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"Root of Evil" by Tooshoes (seeking a meaningful relationship)
10, 10, 10
"Root of Evil" by Tooshoes (tooshoes@cris.com). --- "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." That phrase occurs in two poems that I know of - one poem that the English professors love and the other that they scoff at - "Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man" and Ernest Thayer's "Casey at the Bat." My husband also recites the line when he's watching my daily tape of "Days of Our Lives" with me, but he's making a sexual innuendo about a sexy babe named Hope on whom he'd like to spring eternal. Anyway, Our Hero is rich but lonely. But hope springs eternal in his human breast: he still hangs out at the strip bar, hoping not only to get lucky, but to fill that lonely place in his heart. But that's how a fly is likely to get caught in a spider web (as Our Hero says), and Casey did strike out (as Walt Disney tells us). But fear is the root of all evil. Our hero overcomes his roots and asks the dancer out, but "Sandra has a problem with dating customers. She thinks a guy should at least have dinner with a girl before seeing her naked. But hope spring continues to spring eternal in his human breast. He sees her rejection as a swing and a miss. Like Casey, he has two more strikes. But Flynn precedes Casey, and likewise so does Blake. The former is a puddin' and the latter is a fake. She may not date him, but she does get naked for him; but that's because he has paid for a table dance. Strike one, the umpire said. Soon Arnie decides that desire is the root of all evil. Arnie has what the country western song calls "Scarlet Fever." Scarlet - I mean Sandra - gets him so hot that he mixes his metaphors. He is a fly, longing for the spider, imagining the web he is caught in as the trappings of love. He feels the way a prisoner would feel, looking beyond the cell bars at freedom. He feels as though he is living a beautiful dream, but the alarm clock is ringing. Or as the Poet would put it, the umpire said, "Strike Two." Can I fight my way out of this metaphorical tangle, this labyrinth that I have imposed on myself by mixing classical poetry and baseball doggerel? What does it say about me when I can remember almost all of "Casey at the Bat" but almost none of "Essay on Man"? Such thoughts fill my mind as Arnie goes home alone to his cats and his pillow. Will Casey go down without a fight? Even if he fights, will he strike out? Or will there be joy in Mudville? Actually, pain is the root of all evil. That's Arnie's third conclusion about the root of all evil. Thirds are almost invariably final. In jokes, it's always the third man in the bar or the third person in the priest, minister, rabbi trio who delivers the punchline. Country western songs always repeat the refrain three times. Most people sneeze three times if they sneeze at all. And that's my third example; and Arnie is right about this pain thing. "Happiness lies somewhere between having money and spending it all." I don't know who said that. Probably John Milton or Garth Brooks. Or Sandra near the end of this story. I'm going to risk ruining the ending. Casey hits a foul ball on the third strike. In other words, hope still springs eternal - at least for a little while. Or as Pope says later in his little poem, All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee; All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see; All Discord, Harmony not understood; All partial Evil, universal Good. The sooner Casey figures that out, the less likely he'll strike out. Or at least it will be less likely that he'll be devastated if he does. This is a new style of story for this author; and it's very, very good. Ratings for "Root of Evil" Athena (technical quality): 10 Venus (plot & character): 10 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10 Review of "Golden Mile" by Sista Shakespeare (sista_shakespeare@my- dejanews.com). Guest review by Dave Myers. Synopsis: Ferris wheel sex. The story itself has a great hook and a nice feel to it. There are too many distractions, however. Too often, writers quote lyrics from songs to try to give us a feel for the scene, complete with music. It almost never works as planned, and this is no exception. Add to that the misuse of semicolons through the story, and I couldn't keep my eye on the heat. If cleaned up, it'd have been a 10. Rating for "Golden Mile": 8 |