An Unexamined Life

Mari Knudson

Once there was a man who didn’t think about anything. Whatever words came into his head came out of his mouth. Whatever he wanted to do he did. And so on.

While never thinking had its advantages, it also came with challenges. For example, he would never make it to work on time as he lacked the capacity to meditate on the consequences of staying in bed all day. So a routine was devised.

Every morning an alarm went off with a ring-a-ding-ding. He had been conditioned to climb out of bed whenever he heard this sound. If his alarm was switched to make a ring-ading-dong noise, he would not get out of bed as this sound meant nothing to him.

He went to bed naked each night, so when he climbed out of bed he would be cold. His clothes were strategically placed next to his bed so when he climbed out of it he would step on them and be forced to take notice. As at this point he would be realizing that he was cold, he would recognize the clothes and recall their ability to warm him and subsequently put them on his body. And so on.

Surprisingly, he had a girlfriend. One would think this would be impossible, what with the not thinking about anything, but who else would be the one to lay out the clothes and condition the ring-a-ding-ding response. Not thinking about anything also had certain romantic benefits. Like being a very generous lover, because he was never only thinking about himself, because he was never really thinking about anything.

He rode the subway to work each morning, because him behind the wheel of a moving vehicle would be detrimental to society. One day a man came up to him and asked him for spare change because he was an army veteran and had lost the use of his right arm and had a dog and two kids to take care of and so on. The man, thinking of nothing, did what was asked of him and handed the man his entire wallet.

Despite this act being a heart-warming gesture, the man’s wallet had his employee key card in it so when he got to his place of employment he was unable to swipe himself into the building. This had never happened before and, unsure of what to do next, the man simply stood there, waiting for something to happen. He grew tired of standing and sat right in the middle of the sidewalk. This is how the police found him.

“What are you doing here?” the policeman asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“I think you’d better come with us,” the policeman said.

“That’s a great idea,” he said, unsarcastically.

The police asked him a series of questions, which is never a very good idea with a person who never thinks about nothing.

“Who are you?” the police demanded.

“Who are you,” he reflected.

“What game do you think you are playing?” they asked.

“What game do you think you are playing.”

They charged him with being a hostile witness.

“Witness of what,” he wondered.

In a matter of no time, he had been fingerprinted, orange jump-suited, and given the task of dialing his one phone call. He had never had a phone before, and therefore didn’t know any numbers, so he punched a series of random buttons and was lucky enough to actually get through to someone.

“Hey there, handsome,” a woman’s voice said.

“Am I handsome,” he wondered.

“You sure sound handsome. What are you wearing?” she said.

“What are you wearing,” he wondered.

“Nothing at all,” she replied. And so on.

Prison was actually a splendid place for him to be because of the mundane regimentation of it all. Every morning his cell mate woke him up by dumping a bucket of cold water on his face. His cell mate wasn’t unfriendly,;the man was simply hard to wake up without his ring-a-ding-ding alarm. The same strategy applied to get the man into clothes by his girlfriend was replicated with the man’s orange jumpsuit. And so on.

All the man had to do was imitate what everyone around him was doing. He took a few beatings due to his habit of staring blankly off into the distance, sometimes landing his gaze on a fellow prisoner, thus eliciting the whole what do you think you’re looking at ordeal.

The problems starting rolling in, however, when the man accidentally became involved in a plot to bust out of prison. He had simply been standing in a corner, minding his own business (of which there was practically none) when suddenly a group of prisoners in fierce discussion nearby noticed his presence and assumed he knew too much. After a lengthy discussion, they decided against, as one member had advocated for, smashing his head repeatedly against the wall and instead enlisted him into their prison break.

The man soon became highly valued amongst the group members for his boldness, because, never thinking before he acted (as he never thought at all), the man failed to consider the consequences of his actions. He also was a fantastic follower, as he lacked the capacity to really have an opinion on anything, let alone decide his opinion was better than anyone else’s.

The prisoners had decided against the whole “dig a tunnel out of prison” approach to breaking out (which they deemed cliched) and instead opted for the “arm themselves and wreck anyone who stood between them and freedom” strategy. Arming themselves posed the real challenge; prison shivs were not well suited to this purpose, as they broke easily and were only useful in close range combat. So they decided they needed to something get a gun off of one of the guards.

The man was willing to just go up to one of the guards and wrestle his gun off of him, but the rest of the group decided they should wait for a more opportune time. Finally, one came along when they were all in the kitchen together, cleaning. The man was mopping, which he very much enjoyed doing, given the repetitive nature of ten where he lived, as they had taken the slip of paper with his address written on it when he had first arrived at prison. The paper had only been for emergencies; his girlfriend had run him through his route from home to work and back enough times that it had been ingrained into his brain. But he was not going from work to home, or home to work, and therefore was in uncharted territory. the wiping motion, although he often picked too much water up with each trip to the bucket and consequently, the kitchen floor was soaked by the time the guard entered the room to check on them, causing him to slip, fall, and be knocked unconscious.

The group leader grabbed the guard’s gun, and the man held onto his mop, in case another man was needed to be knocked unconscious. He dragged the mop behind him as they ran out of prison, causing any guard that ran after the group to slip, fall, and be knocked unconscious. And so freedom was achieved.

Everyone in the group wanted to immediately see their wives and girlfriends after the break out, so the man decided that he should do the same. Unfortunately, he had forgot-

The man tried to remember what was on the slip of paper. He had remembered something before, but that was long ago, and of course he had no recollection of that now to serve as a guide for this particular moment. Remembering something as complex as a series of letters and numbers, last seen several months ago, required thinking, which the man was not capable of. So he simply started walking forward, spurred on by the vague feeling that whatever was forwards was better than whatever was behind.

He walked until he was tired, and upon sensing this he sat down, despite the fact that he, again, was in the middle of a busy sidewalk. This caused a disturbance of the peace, which, as everyone knows, is the worst type of disturbance. A policeman approached him.

“Were you aware, sir, that you are causing a disturbance of the peace,” the policeman demanded.

“Were you aware,” wondered the man.

“I think you’d better come with me,” declared the policeman.

“Yes,” said the man. “That sounds right.”

Twirling

Hard Grub

//Ned Laird-Raylor

You gotta grub hard. Buy two burgers if you need, Put it on the card.

Brisket, not too charred, Roasted sunflower seed, You gotta grub hard.

Buy a tub of lard, Do not resist your greed, Put it on the card.

At the table, stay on guard, Let no one steal your feed. You gotta grub hard.

When all that’s left is a shard, Restock: and with great speed! Put it on the card.

Go out to the yard, Sit and feel your stomach bleed, You gotta grub hard, Put it on the card.

Windows

Maria Perkkio