“They passed a dead man in a sitting position on a hummock, entirely surrounded by wild animals and snakes. Common danger made common friends. Nothing sought a conquest over the other.”
–Zora Neale Hurston, from Their Eyes Were Watching God
A guy and a girl were having a big, fat argument. An old lady with bright, red hair was there with them, and she tried to make sense of their rants and accusations. She wanted them to stop and she wanted them to keep going. The guy and the girl talked over each other, then they yelled, but they didn’t look at each other. They looked straight off into the near distance. They were making each other very nervous, they were both afraid, they were grabbing objects and putting them back down. He called her a liar and a racist. She called him a moron. He sat real stiff then, as if that were the only way to contain his rage.
A whole crowd of angry, confused people started chiming in after the guy and the girl finished. (The lady with red hair made them stop). Actually, the chimers-in were not confused, or couldn’t see that they were, even though it’s all so very confusing. For example when the good guy drives his car into a lake and swims away. Leaves a nice lady down there in the cold water to drown. Most of the chimers-in agreed with the girl, because she is tall and has blonde hair and wears false eyelashes. She is loud at parties, too, at home in Connecticut. It’s her thing.
Connecticut. Connect a kit. That helps us remember how to spell it.
In kindergarten, a boy is told that ostriches can run thirty miles an hour, and that is how they escape from their enemies. They cannot fly. They must run. That seems pretty fast for a big bird. But then he learns that the natural predators to the ostrich are the lion and the cheetah. The boy is already quite familiar with the cheetah, and knows very well that a cheetah runs 85 miles an hour. He quickly realizes that an ostrich cannot outrun a cheetah, but he is too shy to raise his hand. The teacher did say that the ostrich has a claw, instead of a foot. She also mentioned that funny thing about the ostrich burying its head under the sand. It’s not true. It’s a myth.
True or not, the ostrich is going to die. The boy has to accept this.