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Samuel Hazo A Parable for Dealing with Your Enemies |
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Imagine you have all the coins of
all the currencies on earth. Strangers start asking you for
change.
They hand you bills of such
denominations as to seem beyond
arithmetic. Each time you finish one
transaction you
must face another.
Everybody smiles and smiles
as you count and double-check
in all the languages you
know.
You’re steadily reduced to
speaking numbers, nothing
else.
That you speak history and poetry
and politics is
totally irrelevant. Your customers are not
concerned with anything
except to keep you occupied
with what they want. They form a queue that reaches the horizon. You see that you’ll be making change for strangers day by day from
now until
the day you die. Then and
only then do you rebel. You say you’re out to lunch forever. They
claim your only duty is to give
them change whenever
they demand. You
keep your poise no
matter what they call you, and
they call you everything.
You speak in verbs and nouns and
pauses now, not
numbers any more. They
swear you’ll hear from
them or from their
lawyers over this. You keep on talking, sometimes in
language, sometimes in silence. |
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Arts & Letters is supported by |
Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture Campus Box 89 Georgia College & State University Milledgeville, GA
31061 Phone: (478) 445-1289 E-mail: al@gcsu.edu
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GC&SU is a member of |
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