The joy of Fee Fall Writing is not how well one writes, but whether, while hurtling to the ground, one can write at all.
Writing prompt- A tarot card marked “success”
Jeez I wish I had more success. My fellow essayist George Orwell said, “Everyman’s life, seen from inside, is a series of defeats.” So said the man whose books will be read as long as we remember the horror of communism. Although come to think of it, our prime minister, born with a silver spoon in his mouth with expensive private schools, despite his education, knows naught of such horror. Hey, don’t get me started.
We all want success. If you see the world as richer and poorer, better and lesser, gold and medals that don’t count, then you are by definition living in a world of rare success. How arrogant to think I would be one of the few. But if I see the world as bountiful, where all can succeed in their private goals of appreciating art, or memorizing poetry as Orwell did—me too—then our world has sunny uplands.
The horror of communism and autocracies is that even if you are at the very top then you can’t exactly take time to enjoy your art. So many man-hours have to go into something not as innocent as office politics but as sinister as bolstering one’s power and destroying rivals. As Bertrand Russell, the philosopher noted, when a benevolent man becomes a despot then the benevolence vanishes, but the dictator remains.
In a sense, then, it’s better to be middle class than upper class, better not to be jockeying for political and social power, whether in his majesty’s dominion of Canada or the republic of Rome. Before me is a card of a man riding in a chariot enjoying a triumph. Such was the name given to a ticker tape parade after a glorious conquest. There would be captured exotic animals, enemy war elephants captured, enemy slaves and floats with loot. There would be marching bands and happy soldiers pleased to be home, and maidens would toss flowers.
And in the corner of the chariot would always be a slave entrusted to keep whispering, “Remember master, thou art mortal.” Sounds like something America’s founding fathers would say, for they sure knew of the temptation to be a king.
The tempted are born within every generation, it’s up to the majority to be eternally vigilant. In a sense, that is what education is for. The United Nations is for peace, education is for democracy. Lose the latter and you lose the former.
How strange that people get fooled, especially those in rural areas, the power base of despots. How miraculous that the founding fathers knew better. Franklin said, “Caesar did not deserve a triumph as much as he who triumphs over himself.”
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Writing prompt: A photograph of poppies alongside a house
Pop, pop poppies. They pop up where they can, seeds are available for free from your local war museum. I see them next to Lee’s house, right by the wall where we can see them when we go to the backyard for a brewski.
I remember a night of pushed together tables on a parquet floor. Glasses popped up in unison, “to the Queen!” This was long ago, before the king. The chaplain had started us with grace, later he called for a minute of silence. So we did, then back to carousing again. Because we all shared a secret: Civilians think they will live forever, or die in bed. Each one of us knew that wasn’t true. So no more than a minute, then back to the living.
I remember once standing, with my rifle slung, in front of a Japanese news camera man. I didn’t give a care whether I should move a couple paces. Funny, sometimes a couple paces it all it takes to get good reception on a backpack radio, a couple paces can put you into a the lee of a steel wind. But at that moment I didn’t give a care about dead eyed zombies in front of dead television screens. Because I had learned that the dead must serve the living. So I stayed where I was and if you don’t understand then good for you. I don’t think I would want you to understand, because then that would mean you had stood in some desperate places.
We were a breed of animal who walked erect until threatened. A gregarious breed who maintained a spacing of a yard apart.
I was happy for Lee that he had a nice house and a nice deepfreeze—the electricity bill was high but the peace of mind made up for it. We would sit in his yard with our heads still, our eyes still, country music drifting through the doorway, and none would make us afraid.
Even today, years after the camps, Lee is so happy to do simple things like sit in a Tim Hortons and lift a coffee. He doesn’t mind Calgary because Viet Nam was so hot. He minds when the government tries to hand out free Vietnamese flags for a Canada Day parade. Doesn’t the government get how hateful the communists flag is? You will never, never, never see a Ho Chi Minh City restaurant, no Hanoi dry cleaners. When the war was supposed to be over they kept him in the camps for a long time.
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Sean Crawford
Edmonton
July
2024
Footnote: Free Fall writing is not supposed to be edited.
My next essay will be well edited by my peers, about documented reasons for the US being divided.
