Didn't someone around here ask . . .

[ZenDog]

How flutterbys came by their peculiar name, since they look nothing like butter? Yes, I think someone did . . .

So I performed a little bit of history channeling and it seems the most reasonable hypothesis is that Hamlet, as a very young lad, flipped the f-b sounds as he was learning their name. His parents were so enamoured by the witty charms of even Hamlet's slightest stumble, that in this case word spread far and wide . . .

and thus flutterbys came to be known as butterflies

[HAVE_A_HEART]

You seek knowledge and u find oh great Zen one!

[larry kremis]

Interesting.

[Slayer Dug]

Time Warner

[ZenDog]

It requires a lifetime of monastic dedication and discipline . . .

[ZenDog]

eeYEah . . . really really well. You know it's true. After all, you haven't seen a wingnut from outa Vermont hit the national news, for burning the American flag . . .

in typical wartime buddhist fashion . . .

[ZenDog]

didn't I tell ya? I channeled history . . .

[ZenDog]

Must be you haven't heard. Well, it is just a rumor I guess. But they say really strange things happen

at the edge of chaos . . .

[ZenDog]

Depends on the time of day, day of the week . . . could be chance or the sum of stimulus . . . .

Why? Did you want to hear about my reaction to the news spot on the classroom in upstate New York full of twins? The teacher sees each child as a garden . . .

Yeah-ya. That's what she said. A GARDEN.

So maybe no one remembers the kids switched at birth that hit the news with a splash about ten years ago. The only reason the mistake was discovered was because one of the two sets of parents ended in divorce court, and there was a question of paternity. Genetic testing revealed something startling. The child in question belonged to neither parent involved in the proceedings. So of course they went back through hospital records to figure out, you know, where's mom?

Now, you have heard about the question circulating among academia, over NATURE vs. NURTURE? Yeah-ya. Keep that in the back of your mind.

Before the whole case was settled - and it was promising to get complicated because, hey, there was not only a divorce, but a pair of kids in two sets of families with uncertain paternity claims - so yeah complicated - before the whole thing was settled there was a car accident.

NATURE vs. NURTURE

It's just a theory of course. That's all. But you know. They don't believe in self reports. They don't believe in informed consent. But they CAN engineer distraction, engage in bribery, or even convince you you're gonna die because, hey, it's useful. Everyone knows there is nothing like the prospect of hangin' in the mornin' to focus the mind . . .

So yeah. NATURE vs. NURTURE. That's how they settle such questions. When the experiment goes bad, someone has an accident and nobody talks.

The parents who initiated the divorce proceedings didn't survive.

So of course when I hear about a classroom full of twins . . .

and the teacher sees each student as a garden . . .

my twisted brain runs automatically to a poem I wrote back then. Then I start cryin and shit but you know, there are people around and they can't know how truly fucked up I am and so I don't make a sound but of course I do, and it's kinda like a squeak you know? probably not and it's probably not a sound that you really want to hear because I'm not even sure it sounds human really but it is its a squeak




The Flower

The flower in the garden
. . .ducked her head but once
. . . and that was all it took.
Then by the Gard'ner she was plucked.

All the other lovely flowers in the row
stood a little straighter in the sun

. . . after that.

© D. Winter 1999

[ZenDog]

How far beyond are you Zen?

So I dunno. Pretty far I guess.

[stillgoing]

How Zen beyond far are you?

[ZenDog]

well . . . I dunno, I guess you could see it that way; but like I said . . .

[TeeBubbaDee]

I can't believe it's not butter!