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.