Tag: philosophy

Light on the Restless and Small

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

Late morning was pleasantly sunny. Jeremy directed his feet toward the delicatessen overlooking the boat ramp. He was hungry.

A water taxi on a trailer was being slowly backed into the bay. The boat’s hull was black with decay. A man waving his arms near the water suddenly shouted: “Stop!”

Jeremy lingered on the deli’s sunlit patio, looking down at the scene with vague curiosity. He then stepped inside, carefully analyzed the choices and ordered a turkey and avocado sandwich with extra peppers.

He returned to the patio to wait.

The sunlight felt good. Shining pleasure craft bobbed in the quicksilver marina to one side of the ramp. The boats were empty. They shrugged on the water in rows, bright white, waiting, waiting.

A small pug waddled up from nowhere to the chair where Jeremy sat and pressed its nose against his ankle. Jeremy scratched behind the dog’s ear. The small dog pressed itself against his leg.

Runners from the nearby fitness center ran along the boardwalk. They ran with pumping legs and arms glistening in the sun. They followed a line, from the fitness center, past the marina, past the deli, to the boat ramp, back to the same place where they started, back and forth, up and down the boardwalk, sweating, arms swinging, back and forth, back and forth, wishful perpetual motion machines. Younger females. Older males.

Two motivations, realized Jeremy.

Fear of rejection. Fear of death.

It was a perfect day for a walk or a run. Sunlight in the open air always feels good. The runners passed through the warm sunshine on a day like any other.

Jeremy heard his name.

He returned to the patio with his fresh sandwich and found an open table. The pug came up to him again and pressed its nose against his ankle. Standing on the casually littered concrete, it stared up between Jeremy’s legs.

It was a fat little pug with demanding eyes. The animal stared directly at Jeremy’s carefully selected sandwich. It stood perfectly still. The eyes did not move.

Is there meaning in sunlight? In its warmth?

Jeremy, the philosopher, stared at the sandwich and felt sudden pain: his desperation for an answer.

But philosophy vanished the moment he took one bite. The sandwich tasted very good in warm sunshine.

Sparkling water lapped gently up the boat ramp.

Trailing black smoke, the water taxi was laboring across the bay into the distance. Its purpose: to pick up those many people who had places to go–places where sunshine might be.

A Few Words and a Pelican

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

Charles rested on his favorite concrete bench, watching a crowd of sailboats race slowly across the harbor. The sails shimmered in the sunshine.

The usual stream of tourists and restless souls filed past him on the boardwalk. Their heads were down, over small devices. Charles tried to ignore them.

Out near the entrance to the harbor, perhaps three miles across the water, a small blur of cloud followed a tiny white dot. That, Charles knew, would be the seabirds, greedily following the boat of a returning fisherman.

Charles watched and reflected for a while.

He became aware that one bird had separated from the boiling cloud. It seemed to have changed its mind, given up. It seemed to be flying directly toward land. Directly toward Charles.

The pelican landed on a plastic blue trashcan several feet away.

The pelican turned its head and stared at Charles.

They silently regarded each other.

The pelican’s round eye conveyed strange intelligence. The eye, light blue with a small black pupil, seemed human. The unblinking eye was turned upon Charles, and the pelican stood like a statue. The stream of people walking past with their heads down didn’t appear to see anything at all.

For several minutes, Charles and the pelican regarded each other. The eye didn’t blink.

“Hello,” said Charles.

The bird moved its head slightly.

“Did you come here to tell me something? What do you want to say?”

The round eye seemed to stare at Charles critically.

“Are you able to think?” asked Charles. He wondered if the bird had some reason to stand on the trashcan. It probably was hoping for a handout of food. Birds are simple creatures, nothing but animal instinct and appetite.

“Did you enjoy being out on the wide ocean this morning?” Charles asked amiably. His voice contained a dash of irony. “Have you eaten already? So what do you do when you’ve finished eating? Just pass the time? Is that all you can do? You kick back, breathe in the salt air, and take in the scenery? Like me? It’s a very pleasant day, indeed!”

The round eye looked back at him, unwavering.

“You don’t understand a word that I say. You don’t even care that I’m talking. I suppose we’re just two wandering spirits, gazing at each other at this random place and at this random moment. Meeting for just one moment. Adrift in our own lives, unable to truly communicate, or even to understand. But here we are. That’s life, I guess. Look at me, the philosopher. Talking to myself.”

“Even so, I wish you a good day,” smiled Charles.

Then Charles noticed one foot of the pelican was missing. Somehow, the silent bird still managed to balance atop the trashcan.

Charles stared at the spindly leg that ended in a sudden stub.

Of course, the loss of a foot probably was a death sentence. Perhaps the bird was indeed hungry.

Charles didn’t know what to do. The concrete bench seemed more uncomfortable than ever. He was strangely afraid to look up and meet the pelican’s eye. Did the creature understand its own fate?

“I’m so sorry,” Charles finally said, looking up.

But the pelican flew away at that exact moment. And the stream of people continued past.

“I’m so sorry,” Charles murmured. “I’m so sorry.” He looked down at his hands.

A Miracle on Sixth Avenue

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

John walked slowly toward his parked car. Sixth Avenue was just another street in the city.

Without thinking, he searched the sidewalk with downcast eyes. Cigarette butts, rotting food, a discarded bottle, a dead cockroach, bits of toilet paper. Disgusting stains, crushed things.

A plume of smoke up ahead caught his attention.

As he neared, John noticed a crowd of people had gathered close to the rising black smoke. Excited faces were staring down at the freeway from an overpass.

A van was on fire below. Traffic on the freeway had been stopped by a police car with flashing lights, and two firemen with a hose were getting ready to put out the flames. The empty van, alone on the concrete, simply burned, nothing more.

At least forty people on the overpass leaned forward to stare down at the freeway. More were arriving, drawn by the smoke, as ants are drawn to sugar. Every person in the crowd held up a phone, carefully framing a photograph. A photograph of an empty van on fire.

The people checked their phone, appeared unsatisfied, changed the angle, held it higher. Needing to capture destruction, meaningless and distant. They watched with perfect fascination and took a second and third picture. A hundred identical photographs.

John kept walking. He’d never before felt such a wave of disgust.

That night he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t purge from his mind that crush of people. Gawking, predictable, animal humanity, eagerly recording flames and black smoke, because flames and black smoke seemed exciting. Why? For what reason?

People were shallow and disgusting.

But what in the world is new?

And so John walked from his parked car up Sixth Avenue the next morning, a remnant of that dark shadow in his mind.

The sun was up. At the overpass there was no smoke. Cars passed in a blur on the concrete below. The incident was erased. Time swallows everything. Just different trash on the sidewalk.

“Good morning,” said an approaching person. The stranger’s eyes were wide, directly meeting John’s own eyes. A sincere, friendly smile was on the stranger’s lips.

“Morning,” John half-smiled.

And the passing person was gone.

The sun rose higher.

A small miracle had saved everything.

…

This short story originally appeared here!

An Unexpected Sunflower

~ Richard Schulte ~ 18 Comments

Lucy was surprised to see that an unexpected sunflower had sprouted in a corner of her backyard. Where it came from, she didn’t know. Every day she carefully watered the plant. It quickly grew.

When the bud opened the bloom was just glorious. Large, yellow and beautiful, like a cheerful sun in a small green world.

Gazing at the sunflower, Lucy felt that life was indeed good.

Every person on Earth, she thought, deserved the feeling that life is good. Why not? Suddenly she had an absurd impulse: to give that one magical flower to the entire world.

Every person should see it. Smell it. Touch it.

At last Lucy settled on her best idea. She’d give the sunflower to a friend, who would then pass the flower to another friend, who’d pass it to another friend… And so on.

Seven billion people on an impossibly big planet wouldn’t see her flower, but a few would. That’s the best she could do.

Several days later she carefully harvested the sunflower and placed it in a tall vase. She brought the flower across town and gave it to her Uncle Carl, who was under blankets with a bad case of the flu. A note was tied to the sunflower’s stem: Once this small bit of sunshine has been enjoyed, please give to a friend.

“Thank you,” he said, sincerely.

The next day Uncle Carl was visited by Alfonso, one of his war buddies. “Now you have to give this to one of your friends,” he said. “And add a little water.”

The sunflower descended like a beam of golden sunshine when Alfonso handed it to his daughter, Maria. She rose from her dining room chair, stunned. “That’s for me?” she asked, with absolute disbelief. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” he smiled. “You’re my friend, right? But read the note. You now have to give it to someone that you think is special.”

Maria gave the flower to William.

William gave the flower to Jerry.

Jerry gave the flower to Daniella.

Before class, Daniella handed the sunflower to her Geometry teacher. Mr. Harrow didn’t know how to react. “Read the note,” she explained.

“But the flower is drying out,” he said. “It won’t last much longer.”

“You’re the best math teacher I ever had. So take it.”

Mr. Harrow took the vase containing the sunflower home. He read the note attached to the stem: Once this small bit of sunshine has been enjoyed, please give to a friend. He wondered who had bought the vase. He placed the vase by the television and thought of his late wife.

Next morning the flower had entirely wilted. The crumpled petals had lost their brilliant color and several had fallen off.

Mr. Harrow removed the note from the stem and put it in a drawer. He carried the vase out to his compost pile, and quickly tossed the flower onto the heap. The vase he carefully cleaned and placed in a corner of his quiet house.

The following spring Mr. Harrow took a slow stroll through the backyard on a gloomy, gray day. As he came around the garage he was taken by complete surprise. Two sunflowers were rising from the dead compost.

The small miracle caused Mr. Harrow to wipe away a few tears.

Perhaps, he thought, being a teacher of math wasn’t such a useless thing. Because he appreciated the revealed meaning of the sunflowers. And it was: simple multiplication can quickly encompass the world.

If seeds were carefully harvested from a dying bloom–and just two seeds sprouted–one sunflower might become two. Then, repeated, two sunflowers might become four. Four sunflowers might become eight. Eight sunflowers might become sixteen. And in 33 generations–33 years–one seed might produce well over seven billion sunflowers. Enough sunflowers for everybody. Everybody in the world.

Mr. Harrow found the old note in the back of the drawer. It still read: Once this small bit of sunshine has been enjoyed, please give to a friend. He then added in his own writing: When the bloom finally fades, harvest the seeds and grow more sunflowers. He made two photocopies of the note, one for each of his miracle sunflowers.

In math, even the smallest fraction contains world-changing power.  One in seven billion seems like nothing, until it is turned upside down.

. . .

Lucy lay in a dark hospital.

The memory of her miracle garden had long vanished.  She had become very old.

Judy, her granddaughter, came to visit one late Thursday afternoon. She was holding a surprise behind her back. She presented a sunflower, like sunshine, in a new vase.

“Can you believe it? Out of the blue my best friend gave me this! Isn’t it amazing? And it has a strange note. I’m supposed to give this flower to someone I love. I would like you to have this.”

Attached to the stem of the sunflower was a small photocopied note. The first half of the handwriting Lucy recognized. It was her own.

…

This short story originally appeared here!