Stories From the Old Attic
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Robert Harris >> Stories From the Old Attic
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"What a great light in the darkness," said another, with awe.
* * *
"Just think," said the man in the orange hard hat, "to us that's just
a useless pile of rock. But to someone with greater vision it has
value. It can be changed by his direction into something useful."
"How's that?" someone asked.
"First it has to be crushed, and then heated in a furnace, to give
up its old properties and take on new ones. Then it can be mixed
with water and molded into something beautiful."
"So that's how you make cement, huh?"
"No," someone said, "that's how you make a Christian."
* * *
An officer came upon a young soldier so weighted down with weapons
and ammunition that he couldn't move. "You know why you aren't
attacking the enemy, don't you?" asked the officer.
"Yes," replied the soldier. "I'm waiting for more ammunition."
* * *
Once in a pleasant garden there stood a tree, from which, legend
said, God himself would one day reign. But instead, a group of
wicked men broke in and chopped the tree down. They hacked the tree
into a beam and nailed a holy man to it, leaving him to die upon a
hill. So the tree of hope now had become a beam covered with blood
and death. "See here," the wicked men said, laughing with scorn,
"in what manner God's promises are fulfilled."
* * *
The chairman of the department asked the young professor how his
book was coming along. Said the professor, "Oh, the book is already
written; I just haven't put it down on paper yet." The chairman
patted the man on the back and told him to keep up the good work.
A construction worker, watching this scene transpire, decided that
what was good enough for academe was good enough for him, so he sat
back and opened a beer. Presently his foreman came along and wanted
to know what was going on. Said the worker, "Oh, the hole is
already dug; I just haven't taken out the dirt yet." The foreman,
not having been enlightened by Higher Education, fired the worker,
right in the middle of his beer.
* * *
A man on foot approached an abandoned auto wrecking yard that still
had many old pieces of assorted cars lying around. "What an
enormous pile of worthless junk," he said to himself as he walked
by. The next day another man on foot approached the same yard.
"What a wonderful pile of worthy raw materials," he thought as he
surveyed the area. A few days later the second man drove away in
his own car.
The Strange Adventure
Once upon a time, so long ago that it seems like yesterday,
circumstances so occurred that two youths found themselves lost
together in the desert and forced to spend the night without the
services of modern technology.
"What a terrible thing," said the first one. "We're stuck out here
all alone among who knows what frightening stuff."
"This is great," said the other. "What an adventure. I can't wait
to see what happens."
As the light began to fade, the youths happened upon a snake,
sitting on a rock to get the last warmth it could find before the
cold night set in.
"Oh, no!" said the first youth. "Out here it's just one problem
after another. Now we'll have to worry about that snake crawling
all over us as we sleep."
"What a great opportunity," said the second youth. "Now we can have
some dinner." Soon the snake was roasting on an impromptu fire, and
in a little while, the two youths began to eat.
"This is horrible," said the first youth, spitting out the meat and
nearly vomiting. "I can't imagine a worse thing."
"Actually, it tastes rather mild," said the second youth, eating
with relish.
When the next day came and the youths were rescued, they were asked
about their adventure.
"It was the most awful, horrible experience I've ever had," said the
first youth, trembling from the memory. "I'll be mentally scarred
by it for the rest of my life."
"It was great!" said the second youth. "I think it's the best thing
that ever happened to me. What a fun time. I'm so glad I was there."
* The events we experience are less important than the meaning we
give to them, for life is about meaning, not experience.
In Defeat There Is Victory
Once upon a time, among the infinite events which pass daily in this
world, a man took his son and daughter to the racetrack to watch the
horses run. After several races, the man announced that he would
place a bet. "We want to play, too!" his children cried excitedly.
"Very well," answered the man. "Here are the names of the horses in
the coming race: 1. Dotty's Trotter; 2. Sure Win; 3. Also Ran; 4.
High Risk; 5. Looking Good; 6. Outside Chance; 7. King Alphonso."
"I want to bet on Sure Win," the boy said eagerly. "There's nothing
like the certainty of success."
"And I will bet on Looking Good; he sounds so handsome and strong,"
the daughter said, with a trace of a sigh.
"Good, children," their father replied, and he went off to place the
bets for them.
"Whom did you bet on, daddy?" the daughter asked when he returned.
"I bet on Outside Chance," he answered.
Soon the race started. The horses bolted from the gate and took off
at top speed. Looking Good looked good around the first turn.
"Yay, yay, yay!" the girl yelled, jumping up and down as the desire
of her heart moved forward. "I'm winning! I'm winning!"
"Patience, my child," said her father. "In horse racing, unlike in
life, we look only at the finish, not at the progress."
"I sure hope that's true," the boy said, "because Sure Win is
running fifth."
"Yes, my son," replied his father, trying to soften an inevitable
blow, "although you know you cannot gamble and be sure at the
same time."
At length the horses came into the final stretch, and, except for
King Alphonso, who trailed rather substantially, there were only a
few lengths between the leader and the trailing horse. But in that
final, all-consuming, frenzied gallop, where mere wish and common
effort give way to inner strength and spiritual power, the spaces
increased, so that finally the children, with their feelings crushed
by the surprise of unexpected failure and by the dismay of dashed
hope, watched the horses run across the finish line in this order:
1. Outside Chance; 2. Also Ran; 3. Dotty's Trotter; 4. Sure Win; 5.
High Risk; 6. Looking Good; 7. King Alphonso.
While the girl burst into unrestrained sobbing, the boy, feeling the
full difficulty of the conflict between youth and manhood, choked
his tears back, and knowing his father to be a philosophical type,
tried to see the metaphorical application of this event. "This race
is an allegory, isn't it, Father?" he asked, "where we learn that to
succeed we must avoid what appears to be a 'Sure Win' and apply
ourselves instead to the 'Outside Chance.'"
"No, my boy," the man answered. "The lesson is that we should not
pay attention to names and appearances, but that we should penetrate
beneath the surfaces of things; that we must consider real
abilities, evaluate past records, and trust our judgment to bring us
to a knowledge of the truth. Appearances and labels are often false
and seldom accurately reflect inner realities. We must not let our
casual perceptions influence our beliefs or rule our actions. I bet
on Outside Chance because he previously has consistently
outperformed the other horses in today's race, or horses that have
beat the others. I care not about his name. Read where it says
that God does not judge by external appearances, and imitate him."
"But I still like Looking Good and I wanted him to win," his
daughter said perversely, wiping her tears and stamping her foot.
"Outside Chance is a creep."
"And now, my daughter," said the man, "you have first felt the
conflict between reason and passion. May you learn to resolve
it well."
The Oppressed Girl
This may seem like a tall story, but there was once a teenage girl
who didn't get along with her parents. "I'm sick and tired of all
these oppressive rules," she would complain. "I feel just totally
controlled. I want to be free!" So she ran away from home. "Now,"
she thought, "I can stay up all night and listen to loud music and
watch awful movies."
When she told her friends of her new freedom, they said, "Great!
Let's celebrate and get drunk."
"Yeah, why not?" she replied. "I can do anything I want." So she
drank and laughed and vomited and passed out on the bathroom floor.
A little while later, she met an older girl who seemed to be
experienced in the ways of freedom. "Hey," said the older girl, "to
be free, just take these pills and free your mind from all your
cares." So the teenage girl took the pills and felt strange and
didn't sleep for three days and then closed her eyes and woke up in
the middle of the following week.
Another time she met a young man who seemed to know about the free
life. "Let me help to liberate you," he said, putting his arm
around her. And so they went to his van and drove to a vacant lot
where the young man kissed her and "liberated" her and told her to
leave and drove away.
Many days later--days that passed without recognition or
remembrance--the girl found herself sitting on a bench waiting for a
bus in the middle of the desert. As she sat there gazing at the
distant mountains, conscious of little more than the rising heat,
she heard herself say, "I don't know what to do."
"Whatever you do will be foolish," said a voice from behind her.
"What?" the girl asked with some surprise, not sure whether she was
listening to a person or a hallucination. The voice was that of an
old woman with bony hands.
"Good decisions come from good values," continued the old woman, as
she watched her knitting rather than the girl. "You have thrown
your values away and so your decisions are poor."
"But I wanted to be free," the girl answered.
"There is no freedom without rules," the woman said. "Without rules
there is only slavery."
"You know nothing about me," said the girl, her anger rising. "I'm
not a slave to anyone. And I can do anything I want to. So just
be quiet."
As she got on the bus to yet one more destination, the girl turned
back to the old woman and said, "I'm sorry I got mad. The truth is,
I'd do anything to be happy for one hour."
"That pretty well sums up your entire problem," the old woman said.
Two Conversations on Direction
"And then you turn here to the right."
"Really? No, I don't think so. The left path must be the way.
It's more attractive, and it somehow just feels right."
"I'm sorry, but you have to take the fork to the right. See the
little sign pointing the way?"
"Yes, but something just tells me the left fork is the one to
take. The ground looks better, and that tree up ahead seems
so persuasive."
"Well, I ought to know the way to my own house. There is only one
way, along the right path."
"Uh uh. The right path looks bad. I just can't believe it leads to
your house. You probably don't remember correctly."
"You'll get lost if you don't come this way. The other fork dead
ends. The only thing there is a swamp, a pit, and a snake."
"It can't be. It looks so well traveled. And I have such a feeling
that it will take me to your house; I've got to try it."
* * *
"Hi. Hop in."
"Thanks, I appreciate the ride."
"No problem. Where are you going?"
"I don't know. That's what I want to find out. Where are you going?"
"To San Diego."
"Then where are you going?"
"Back home, why?"
"And then where are you going?"
"Well, oh, I get it. Then I'm going to rise in the firm and
become president."
"And then where will you go?"
"I guess eventually I'll retire. Say, you feeling all right? You
seem a little strange."
"But after you retire, where will you go?"
"Well, we all die eventually, so I guess I'll wind up at the cemetery."
"And then where will you go?"
"I get it. You're one of those religious fanatics, right? I think
you'd better find another ride. You can get out here."
"Okay, I'm going. But I see you don't know where you're
going, either."
"Yes, I do. I'm going to San Diego."
Semiotics Strikes Out
It so happened in heaven one day that two souls who had been friends
in their college years on earth met after long lives apart. After a
few minutes of joyous reunion and recounting of their lives, one of
the souls realized that they were now in a place where all hearts
can be revealed, and where they no longer needed to hide anything.
"You want to hear something funny, Lissa?" the soul said. "Back
when we were young, I really loved you. Not having you for my wife
is the one great regret of my earthly existence. Pretty silly, huh?"
"Not at all," said Lissa. "I always secretly loved you, too, and
hoped against hope that someday you might notice me."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"I was too shy. But I sent you hints."
"Hints?"
"Yes, like the brownies I gave you that rainy day in the
student union."
"Oh, or like the chocolate-chip cookies you gave me that one time?"
"Well, no, those were only cookies. I was just being friendly. But
that Christmas when I gave you a coffee mug. That meant I loved you."
"Oh, I know. That thank-you note you wrote when I fixed your sink
you signed, 'Love ya special.' That was a hint, huh?"
"Actually, I signed all my cards and notes that way, so I was just
thanking you then. But remember that note I wrote where I called
you a 'weird monster man'? Boy, how I loved you then. I wish
you'd responded."
"I thought maybe that meant you didn't like me. I never was good at
hints. I remember thinking a few times that some girl was hinting
that she liked me but when I would ask her out or mention romance,
she'd always look shocked and be dumbstruck with disbelief that I
could ever have thought she'd be interested in me." And here the
soul sighed, as only souls can sigh.
"Well, why didn't you just say something to me, like, 'I love you'?"
asked Lissa.
"I was afraid. And I didn't want to risk destroying our friendship
by producing unwelcome romantic overtures. And besides, I sent you
hints, too."
"Your overtures, as you call them, wouldn't have been unwelcome.
But what do you mean you sent me hints?"
"I took you out to lunch."
"But you took lots of girls out to lunch."
"That was just for companionship or friendship. I just liked them,
but I loved you. I thought about you day and night all through
college, and for awhile after graduation, too."
"I wrote you a couple of love letters that I never sent."
"Gosh, I wish you'd said something."
"I wish you'd said something, too."
* As we pass through earthly life so quickly and only once, how sad
that our fear of rejection is so often stronger than our love.
Seeing is Believing
One day an idle young man was wandering through the woods not far
from his town when he happened upon an old woman standing around a
rather smoky fire and stirring a kettle. Being the modern young man
that he was, he immediately blurted out his first impression:
"Gosh, you're ugly and whatever you're cooking stinks," he told her.
"Well, if you don't like my looks," answered the old woman, "I can
fix that." She then spoke a few strange words, which were followed
by a dramatic puff of smoke, and the young man discovered, not that
the old woman had transformed herself into a beautiful young maiden,
but that the young man could no longer see.
"Now I've protected you from all ugliness and every unpleasant
sight," said the woman. "And you'll remain this way until you can
find someone to marry you. And it will have to be someone who can
look beyond externals better than you, because I'm also changing
your looks a bit." Here the woman gave a little laugh and uttered a
few more unintelligible words. Soon there was another puff of smoke.
"Ooh, bummer," said the young man, feeling of the new bump on his
nose and the deep wrinkles now in his cheeks.
When the young man returned to town, he quickly discovered that his
social life was now pretty much a historical artifact. Whenever he
went to a party, the reaction was always the same.
"What's wrong with him?" some girl would ask.
"He's gotta look that way until someone marries him," would come
the reply.
"Hasn't that plot already been done?" the girl would say, walking
off in another direction.
But, hey, this is a fairy tale and I'm in a good mood so let's say
that finally, after many rejections, the young man found a nice girl
who actually loved him as he was.
As the young man got to know her, he kept trying to imagine what she
looked like. After awhile, he constructed a picture of her in his
mind, so that whenever he looked in her direction, his imagined
vision of her came before his eyes so vividly that he felt he could
almost see her. He thought that he could very nearly see the slight
curve of her lips, the sunlight shining in her hair, the expressions
of delight or concern on her brow.
Well, anyway, things worked out so well that pretty soon the girl's
father was mortgaging his house to pay for the wedding.
When the bride and groom awoke on the first day of their honeymoon,
the young man discovered that his eyes had been opened. However, he
also discovered that the girl lying beside him did not have the deep
blue eyes with long eyelashes, or the upturned nose with little
freckles of the girl he had been seeing in his mind. The young
man, still in the habit of blurting out his first impression, said,
"Gosh, you've changed."
"No," said his new wife. "The only thing that's changed is that now
you can see. Oh, and you no longer have a bump on your nose."
"But where's your blonde hair?" the young man asked.
"My hair has always been this color," the girl said, fingering her
chestnut tresses.
"But you look so different," the young man said, still confused.
"When you looked at me before," the girl explained, "you saw only
your imagination. This is what I'm really like."
"I see," said the young man, as he embraced her and began to give
her a thousand kisses.
"I know," she said.
A Traditional Story
Once upon a time, several time zones from your house, there lived a
king who had tons of money, mansions and castles on too many lots,
plenty of art and cultural treasures, dozens of wives (some of whom
loved him), and so much power that the mere mention of his name
caused cardiac arrest among a considerable number of his subjects.
But--he was not happy. So he called his advisors to him to seek
their advice.
"My soul troubles me," he told his court. "I have seemingly a full
life, but I do not find happiness here. In the middle of an
amusement, or when I wake at night, or as I take a bite of rare and
delicious food, I feel an overcast sky in my heart. Help me to
dispel this cloud."
"Perhaps your majesty would be happy if he had more wealth,"
suggested his treasurer. So the king increased the taxes on his
people, hired traders to go to distant lands to buy and sell, told
his workers to redouble their efforts in his precious metals mines
and minted more coins than ever. It wasn't long before the king had
so many storehouses full of treasure that he couldn't even count them.
On many an occasion his majesty would be riding through a city and
see a huge building he didn't recognize, and upon inquiry, discover
that it was yet one more warehouse full of his loot. And let me
tell you, these warehouses were so glutted with gold and jewels and
coins and rich carpets and Old Master paintings and antique vases
that when the king wanted to look inside one, the jewels would flow
out the door like gravel and the coins would spill out like water.
His servants got so tired of replacing the excess that they finally
just began to shovel it into the trash can after the king left. (Of
course, they probably helped themselves to a little bit of it, too.)
In his palaces, the king had so much fancy stuff that ancient
statues were used as door props in the stables, thousand-year-old
urns were used as spittoons in the kitchen, and scraps of precious
carpets were used to clean the servants' boots. The point is that
after all this additional acquisition, the king's lifestyle was much
fancier, but the king himself was still not happy.
"What his majesty needs is activity," said the king's culture
minister. "Activity is the rubbing paper that scours the rust from
the soul and burnishes her to a new shine. If the king would just
engage in some hobbies, he would find contentment." So the king
took up some hobbies: hunting, painting, dancing, building (more
mansions and castles), eating, woodworking, stamp collecting, riding
(in his golden carriage and on horseback), swimming (in his pool
full of pearls), and even knitting. In all he tried thousands or
perhaps hundreds of activities, each of them dozens of times.
He also held athletic contests, built amusement parks, and ransacked
the world for jugglers and magicians and singers and players and
storytellers (that's how I met him) and musicians. He ate too much,
drank too much, and danced and played and watched and traveled and
did too much and basically engaged in a constant frenzy of activity
from morning to night, from January to December, from the beginning
of the decade to its end. And the result was that he was amused for
awhile, but was mostly fat and tired and sometimes drunk and often
disoriented, but still not happy.
"Perhaps your majesty would be happy if he ruled the surrounding
lands and felt secure from attack," suggested the head of his army.
"For the proverb says, 'In security lies happiness.'" So his
majesty instructed his generals to go forth and conquer the
territories around him. After a preposterous quantity of noise,
smoke, blood, guts, and dying, the king found himself in possession
of jillions of acres of farms and towns and houses and cottages and
the souls of all those who lived therein. He now ruled over the
land as far as he--or even someone with good eyesight--could see in
every direction from the top of his highest tower. At any time of
day or night the king could call for the relief of a distressed
friend or the beheading of an enemy. He had absolute say over the
life or death, the happiness or suffering, of millions of people of
every rank and degree, from the most exalted noble in a seaside
mansion to the most unfortunate street urchin in a grimy and
stifling hovel. Such a thought sometimes gave the king half a
smile, but he was still not happy.
"Perhaps what the king needs is love," said the eunuch in charge of
the king's harem. "If he would marry a new variety of ever more
beautiful wives, he would perchance find happiness among them." So
the king decided to realize this scenario in three dimensions and
searched throughout his kingdom for the most desirable women he
could find. He found pretty ones and witty ones and laughing ones
and moody ones and smart ones and elegant ones and plain ones and
philosophical ones and decorated ones--women of every proportion,
size, color, personality, and talent, and he married a hundred of
them, some of whom loved him even more than those among the first
few dozen he was already married to. And the king found much
pleasure in his wives, but he was still not truly happy.
"The king will find happiness only in wisdom," said one of the
king's scholars. "For it is written that 'truth is a joy unto
itself.'" So the king applied himself to books of wisdom, and to
seeking the knowledge of all his many scholars and sending
throughout all his realm to find the wise from every land. Dozens
came and dozens pretended to instruct him in wisdom or in the way to
happiness, but while he found some really good advice and some
satisfying rules for life, happiness still eluded him.
Then one day came a woman from a land beyond the sunrise. Her words
were few but they so affected those who listened that she was
immediately granted an audience with the king, who explained the
discontent of his condition.
"Here before me," he said, "it would seem that I have everything a
man could want. I have three or four rings on every finger, I can
caress a beautiful woman's hair in any color, I can ride a week in
any direction and find my statue erected and feared, and I can hear
any melody or see any play at my command. I possess or can do or
enjoy everything I can imagine, and everything that the most
creative of my servants can imagine. And yet I find that happiness
is nowhere to be found. I am always rankled by a feeling of
dissatisfaction and haunted by an awareness of emptiness."
"Truly, his majesty's desires seem to be infinite," said one of his
courtiers, scarcely more able to hide his disgust than his envy.
"His majesty's desires are indeed infinite," said the woman. "For
that is the nature of the human heart. The heart's deepest desires
cannot be satisfied by any finite thing."
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