantly accurate
arrow, shot the surprised vulture through the heart.
* In our pride we often unwittingly give our enemies the means to
destroy us.
* Perseverance and ingenuity, even in the face of humiliation and
defeat, will at last succeed.
[Suggested by Aesop, "The Eagle and Arrow"]
Three Flat Tires
Once in the fullness and complexity of human existence three cars
left the same party one rainy night and took three different roads
on the way home. Oddly enough, at approximately the same time, each
car suffered a flat tire, and the young couples inside suddenly
found their evening and their lives somewhat different from what
they had been expecting.
The young lady riding in the first car became instantly upset.
"Well, this is just great," she said to her escort with
understandable disgust. "I knew I should have driven; then this
never would have happened. How could you be so careless when we're
all dressed up like this, anyway?"
"I'm sorry," the young man replied, getting out of the car. "I'll
fix it as fast as I can." He quickly retrieved the jack and the
spare tire and began to puzzle over the repair. In a minute the
young lady was at his side.
"You don't even know what you're doing, do you?" she asked.
"Well, not really, but I think I can figure it out," he told
her honestly.
"No you won't. I want this done right," the young lady answered, as
she grabbed the jack handle with just enough suddenness that the
young man lost his balance and fell over backward into a patiently
waiting mud hole.
While these events came into being to form a permanent, though
small, part of the history of the universe, the young driver of the
second car was, not many miles away, even then climbing out of his
vehicle into the rain and opening the trunk. His date, in a very
ladylike manner, and with due concern for her precious gown, stayed
in the car with her hands folded in her lap. She generously took
care to look away from the young man's labors in order not to cause
him embarrassment, and, when he slipped down and bumped his head on
the fender as he tried to loosen a particularly intransigent lug
nut, she very kindly turned on the radio.
The third young man, though he encountered different raindrops on a
different road on this night, realized similarly that he, too, was
destined to be wet, and pushed open the door with resolve. However,
as he climbed out of the car, the young lady he had been driving
home got out also. "Get back in the car," he told her, "or you'll
get wet."
"I'll help," the young lady said.
"There's nothing you can do," replied the young man as he reached
for the spare in the trunk. "It's really a job for one person, and
I've done it before."
"Then I'll watch," replied the young lady. And watch she did. Oh,
she held the lug nuts to keep them from getting lost, but to speak
truly, she was not really of any help and she did get drenched. As
he changed the tire, the young man looked at the young lady once or
twice, only to see her gown melting and her hair dripping down her
face, and no doubt he thought, "What a sight she is."
Well, I've told you this story as evidence of the foolishness and
irrationality of the human heart. For now observe the consequent:
The first young lady, naturally concerned for her safety and
realizing that she possessed knowledge that her young man did not,
quite reasonably chose to change the tire. However, the young man,
fool that he was, was never seen escorting this capable and logical
young lady again.
The second young lady, very sensibly concerned about preserving an
expensive dress and realizing that she would be of little or no help
to her young man, showed a similar wisdom in avoiding what she knew
would be the consequences of leaving the car. But, even though her
judgment was vindicated when she observed, in the form of the
drenched, muddy, and bleeding young man, exactly those consequences
she had predicted, the young man himself, blind and irrational as he
was, was also never again seen escorting this thoughtful and
discerning young lady.
Even stranger and more perverse as it must seem, however, the third
young man, even after observing the silly and unreasonable behavior
of his date, even after seeing her soaked to the skin, her gown
ruined, her hair plastered against her neck, her mascara running
down her cheeks in little inky rivulets--even after observing all
this, not only was he seen escorting her frequently to other
entertainments, but eventually he offered her a ring.
The History of Professor De Laix
The world had long been promised a fifty-volume definitive analysis
on the meaning of life by the brilliant and internationally
respected Professor de Laix. Admirers from all across the surface
of the earth produced unremitting and enthusiastic requests--nay,
demands--for the wise professor to bestow upon the world his
penetrating insights into human nature. As the years passed,
however, even though he had been begged repeatedly for the first
part, or a first volume, or even a first chapter, he had always
answered that he wanted to get the whole work clearly in his head
before he put it down on paper.
"To rush precipitously forward without knowing precisely where one
wants to go," he would tell them, "will not of necessity produce a
happy outcome because it might lead to a complicative erroneity or
put one on a train to a destination he would not ultimately wish to
visit. After all, the most beautiful part of a given day is known
only after dark, and the best path up the mountain--which I take to
be the path of true wisdom--is seen only from the top."
Year after year, therefore, arrived with hope and left disappointed;
new generations were born and millions of hopeful readers mingled
their own dust with that of the earth without the benefit of even a
phrase of Professor de Laix' wisdom.
Then one spring his colleagues and students noticed that he was
gradually becoming more and more animated, and was heard
occasionally to mutter, "Yes, yes, that's right, that's right."
Finally one day while he was sitting in a coffee shop regaling a few
favorite students with tales of fruitless thinking journeys upon
which he had in the past embarked, he took a sip of coffee (or
perhaps he had inadvertently been served espresso) and then suddenly
opened his eyes widely, sprang to his feet, and announced excitedly,
"That's it! I see it all now! Now it can be written! Everything
is completely clear! So clear! Ha ha! Now I understand! Now, at
last, I understand!"
After this brief speech, he burst out of the coffee shop (leaving
his students with expressions of amazement and an unpaid bill) and
began to run toward his office where he could finally sit down and
produce his great work. Now at last he could pour forth his
hitherto inexpressible wisdom to fertilize the orchards of culture
and bring into being a new and wonderful fruit for civilization to
munch upon.
Unfortunately, in his highly focused and externally oblivious rush
toward his office, he neglected to watch for the traffic as he
crossed the busy boulevard between the coffee shop and the
university (for academia is often separated from the rest of life by
just such a metaphor), and as a result he was tragically but
thoroughly run down by a fully loaded manure truck, whose cargo had
been produced after only one day's rumination, and whose owner also
hoped that it would swell the fruit on the trees of a less
figurative orchard.
Such was the life and death of the great Professor de Laix, a man
for whom someday almost came.
How the Humans Finally Learned to Like Themselves
It is man's peculiar distinction to love even those who err.
--Marcus Aurelius, VII.22
A sweet disorder in the dress.
--Herrick
Once upon a time, many years from now, technology had continued its
remarkable progress to the point that the construction of artificial
people had finally become possible. These humakins, as they were
called, were made so carefully and with such art that no one could
tell the difference between a real human and an artificial
one--except that the artificial ones were flawless. Physically the
humakins were always young, always beautiful, always fresh; they
never had a hair out of place, never a pimple, never a wrinkle,
never a gray hair. Mentally they were always bright, alert, and
smiling; they always got their facts right, and never took a wrong
turn or got lost.
At first the appeal of the humakins was irresistible, and most
humans chose them over other humans for spouses. What human female
could compete with an always slim, beautiful, and lively imitation?
And what human male could compete with an always confident, correct,
and handsome construction? In fact, the word "humakin" quickly
became a synonym for "perfect," as in, "That's a really humakin
car," or "This pie tastes just humakin." At the same time the word
"human" became a term of opprobrium, indicating something defective
or of low quality, as in, "I never shop there because it's such a
human store with human-quality merchandise."
To the consternation of many, however, while the humakins could
construct more of themselves in a factory, the humans could produce
more of themselves only by following the ancient method of their
ancestors, so that the result of the marriages between flesh and
plastic was the eventual decline of the human race.
When about nine tenths of the persons on the planet consisted of the
precisely fabricated humakins and only one tenth of the really
human, quite an odd and unexpected situation arose. It had become
so unusual to see, for example, a woman wearing glasses or a man
with wind-blown hair that such a detail now took on a natural appeal
to some of the other humans.
One bright morning at breakfast in a fancy resort dining room, a
human female, almost as lovely as a humakin, sat chatting with a
humakin male who had condescended to sit with her. Suddenly she
inadvertently spilled a glass of tomato juice onto her white tennis
dress. While her humakin companion predictably stood up and stared
at her with horror, across the room a human male who had just
witnessed the event was so filled with ardor and longing that he
almost broke the table in his rush to get over to her and make her
acquaintance. His excitement to declare his affection left him
without the capacity for coherent speech, so that only tentative and
confused phrases stumbled from his mouth. In the midst of his
babbling, though, he could see, in the welling dew of the woman's
eyes, the tenderness of regard he had inspired.
As other humans, too, began to grow weary of the expectation of
constant perfection in their relationships, scenes similar to this
one began to be repeated with increasing frequency. A loose shoe
lace, a chipped fingernail, a shiny nose--all gradually became
sources of romantic and emotional attraction, and those very
characteristics that had before been viewed as defects soon came to
be seen as emblems of the truly and desirably human, as guarantees
of that unique inner fire that no amount of perfectly crafted
plastic could equal.
The word "human" now began to be associated with the genuine, the
natural--and the beautiful. It became not uncommon to hear a young
lady remark to her admirer as he gently put a flower in her hair,
"Oh, what a human thing of you to do." The word "humakin," on the
other hand, began to imply something slickly unrealistic or
laughably fake and was often pronounced with a sneer.
At length, having rediscovered the amorous appeal of their
distinctives like freckles and missing buttons and the inability to
refold road maps, the humans began to marry each other again. It
wasn't many years before a young pledge of one of these new
relationships was heard to ask in a tone of frustration, "But Mommy,
why must I have a crooked tooth?" To which the mother replied,
"That's so I'll always remember how truly beautiful you really are."
The Caterpillar and the Bee
A bee, flying proudly around the garden, approached a caterpillar
sitting on a shrub. "I don't know how you can stand to be alive,"
the bee said. "I'm valuable to the world with my honey and wax, I
can fly anywhere I want, and I'm beautiful to behold. But you're
just an ugly worm, not good for anything. While I soar from bloom
to bloom feasting on nectar, all you can do is creep around and
chew on a stem."
"What you say may be true," replied the caterpillar, "but my
Maker must have put me here for some purpose, so I trust him
for my future."
"You have no future," said the bee. "You'll be crawling through the
dirt for the rest of your life. If you ask me, you'd be better off
choking on a leaf."
Sometime later the flowers in the garden woke to find that the bee
and the caterpillar had both disappeared. All that they could see
now was a shriveled yellow body hanging from the edge of a spider
web and a magnificent butterfly flexing its wings in the sun.
* This story reminds us that we cannot predict the future, either
for others or for ourselves.
*This story teaches us to trust in God rather than in the opinion
of men.
The Wise One
High in the mountains of a distant land there once lived a man so
incredibly old that his life no longer had any plot. He was so old
that his very name had faded from the memories of all those around
him, and he was known only as "The Wise One." He spent his later
days hearing and commenting on people's problems and sitting among a
dozen or two disciples who waited patiently to hear all that was
asked of him and all that he spoke. Sometimes an entire day would
pass when not a syllable opened his lips; whether this was from a
temporary lack of strength or simply because he had nothing to say,
no one knew.
While his reputation among his disciples and a few others was that
he possessed amazing wisdom and insight, many people thought him to
be an idle and incoherent fool because, they said, he never provided
a practical solution to the problem he was asked about. Instead he
would ask a simplistic question or tell a story whose point was so
obscure that many left his presence shaking their heads.
Some said that in his youth he had earned and spent large quantities
of money, only to turn from what he saw as a life of vanity to the
pursuit of wisdom. Others said that had that been true, he was
proved all the more fool for giving up the good life for a life of
hardship that was of little use to anyone. Thus, for every person
who called him The Wise One with reverence, twenty pronounced his
name with irony.
Of the stories still not erased by the hand of time, consider these
and judge the man as you will:
* * *
One day a man, clearly troubled by the cares of life, came to The
Wise One and spoke thusly:
"My son, to whom I had entrusted my farm, last week stole my best
cows, sold them in the market, and spent the money in wild and
shameful living. Now he says he is sorry and will repay me. What
should I do?"
"Tell me," replied the old man, "when you drop your bar of soap
while bathing, what do you do?"
"I pick it up, of course," the man answered, with some irritation.
"And now tell me, which is of more value, a bar of soap or a
human soul?"
While the questioner left not at all certain about what to do, one
of The Wise One's disciples, who had been deeply affected by this
exchange, rose and said, "Excuse me, O Wise One, but I must go and
reconcile myself to a man I have wrongly ceased to love."
"Yes, my daughter," is all The Wise One said.
* * *
Another time a young couple came to The Wise One to settle a great
argument. The old man listened seemingly more politely than
attentively as each gave a lengthy explanation of the dispute.
Finally the two looked to The Wise One for his decision, both of
them more confident than ever of being right. The Wise One reached
over to a vase sitting nearby and pulled out a rose. "Shall I hit
you with the bloom or with the stem?" he asked the couple.
"What are you talking about?" asked the young woman.
"It is written in the Book of Worn Out Sayings that 'in the rose
garden of life he who plucks thorns for his partner's bed is a fool.'"
"I don't understand," said the young man.
"Those who sell flowers put them in a pan of colored water and the
flowers take on the color of the water," concluded The Wise One. The
couple left confused and without resolving their dispute, but they
did seem to agree that their trip to The Wise One was worthless.
* * *
On one occasion two men came to The Wise One on the same day. The
first was a young man unsure about which road to take as he stepped
out into the world. "I have considered my career choices," he said,
"and I don't know whether to become a poet or a merchant."
The second man had just married a wife and was about to buy a house
for them to live in. "I have investigated many houses carefully,"
he said, "and have found two that would be suitable. The first
house is nearly new and well designed but damp inside, while the
second is light and airy but older and not so well designed. I
don't know which to choose."
"Your problems are one," said The Wise One, as he picked up a honey
comb and squeezed it until the honey was drained out into a bowl.
"You both must choose between the wax and the honey."
"My gosh," said one of The Wise One's disciples, leaping to his
feet, "I'm about to marry the wrong girl." And with that, he ran
off into the distance.
The two men looked at each other, searching each other's face for a
glimmer of understanding, which neither found.
* * *
One spring a richly dressed young man came to The Wise One and spoke
these words:
"I have come from a far kingdom where I have just ascended the
throne. My father ruled long and was old when he died, and now I am
remodeling his castle. The many books of his great library are in
the way of my new banquet hall, and I desire to rid myself of so
much old paper. But I do not wish to throw out every book. I want
to keep some for the sake of his precious memory. Thus, I have come
to you for a principle of selection. Which books should I keep and
which should I burn?"
"Go to the ancient source of rock in your kingdom, from which your
cities have been built," answered The Wise One, "and build a pile of
stones until you can stand on it and see over the edge of the
quarry. Then remove the contemptible stones."
With a look of deep thoughtfulness on his brow, the young ruler left
the presence of The Wise One and returned to his kingdom. It is not
recorded whether this advice was put into effect or whether it
helped the young ruler with his decision.
* * *
There are many other stories about The Wise One, just as there are
many other people with their own stories. But these shall suffice
to show how one old man exhausted the meager remnant of his days on
earth. Whether his life was spent well or ill perhaps even he
himself did not know.
On the Heroic Suffering of Mankind
A man stood philosophically on the prow of his ship, deeply inhaling
the fresh sea air, feeling the warmth of the bright sunshine on his
face, and ignoring or perhaps not hearing the burst of the whip as
it lacerated the backs of the struggling slaves in the galley. But
in the midst of enjoying his view, he felt a particle of dust fly
into his eye. By blinking and rubbing it a little, he removed the
speck, but his eye was reddened.
"Well," he said stoically, "life has many pains and hardships and we
must bear them as best we can." Then relaxing upon a couch and
ordering two slaves to dab his brow with a moistened cloth, he
called upon his friends to sympathize with his suffering, whereupon
he found some satisfaction in complaining of his hurt.
The Quest
All literature is but a variation on the quest motif.
--Someone or Other
Too busy to look, too busy to be wise.
--Someone Else or Someone Other
There once was a man who wandered from town to town constantly
examining the ground. He carried a lantern in the daytime and a
compass at night. When asked what he was doing, he would answer,
"I'm looking for a place to stand, so that when the wind blows I may
stand and not fall."
Most people thought he was insane until a man who had lived long and
experienced much was overheard to say of him, "Only a few people are
as wise as this man, for he is engaged in the only search that
really matters."
Life
One day a man called his friend and invited him to lunch at his
office. "Just come on over and we'll have a great time," the
man said.
"Where is your office?" the friend asked.
"I'm not sure of the address," answered the man, "but it's somewhere
downtown, I think."
"Well," asked the friend, "what does the building look like?"
"It's tall, like an office building."
"What floor are you on?"
"I think it's one of the middle ones."
"How many doors down from the elevator?"
"Oh, it's several. But I've never really counted them."
"Don't wait for me," said the friend, as he hung up.
* This is not a story about a man who could not give directions to
his office. This is a story about the architecture of life. For
many people inhabit their own lives in just this way, not knowing
where they are or how to tell others how to reach them.
Discernment
"But compared to the pearls, this piece of string is worthless,"
said the man, as he pulled it from the necklace and lost his
whole treasure.
It Depends on How You Look at It:
Eight Vignettes on Perspective
A man's house burned to the ground. Upon hearing of it, the man
said angrily, "This is the fault of oxygen!" For, as he explained,
if there hadn't been any oxygen in the atmosphere, his house never
would have burned.
* * *
When the boss called Smervits and Jenkins into the office, Jenkins
was very nervous because his plan to salvage the Freeble contract
had not worked. Smervits wasn't worried because he had shrewdly
stood by while Jenkins floundered with the contract.
"Jenkins, you failed," the boss said forcefully after the two men
had entered. "That's good," he added, "because it shows that you
tried something. Smervits, you didn't fail, but you didn't try
anything, either. You're fired."
* * *
One day the power went off in the mine, leaving the miners in
absolute darkness. One miner found a match and lit it. "What a
dinky little flame," said one of his companions, with contempt.
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