Trium Perfectum

Finished 31 January 2017

Published 6 May 2018

We have a height-one of 0.3. So, for the triangle’s legs, it doesn’t really matter if you call the side height-one or height-two. 0.3 times 0.4 equals…yeah. H-2, divide by five. It’s a very small answer, 0.24.

But it works.

I look out the window, and I cannot imagine the thousands of dim-eyed faces crowding along narrow, dust-clogged pathways. I wonder why I am still sitting here when a war is gushing red not seven thousand miles from that doorstep. I can see their features, now. They peer through the crystalline, white-lattice panes, eyes traveling across the streaks of color climbing up the board. Up, up, up—the ink will shatter in the teacher’s hands, someday.

This will be on the quiz, but it’s easy, so, just…you know.

Don’t do anything crazy.

1966. Every child armed with free spirits, furious will, and a shotgun. We call those children the ‘lost generation,’ but—are they really lost? My cause is invested in a generic future, and little Reds were promised the pages of a crimson-crusted book. They raised the pages high, those Reds. They didn’t know their future, they couldn’t comprehend it. Is that what made them violent and free? In this democracy I call a sanctuary, I am lost and numb. My passions are lack in…

Youthful fury.

So this could be quick to some of you. Alright. I’m just gonna combine it all into one. Seven-six, seven-seven… Pythagorean theorem. The converse says, um…a triangle is a right if A-squared plus six-squared is equal to C-squared.

Bless you.

Only fifty years ago, my democracy privileged African Americans with the right to vote. I turn my head to look out the window. They all say that time is skewing us into the murky past, where we were less holy than today. It would be wrong to agree completely—dystopias are the fate of humanity, are they not? I know they say it in books. I know the statistics slap labels over the sorrow, and headlines only grow ever-more wicked.

I know that—

The board says: four, five, nine. Three numbers. Four squared is one sixteen. Five… Yes, carry the one. Nine plus five is…fourteen. It is obtuse.

—every twenty minutes someone commits suicide. Or, was it every fifteen? Every ten? these numbers will decrease as time goes on; that’s all I am certain of. It is already within the top ten leading causes of death.

Because we are all children, and we all grow up… So, this author is writing a novel about childhood and adolescence. Now, if you’re thinking “I’d like to go to an Ivy League college, or university,” these are the types of things they’re going to expect you to read. Okay. Thursday and Friday are half-days for you, because of school conferences. So.

That’s that.

“Only do not leave me in this abyss—! Oh God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” Miss Brontë, your sentiments writhe like my unfettered thoughts.

Bottles and needles, pills and beans—free enterprise! Free enterprise! Flit up into the spindrift, never drop your gaze down that stalk! Up, up, up we go! Atomic bombs fly like the words from your lips. What is that, you say?—“Hareton hangs a litter of puppies from the back of a chair.”

The back of a chair.

Their eyes soft, hopeful, weak. Trapped in these countries which they love, but where they cannot speak. The revolution is upon us! Gather up your ebony flags and doves and furies—quench the fires of chemical destruction! Our lives are more sacred than that golden tassel, than the regal calligraphy upon my di-plo-ma.

Omne trium perfectum.

My triad is looking like the summit of a belfry. Why has the sun left me flurries of dreams and lies? My sovereignty is your surplus! My knowledge is to feed your sparkling glass, when the windows filled with reflections of slaves will do no good. Yes, I am a beautiful slave—as are my cousins, as they snap their books shut to the world and their eyes become ablaze with ersatz light. Summit, now is the time for your Christ to shower radiance upon all of His—

Children.

We were all children, once. We are all adolescents. Then, we will all be grown-up—wind riling our spirits into the clouds, our aspirations shredded across the ground. Head, heart, and soul; laughing at you with all our misconceptions. (Soul is not something that exists in this reality). Hypercapitalism, save our dying hearts. Embrace our minds with schooling and synthetics, show us your flickering blue lights. Lift us—

Up, up, and up.