The Return of Ignorant Man

prkadet at yahoo.com prkadet at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 3 07:37:19 PDT 2005


The Return of Ignorant Man
by Ken Kadet
in a Fit of Existential Musing
at Work


A man awoke in a dark, silent place. 

"'Where am I?" he said aloud. His voice echoed. He
looked around and saw only darkness. He was sitting
upon what he thought was a hard floor -- concrete,
perhaps -- but could see nothing, as if he was
floating in space. 

'Nowhere,' he thought. 

"Who am I?" he said aloud again, and smiled slightly
as his voice echoed as it did before. 

'I am Bart," he thought. 'An ignorant man.' He
mustered his courage and thought again. He thought
*hard*. 

'No! Wait!" he thought. 'I am THE Ignorant Man!" 

This notion pleased him greatly. The knowledge only
increased his naivete. He put his fist under his chin
and spoke in a low clear voice. 

"I am Bart, the Ignorant Man, and I am nowhere."
'Now,' he thought, 'we're getting somewhere.' 

"Goonie!" he shouted and giggled helplessly for a good
10 seconds as his voice reverberated around him.
"Goonie goonie goonie!" 

After awhile, the man calmed, and placed his hand back
under his chin. 

"I must ponder this. How does a man get to be nowhere?
How can there be a nowhere? Nowhere means not
anywhere, and where anywhere is there cannot be
nowhere because it is where it is. But if it is what
it is, and it is where it is, then where was it when
it was there if not somewhere that is now nowhere? And
if nowhere is what was once anywhere then why..." 

"Shut up shut up shut up!" A voice cried out in the
darkness. 

"Was that my voice?" The man, Ignorant Man, asked. 

"No, goddam it. It was no one!" Deep in our
evolutionary past, the human brain was wired for
language. Soon after, humans learned a communication
mode wherin a person makes a statement, but speaks in
such a way that it is apparent to the listener that he
means exactly the opposite of the literal meaning of
the statement. In English, we call this sarcasm. But
through years of training with a dubious guru deep in
the heart of one of the Dakotas, Bart cleared away his
ability to recognize or even define sarcasm, and thus
remained...unaware...of what the voice was trying to
tell him. It went part and parcel with the power of
naivete...the power of Ignorant Man. 

"No one?" Ignorant Man asked, quizzically. "Can there
be no one, when one speaks? Can there be a voice,
without one to speak it? If there was, say, a voice
without a mouth, would that mouth be able to eat? And
if it could eat, would it not have to have a body? Or
if not, what then of the food..." 

There was a terrible scream. It echoed all around
Ignorant Man. A light came on, and he was awash in
white. He blinked. And then blinked again. 

When his eyesight returned, he discovered that he
was...someplace! Someplace cold and drafty. He was in
a large room, with wood paneled walls, a concrete
floor ('aha!' he thought), and cheap wood framed
furniture covered in tough, rough, mossy colored
cloth. Two chairs, and a couch. 

Across the room was a wooden door with a rusty brassy
knob. On the floor, in front of the door, was a man,
curled up in the fetal position, muttering to himself.


"Stop, just stop, you goddam, ignorant, stupid,
stooge. You just can be that unbelievable
unconscioubulously stupid and ignorant..." 

"Are you okay?" Ignorant Man asked. 

"Stop...just stop!" 

"What should I stop?" 

"Ahhhhhhhhgggggggghhhhh!" 

IGNORANT MAN HAS CLEARLY TURNED THE TABLES ON A
DASTARDLY VILLAIN. 

WHO IS HE? 

WHAT DOES HE WANT? 

CAN THERE BE A MORE DEVASTATING POWER THAN THE POWER
OF NAIVETE? 

GOTTA GO NOW!

Copyright by Ken Kadet 2005  prkadet at yahoo.com
----------------------
see more things I've mused about, whined about or
muttered about at odd moments at
http://mychronicimpendingdisaster.blogspot.com 




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