Solomon's Kryptonite

Andi and Dani

We’ll begin with a couple and their curse and the day they drove away in a little red hearse.

As the wheels roll slowly on the asphalt below, family, friends, and acquaintances whisper about the life these two will live together in sorrow.

“Neither happiness nor peace will emerge from this,” they say.  “The two will only rot and decompose and then smell as they decay.”

Before this so called happy moment, each night the couple would vent to others of the yelling and the shouting and the fighting and of their torment.

Not only did the couple’s words embalm with hate and malice, but the only reason they seemed to stay together was so that they could touch that sacred chalice.

However, the two would flaunt their status from time to time, fantasizing that the problematic ashes would blow away in the wind the day the bells of the funeral would chime.

Despite the efforts and advice of caring others, the day has regrettably come to pass.  The gloomy fog lingering as dew softly coats the brown grass.

The tombstones of similar lovers and their epitaphs of misery mean nothing to these two as they vow and kiss and recite the words: ‘I do’.

Morbid music, dancing, and food follow and the sound, sight, and taste of the reality makes it hard to take it all in and swallow.

As the couple step in and lie down in their separate coffins, they are slowly enclosed inside a vale of black that wipes away their giddy grins.

The hinges and clasps lock them inside.  Their shouts of sheer terror echo in the ears of the caring others, causing them to weep, wail, and cry.

In the years that follow, the mothers of the couple will mourn this day daily while the fathers will become bitter, depressed, never cease to be angry.

“There’s nothing more we could do.”  The women will say to their men as they sit together on their porch hand in hand.

-Mikey D. B.-

It has been said before that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.  One thing that makes us, human beings, the dominant species, is our ability to remember and interpret past events in an extraordinary manner.  This great feat can also be our Achilles’ heel unfortunately.  As simple as it may be to just remember and interpret, Leonardo Da Vinci once said that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.  See, the thing is, we all remember significant events fairly well in my opinion.  We all are familiar with at least the basics of historical moments, or a good majority of us are, and we know what the general morals to be learned from them are.  Remembering, that is the simple part.  Sophistication comes when actually applying what we learn and know.  Within each of us is the natural desire to beat the odds.  As we interpret past events, automatically we figure that we know what our ancestors did wrong and since we know that, we figure that although we will do exactly what they did, we will do it flawlessly, because after all, we see the bigger picture unlike our naïve predecessors.

Rene Descartes explored this idea in his Discourse on Method.  Basically, as he walked in the halls and studied in the classrooms of some of the most prestigious universities of his time, he discovered that the more he learned, the less he knew, and he found it highly ironic that many others, when they learned more, they knew more.  He states that to be human is to be a reasoning individual and that if we reason we are human and if we are human, then we will reason (Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method Part I).  If we reason, we will see that not only are we not invincible, but we are also very vulnerable to the idea that we think we are and that Superman has nothing on us.  We will see that we are not superior and humble ourselves, recognizing our God given weaknesses.  However, people don’t always get it and it takes a tragedy before we realize that yeah, we screwed up big time.

Take King Solomon the Wise for example.  “And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.  And Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt.”  (1 Kings 4:29-30)  From my interpretation, I’d say that it’s safe to say that Solomon was a pretty wise guy.  We read of his wisdom in story after story in the Bible, and yet I find it interesting that somehow there is one thing that Solomon did not seem to get despite all of his wisdom.  He, like his father King David, was wooed away by the curves of women.  David lusted after Bathsheba and killed her husband Uriah, just so that he could take her to wife (2 Samuel 11).  Solomon, son of Bathsheba and David, had his heart turned away by his wives and concubines “and Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father” (1 Kings 11:1-8).  Solomon the Wise made the same mistake that his father David did.  It wasn’t committed in the same fashion, but the principle wasn’t any different than that of his father’s choice.  It’s an irony of history that such a wise son of an immoral act, was blinded and in turn, committed the same basic immorality.

We all subject ourselves to be more superior than we really are.  We all have a morsel of Little Man’s Crack hidden in a secret pouch of our jacket.  All of us shout out from time to time: “A bible, a bible, we already have one and need not another!”  There is not a second that passes by that I, myself, do not struggle with the fact that I am no Superman nor am I Captain America.  The struggle is not necessarily the important part, but rather the fact that am I going to take “the tombstones of similar lovers and their epitaphs of misery” to heart or will I wait until “the hinges and clasps lock [me] inside.  [My] shouts of sheer terror [echoing] in the ears of the caring others, causing them to weep, wail, and cry”?  Sometimes all it takes is a simple werd for us to realize how far down the road we really are.  Will we listen and obey, or will we ignore just so that we can rot, decompose, and eventually decay?