Math Problems

Addition: I’m so sorry, I had no idea.

Subtraction: No, no, it’s cool. I mean, I only found out a few weeks ago.

Addition: Are…how are you feeling about it?

Subtraction: Fine, I guess. Or, at least I’m doing better than I was. The first couple of days were pretty rough.

Addition: I can’t even imagine.

(Pause)

Addition: What do the doctors think?

Subtraction: They smile a lot. They can’t really lie to me, though. When the doctor himself is telling you it doesn’t look good, you’re in trouble. And they’re telling me it doesn’t look good.

Addition: I’m so sorry. I’m…I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.

Subtraction: You don’t have to say anything, really. There’s nothing to say. It’s just one of those things that happens. I wonder- I wonder if it’s one of those things where, if I had just turned left one day at an intersection instead of turning right, or decided not to go out for dinner, something like that, the whole thing could have been avoided. Just a little thing like that, something I never thought about, the tiniest choice, if that could have changed the whole thing. Kind of a reverse butterfly effect.

Addition: I don’t think the world works like that, Subtraction. I have to think it doesn’t. Can you imagine? Everything you decided to do would be so important, the consequences always dire, how could anyone do anything? I like the idea that, for better or for worse, everything is more or less planned out, and there’s only one outcome and it’s this one and it’s the right one.

Subtraction: The right one?

Addition: No- well, at least I don’t mean that I’m glad about this. Of course not. But, if I believe that this is the way the world is meant to be, that everything happens because it has to, then I also believe in a kind of justice. And you don’t deserve this. That’s the best evidence I can think of for an afterlife. There has to be something that makes this right.

Subtraction: That’s a nice thought. A really nice thought. But it’s too convenient- the world is a messy place. As much as I’d like to think that there is more than we’re seeing, a kind of unseen force that makes everything work out and maintains a justice, I can’t honestly do it. It’s deceiving myself. There will be murderers that will live to be 10^2 years old- I’m dying at 3.2 x 10^1. And both of us will just cease to be. No Hell, no Heaven. This is it.

Addition: This is it.

Subtraction: Yes.

Addition: You might be right.

Subtraction: As might you.

Addition: I believe I’m right.

Subtraction: I want to believe you’re right.

(Pause)

Addition: Well, see you later. I need to go wrestle.

Subtraction: Understandable.

Brainstorming for an Essay

There has been a constant struggle between Idealism and Pragmatism in United States Foreign Policy.

But don’t take my word for it. Just look at the evidence.

One hundred and twenty years ago, a decade before the turn of the century, William McKinley was faced with a choice: he could turn the US into a major world power, or he could continue to practice the tired diplomacy of his predecessors.

Guess what he decided.

Fifty years ago, the Native Americans started a rebellion on the streets of Vancouver because “there weren’t any streets left in our Native America.” They took several hostages over the course of ten weeks before finally freeing them.

It was only in a Washington Post exposé fifteen years later that the American people realized that “freeing” meant killing.

In 1827, a future civil war soldier made the choice never to return to his home state of Massachusetts. He traversed the countryside, using the stars as his guide, before finally giving a commencement speech at a one-room schoolhouse in what would shortly become the state of Kansas.

The theme of his speech was Love Thy Neighbor.

About 500 years ago, before America was even a country, ice warriors planted seeds to foster jealousy amongst their rivals.

Did they succeed?

In 1985, the Year of the Rabbit, a mass murder in downtown Chicago was covered up by machine politicians. Seeking only to further their own careers, they buried the lawsuits in an Indian Burial Ground of red tape.

The Burial Ground turned out to be haunted.

Or did it.

Seven years ago, before consultants were able to predict annual growth, the economy was upended by a small but fierce band of natives who staged one of the most subtle coup d’états in the history of history. For nine tense days, the market was at the mercy of their regime, which sought to legitimize adoption rights.

But adoptions wouldn’t exist for another two years.

In summary, everybody knows that US Foreign Policy sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t work. The interesting part is not whether it succeeds but whether it attempts to. And not everybody knows that.

BUT THEY SHOULD OR THEY WILL DIE.

maybe