How Does a Bored Tutor Spend the Time?

Why, proving the quadratic formula, of course!

Fridays are slow, especially the beginning of the semester... so I had to do something useful! The Prison Story will be finished, I've just had a lot of intervening ideas since then...

Neat Song

Have you ever heard a song that sounds like a prayer? I mean, there are the songs with lyrics that sound like a prayer, but the music doesn't reflect it.

I don't normally, but this morning I flipped the radio to the local "Christian Music" station, wondering if perhaps there was something good on (note the quotations earlier in the sentence), and I heard this song.

My first reaction when the words started was to reach for my cap, which I always remove whenever praying. It was completely reactionary - when I started to sing along, it felt just like a prayer. I have never had a song do that to me before. Hope that this song is refreshing to you as much as it was to me.

Note - I cannot necessarily reccomend any other songs that this group sings, but this one is amazing

The Prison - Part 2

We didn't walk very far before we came to a long, low structure.  It was dreary, very long, and no more than six feet high, though at one end, there was a tower. There were no windows, but one gate stood at the end facing me.

“I had no idea the prison was so close.” I remarked to the watchman as we walked.

“The prison is closer than any man knows.” He replied. “And even though you have passed this way before, you could not see, much less enter the prison until I came for you.”

“Are you the only watchman?” I asked.

“No.” He replied, “My name is Unexpected. I come whenever the warden sends, and am the swiftest and most sporadic in the arrests I make. There,” He said pointing to another watchman leaving the prison, “Is Sickness.  He often goes and arrests those whose bodies have succumbed to some ailment. Drowning often arrests those who swim without permission. There are also the watchmen War, Starvation, and Accident, to name a few.”

“What funny names.” I commented.

“We have dreary lives, and people fear us. Though in reality, they ought to fear the prison to which we take them. We are merely the routes whereby the Warden calls the people to the prison.”

“Does everybody go to the prison? Has everybody committed crimes so atrocious to be confined for life to the prison?”

“To answer your questions in order,” He answered with no trace of emotion in his voice. “I know only two who have never gone to the prison, though that was long ago. Everybody is committed to this prison, though the time spent here is actually very short.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. We were now at the front gate

“You will see as soon as you are inside. Now, I must bind your hands. If you have anything you must have in your hands, retrieve it now.”

I knew what he meant. I reached into my jerkin pocket and took out a small parchment of paper. On the bottom was signed my name, as well as the King’s. On it, I had declared that I truly believed that the Rock could save me. I handed it to the watchman, who looked at it, nodding.

“Is this all you need?” He asked.

“Yes.” I replied.

He then bound my hands, rolled up the document and sealed it, and opened the door.

“Enter.” He said. “I will deliver this document to the King.”

The Prison - Part 1

It was my time.

I marched on ahead of the watchman who had come for me. The morning had been strangely smooth, as though rehearsed. I’d gotten dressed, eaten breakfast with my family, and gone outside to start work.

And there he was.

“John Barnhill?” He asked, but I knew it was more of a statement.

“I am he.” I replied.

“I have come for you.” He said simply.

“May I say goodbye to my family?”

“You may. Not everybody is granted that request, but since you are so close to home, you may.”

I called inside for my family. They rushed out, hearing the urgency in my voice. They stopped short when they saw the watchman, but then my father rushed to my side and grasped my hand.

“Son, listen to me. Do you know the way to escape the Dragon?”

“Yes sir, the Rock will save from the Dragon.”

“Do you believe that?” He asked, his face pale, and somehow fading.

“Yes, of course.” I replied, squinting as he seemed to become transparent.

“No, no, John, that’s not what I mean. Do you believe that?”

“Yes.” I replied.

My father smiled, and then faded away as if a mist. The rest of the world remained completely visible, but looking around, the villagers, my family, and all other living things faded away, except the watchman. I turned to him, he motioned down the street with his hand, and I began walking.

Nobody knew the way to the prison, but everybody knew it existed. Nobody exactly knew what it meant, but that didn’t stop stories from being told. Everybody went to the prison eventually, but nobody had ever come back.

Many people fought the watchmen when they came, but it never stopped them, and the only result was that the unfortunate prisoner was dragged away, usually crying miserably. I had purposed long before to not go in such a way as that.

Some said the prison was really a paradise, which is why nobody ever came back. Others shuddered and said it was full of torture chambers, where all of our life crimes were paid for. Others still declared adamantly that there was nothing at the prison – just blackness where the prisoners slowly faded into nothing. But in my heart, I knew what the prison held.

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