“Recitar!
Mentre preso dal delirio
Non so più quel che dico e quel che faccio!
Eppur...è d’uopo...sforzati!
Bah, se’ tu forse un uom!
Tu se’ Pagliaccio!” — Vesti la giubba by Luciano Pavarotti.
The golden rays of midday filled the class through the four windows on the right side of the class. (The windows were in the design of lancet windows and half the length of the classroom.)
The room was also filled with the bewildered faces of students hearing Vesti la giubba for the first time.
My hat’s brim covered my remaining eye.
My leg, withering in pain, was kicked upon my desk.
Next to my leg was my cane.
Vesti la giubba wrapped up.
“V”
“Mr. V”
“Can you”
“Will you“
“do your fucking job!”
“teach us.”
Rayden's and Yuki's voices ran through the silent classroom while also overlapping each other.
“Are we going to do anything, or are we just going to sit around?” Rayden asked once more.
Using my index finger to point my hat up, letting my eye see class, I looked at Rayden.
“Well.”
I put my feet off the table and stood up using my cane to support my left leg. Looking at the blackboard which still hold the words
WHAT IS MAN?
WHAT IS DEATH?
WHY?
Taking a piece of chalk from the cranny, I drew a circle around WHAT IS MAN.
“Homo sapiens is believed to be approximately three hundred thousand years old. Possibility a million years old… This is not what I am discussing with the question WHAT IS MAN?
This question discusses the topic of humanity… Humanity… What is humanity?”
I stood looking at the blackboard; my mind painted the face of humanity unmasked onto the board. A ringing formed in my left ear, and my hands gripped my cane.
“Mr V”
“Mr V”
“Mr V”
“Mr V”
My brain finally doing its fucking job registering one of my students' fucking voices. I turned from the board and looked at Yuki's.
“Yes, Yuki.”
“You started to trail off and stood in place.”
“I was just thinking, Yuki, but I’ll get back on track. To answer what humanity…”
I turned back to the board and wrote.
“HUMANITY = MAN
Man in this statement is a stand-in for humanity.”
“So you’re saying that humanity means humanity.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Answering the question but not turning around, I said, “Yes, Rayden.”
“Well… What?”
“In actual terms humanity doesn’t have that complex of a meaning. The meaning is in the word. But philosophy, I believe, the word humanity means what makes man, man. The phrase “Oh, the humanity!" is said in inhuman situations. So the absence of humanity is the absence of what man believes what man is.”
“My gods, V, that doesn’t help.”
“Just sit with the statement for a bit.”
“Uh, sir, you still haven’t answered the original question: what is man?”
“Much better… And much worse men have tried to solve such a thing. Aristotle once said that "we are what we repeatedly do," but let's say such a thing is too simple, too mechanical for something so complex of which man truly is.”
Picking up the chalk once more and wrote down a fool's belief.
“We are what we do.”
“You changed one word.”
“Sometimes… one word changes everything, Rayden.”
The schoolroom felt rather schoolish.
I took a glance at my pocket watch; reading it, I found there was still time left in this fucking class. I feel like a One Piece episode trying to stretch out this class.
“It seems that there is still time to go over more in this class, so we will be going over the next topic.”
Once again picking up chalk and using it. A course circling something: “WHAT IS DEATH?” this time.
“V, I swear to the gods, if this is you, explain “WHAT IS DEATH?” the same way as you did, as “WHAT IS MAN?” I’m jumping out the window.”
“Don’t break out the windows; they are expensive, Rayden.”
“Why do you seem so tired?”
“I haven’t slept for sixty-one hours. The weird drink that now inhabits my flask and inability to sleep in normal circumstances, so I’ve been teaching eighty-four students in seven periods and then studenting until the first periods of the day.”
“What, you haven’t eaten either, just studenting?”
I took a swig from the flask. “Yeah.”
“Mr. V, that sounds awful.”
“Um, it’s fine.
I’ve been through so much worst… It's time to stop worrying about me and start worrying about the immoral movement of time and the meaning behind it.”
I pinch the top of my nose, trying not to take out my good eye and destroy the hole anymore than it already is.
"In Plato's Apology, written by Socrates, he brings up his belief of death: "Death may be the greatest of all human blessings." When I shuffled off this mortal coil, death didn’t seem much of a blessing.
More like a dream…
A dream I would never wake from.”
“You died before?” Rayden said in confusion and then followed with Yuki, “Sir, you’d died?”
Anyone who wasn’t knocked out on their desks seemed to gotten a second wind after I brought up my longest departure from life.
Never spent too much time being dead when watching/living through every horror of man.
“My death doesn’t matter, 90% what I’ve said doesn’t matter, because none of it answer WHAT IS DEATH… What a stupid fucking question. We all know what death is; it's the ending of life, the country no traveler returns from. The what isn’t interesting; it’s what happens after death and the maddening feeling that our own death brings to ourselves.”
“V, I’m getting ready to jump out the window.”
“Ahhhmm, don’t get your knickers in a bunch, Rayden. As it seems that most of you are now paying attention, let’s dig death out of its coffin. Now, I have killed many of men in my time, as well my time in death, so I’ve grown accustomed to man’s longest-known friend, death.”
“Is that why you reek?” Kaminari piped up.
“Maybe, maybe…”
Yuto raised his hand.
“Yeah.”
“Mr. V, what does this have to do with military strategy?” Yuto asked.
“Yeah, Sensei V, how does this do anything to help me defeat my enemies?” Takeshi followed up.
“Both questions can be answered through this quote…”
I picked the chalk piece up and wrote it down so if the student did not hear, they could read.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle—Sun Tzu.
Yuto, Takeshie…”
The two sat in their chair, eager to listen.
“This quote, even if it is a quote with no date or proof behind it, this quote stands true. To know yourself, you will never second-guess yourself. You're able to fight dependents on your body and your mind; nothing else matters. Knowing your enemy gives you a tactical advantage. Both factors create what a perfect warrior is.
A tactical genius and a master combatant.
Through learning that of MAN, DEATH, and WHY, we will learn how to and why man kills.
So what is death?
Using one final quote in this class period, I will use Hamlet, a novel that I dare not lie, and say I do not love. So enterment once more and hears the words, the poem, the ideal of William Shakespeare.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. — William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1.
Apologies for not using my own words, but I doubt I could have articulated anything as well as this.”
I opened my pocket watch and read it.
“It seems time has run out for today.
Now…
Get out.”
The shuffle of shoes filled the room with noise, and then all grew silent.
I sat within my chair, putting my legs up on my desk and placing my hat down.
Christ I’m tired.
