The Virus of Ms. Brittlebum’s Reform School for Imaginative Girls
It was a dark and gloomy day inside classroom number 130 at Ms. Brittlebum’s
Reform School for Imaginative Girls. The familiar sound of the metallic extendible
pointer smacked the chalkboard and pierced the ears of little Mariposa Fairweather.
Between each strike of the baton on the chalkboard, the children and teacher recited
the rules that were supposed to keep the school effective and orderly. According to
the teachers, and Ms. Brittlebum herself, these rules were the rules and principles that
helped reform the students imaginative nature and eventually allowed them to return to
society. Mariposa didn’t understand, because these rules simply made her feel dumb
and dull.
Smack! “One mind,” Mrs. Smith the classrooms teacher said coldly and then the
children faithfully repeated. Her metallic pointer moved to the next word on the
chalkboard.
Smack! “One body.”
Smack! “One life.”
Smack! “One Society.”
Smack! “One way.”
Smack! “One view.”
Mariposoa Fairweather was a particularly troublesome student for the school.
She retained an uncanny ability to tune out the monotony. In fact, for her, the smack of
the baton and the oft repeated words barely registered in her mind. She had eye sight
so sharp that she could still spot a small sparrow fluttering outside the small and dreary
windows of the school. She still noticed the caterpillars that would crawl on the
window or a small spider hiding slyly in the corner. The tiny creatures gave her a great
degree of comfort in this seemingly bleak situation.
Mariposa wondered about many things, including, could she maintain the
wonder and sacredness she detected even in her difficult situation? Even though she
was much younger than the faculty, Mariposa also wondered in her flights of fancy
whether she was indeed the sane one and perhaps her teachers had been infected
with a kind of madness? Mariposa was indeed quite gifted to notice this thought about
infection and madness, because hidden in the background, the school and teachers
were indeed dealing with an infection. It was one they kept neatly hidden from the
children with all their rules and secrecy.
One of the rumors amongst the schools faculty is that this infection, a virus,
originally grew from the Tablet of Righteousness. The Tablet of Righteousness was an
old stone tablet with two columns, one that listed certain actions as good and one that
labeled actions as bad. The tablet contained what Ms. Brittlebum, and the larger
society she represented, categorized into what they considered good and bad. These
edicts were strictly adhered to at the school. In fact, questioning or breaking the edicts
of the Tablet of Righteousness was what landed a child inside the halls of the school to
begin with. The virus was said to have originated and grown from deep within the
stone carved grooves of the letters on the tablet and then began infecting the faculty.
The imaginative children, curiously, were immune.
So what did this virus do? The teachers and staff began to hear voices inside
their heads. Of course, everyone hears a voice inside their head, for these are
thoughts. But the teachers and society had tried so desperately for decades to
monotonize the voice, when a different voice arose from the effects of the virus, they
labeled it as a madness they must suppress. Having been relatively ignorant to
spiritual processes, the teachers failed to recognize this new voice as simply a different
version of their own internal dialogue. Thusly, this new experience was labeled as
insanity.
It was on that very dark and gloomy day in classroom 130 that Mariposa
Fairweather set off the events that eventually led to the collapse of Ms. Brittlebums
School for Imaginative Girls.
In act of bravely and defiance Mariposa raised her hand after the morning
recitation. She knew she could face harsh punishments for such a question but
something deep in her belly told her she must ask it anyhow. “Mrs. Smith?” Little
Mariposa asked. “Why do I feel dull after the recitation?”
Mrs. Smith replied, but this time the voice from the effects of the virus spoke
instead of her older ideas. It happened so fast Mrs. Smith didn’t even have time catch
herself. “That’s a good question Mariposa,” Mrs Smith replied. She was so aghast that
she did not censor the child or this troublesome new voice that was so different from
her usual response. Mrs. Smith instantly worried she also would face harsh
punishments for her misstep. For the first time in decades a small smile pursed the lips
of Mrs. Smith. When the smile that travelled from her heart to her lips then reached her
muscles, she scribbled the words, I QUIT, on a paper and walked out of the school.
The virus continued to infect each faculty with new minds and new ideas. This
continued until every teacher surrendered to their new ideas, openness, and
perspectives gifted to them from the madness of the virus and walked out of Ms.
Brittlebum’s Reform School for Imaginative Girls. Eventually, even Ms. Brittlebum
herself walked out of her own school. When there were no teachers left to reform and
suppress their fertile imaginations, all the children were returned home. When they
returned, they found that even their parents had changed too. The imaginative
children, once held captive in Ms. Brittlebums school were now free to question and
free to explore. The imaginative children, unlike the faculty, had not forgotten they had
thousands of minds that mysteriously worked together without losing a sense of
wholeness.
Initially some in society worried that these new behaviors in the children would
cause the collapse of the world. The opposite was indeed true, the imaginative
children went on to be the leaders, innovators, movers and shakers that brought peace
and harmony to the world. In the end, some wondered why they ever built Ms.
Brittlebum's Reform School for Imaginative Girls in the first place.