Vulgations

Having seen Disney's movie The Sword In The Stone at age seven, and read much of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle by age ten, I recognized hypocrisy when it raised its ugly head. The teachers who decided to target me for abuse at Mark Twain Elementary School in Duncan, Oklahoma for not professing belief in a supreme being to my classmates soundly demonstrated that black alchemy of ignorance-driven hatred all too well. Two of them, especially, became symbols of all I never wanted to be like as my journey through life progressed. I don't remember their names now, even though I heard them spoken every day for two consecutive school years while attending the Music and English classes they taught.

But I do recall mulling over their abuses at length, trying to understand why my frank declaration of anti-theism to classmates when they pressed me on the subject of belief during recess struck such a viceral nerve with our teachers. I finally decided they feared the effect my vulgations could have on believers within the student body. Judging by everyone's shocked reactions, I suspect no one at that school had ever before openly professed non-belief within earshot of any of them. I hadn't even thought about doing so until asked point blank about it. I simply did not want to lie to my classmates so I spoke truthfully in my reply.

Then a vision of what I must have represented to those hypocrites so ensconced in their belief system filled the inner screen of my mind's eye. I was the wielder of Excalibur, striking fear of exposure and unraveling of their belief system through a simple act of sheer honesty. Upon speaking truthfully, I had effectively drawn the mighty sword from the stone before their very eyes, driving them into a mad frenzy of hypocritical actions directed at the mighty little ten year old who dared stand up and speak without any degree of guile or pretension.

I didn't, and do not to this day, consider myself any better than any of them, having no notion of being superior to any lifeform. But it does make me giggle over their frantic angst. And it tickles me even more to have done so in a school named after the author Mark Twain.