Letters from Tehran
by Kassandra Khomeini
Introduction
These documents were discovered in the U.S. embassy in Tehran by a study abroad student. They were unsigned, unmarked, and sealed in a “prominently displayed” diploma cover. The student was arrested by the Basij for espionage and sentenced to death. His death adds to the growing epidemic of chronic absenteeism in American universities—though at this moment, he is passing all his classes Summa Cum Absentia and is on track to graduate. His dying wish, proclaimed as his fingers were sawn off, was to present these papers at the Fall Humanities Symposium. Then they sawed off his nose, and next his head. The whole thing took a good while, and so he made several dying wishes. The last and loudest was to send them to Lapis Lazuli, with dedication to 艾琳娜.
Part I: A Suboptimal Problematic Internal Response Event (ASPIRE)
1. A Meteor Strike (Nov. 4, 1979)
Dear Faculty and Staff,
Today Southeastern Sideways State University (SSSU) was blasted by a meteor. My office sends condolences to all impacted by this tragic event, especially those who were planning on giving next week. As you are probably aware, a week from tomorrow is our Annual Giving Day. And while these are challenging times, I hope between scouring through rubble and prepping for outdoor classes you’ll consider donating to your favorite program, organization, or administrator. If you’re booking a VRBO right now, consider doing so in one of those pesky “problem states” that always “give” at the last second. Remember, only YOU can make our predetermined outcomes legitimate! Last year we reached all 50 states—this year let’s reach 55!
Those sirens you hear are not a drill. They are calling you towards our Annual Giving Day website, and they are asking you to give everything you have. Untie yourself from the mast. Remove the wax from your ears. Ignore the screams of buried people who refuse to donate. Take out your phone. Open your Ethics Awareness Week Word Search. Circle words. Take a Screen shot. Submit that to your Screen. Then go to the Annual Giving Day page. Enter your credit card information. Enter your spouse’s credit card information. Click the button that says, “All of it.” Hit “OK.” Put the wax back in your ears. Tie yourself back to the mast. Forget it ever happened.
I’m at a HISS conference right now following events via text and NikNok. It appears every building you teach, work, and study in has been blown to bits. If that’s true, then the English department finally got its wish, and that’s going on my CV. But for everything else, know that all the dual enrollment classes in the world won’t produce enough FTE to fix it, and we’ve already committed our Build Bonanza elsewhere next year. The Prevent says you can use office hours to email missing students, finish assessment reports, and dig out faculty who pledge money or organs to our campaign. If your colleagues do turn up missing or dead, please consider donating for them ad mortem. Remember our motto: “SSSU. Changing lives. Counting bodies.”
The situation on the ground is urgent. Last year’s target was 600 donors, and it was like sawing Siamese twins just to get that. But at our last cabinet meeting I said “1000 donors” as a joke and no one had the courage to say no, not even me. So now we’re in a real bind, and I don’t want a repeat of last year when A+S couldn’t take a hint, and we had to launch the “Caligula Plan” requiring all staff and admin to donate in their pets’ names. And because not everyone on staff had pets, we had to help them adopt pets. But then not everyone could adopt a pet (Shout out to our prison workers!), and that’s when ASPCA got involved. The whole thing ended up costing more money than we raised. But by God’s grace we hit our goal. And so did my CV.
But we had sinned. Because the next morning it started to rain. And it rained and rained and rained. For forty days and forty nights it rained. And animals of sundry origin started appearing all over campus. I tell you there were ten-thousand of them if there were a dozen. It was like the whole county just dumped their animals right in front of Grassley Hall and we were Noah’s Kennel. And the stench they left in our building. My God the stench. And all of it was avoidable. I told Alumni Productions the campaign was, “Give Us on Behalf of Your Pets.” But their AI-program’s AI-generated flyer put out “Give Us Half of Your Pets” and plopped it right beside an AI-generated picture of me holding an AI-generated alligator. So that Friday morning—holy shit—I wasn’t two steps from my Benz when a thousand filthy hippies with their dogs and cats and venomous snakes and “playing dead” opossums started handing them to me like the Titanic was sinking and my office was the last boat. One old lady wept as she kissed my hand, “Just take my Sissy, I don’t want my daughter to get fired.” You’d almost think there was a pressure campaign, or a public list of names we use to pressure supervisors to pressure their staff.
2. Crisis Management (November 6, 1979)
Faculty Members,
Two days ago our campus was destroyed by a meteor. I saw it on WTF News. And I know it’s been a minute, but I’m with the Principal at HISS, and we’ve been swamped with panels. Fittingly, this year’s conference theme is “From DOA to CYA: Leading from a Safe Distance,” and I’m chairing a “Committee Ethics” workshop later today where my team will simulate a university reorganization process using the metaphor of the meteor which just killed many of you. [Because for some of you babies, the “reorg” word is just too damn sensitive.] Anyway, my prompt for ambitious mid-level managers is, “Imagine your boss wants to launch a meteor at campus that would kill a subset of faculty. You know it’s for no good reason, but you also know that killing them and supporting him could have a marginal benefit to your career. For sure it’ll save you some time, and maybe you’ll get promoted. Vote yes or no. What is ethical?” Sound familiar? I have a good ice breaker too. My team will put a picture of God, Abraham, Isaac, and a Sheep on one side of the table; on the other side they’ll put pictures of a Principal, a Prevent w/ Screens, plus Faculty, and Students. Then everyone has to think-pair-share and match.
Earlier today the Principal and I workshopped extensively with Human Restrictions, University Elations, Alumni Harassment, and Student Entertainment and Excess. They’re at HISS too! Plus all the VPs, and all the Screens! In fact, literally everyone except you is here, physically isolated and institutionally insulated from the existential crisis which all of you are dealing with on the ground, while we eat PopTarts with the Principal. So I want to remind everyone that our Annual Giving Day is next Thursday, and to send special thanks to everyone who donated early using the power generator we’ve dedicated to that purpose. Once you’ve finished donating, we ask that you free up the generator for others who have not. One complaint I’ve received is that people are using the generator to power their phones, cook food, purify water, and other perceived necessities. These are “personal choices” (like TAP courses), not institutional needs. But to accommodate those whose lives have been totally destroyed, we are offering a new installment plan where you can finance your donation over 12-months and even earmark where we send the interest. Your generous donation will support not only the retention of wounded students who survived the blast, but timely recruitment of others to replace the dead.
Someone asked about academics. Because I say so, finals week and graduation are on as planned. I learned at Prevent Academy that “crisis” means not just “danger,” but “opportunity for promotion.” And I believe we can still retain the Enrollment Cup and rebuild lots of CVs from the wreckage. To that end, as Prevent I have instructed the Screens to instruct their chairs to instruct their faculty to instruct their students to instruct Human Retention to instruct their computers to reconstruct student records as follows: 1. All Injured students receive automatic Incompletes in all their classes (An “I for an I,” get it?). 2. All dead or missing students graduate with “Heavenly Honors.” It is our mission to “meet students where they are,” and that includes Heaven, Earth, Hell, and UNIV 1000. So if a student is ghosting you (literally this time), contact Experiential Laundry to adjust course outcomes to align with whatever their final terrifying moments might have taught them. Maybe let the wounded write a joint reflection with the dead.
3. No Pressure (November 7, 1979)
Dear Faculty Subordinates,
I control your Annual Evaluations. I decide on merit raises. I have all the keys to all the liquor cabinets. I’m not God, but I might as well be. So listen carefully. Tomorrow is Annual Giving Day, and I’m not about to be embarrassed because my faculty gave less than those miserable bastards in Arts and Sciences. Look at me…do you see any sense of humor behind these eyes? Any grace or humility? That’s right, I AIN’T the one. Let those Humanities cheapskates continue to think they’re Socrates and Thoreau in some bullshit Reacting to the Past game where truthtelling and tax evasion are transfigured into Nietzschean virtues. That’s why they’re all getting cancelled and sent to dual enrollment locations in God knows where. And you wanna know where? DALLAS, GA, that’s where. Anyone here want to spend a semester in DALLAS, Georgia? I didn’t think so. And it’s not happening to me. That’s agenda Item One.
Agenda Item Two. Do you see this big orange traffic cone? They gave this to me when I became a Screen. And I can use this to block off ANY parking space on campus just for ME. Maybe not the Principal’s or the Prevent’s—I’ll admit I haven’t tried that. But students? faculty? staff? You’re all screwed. Hell, if I want your parking spot I can put this cone on top of your car right now and have it towed straight to Atlanta. Once when the accreditors came I blocked the handicapped space near the English building to just “accommodate” them, and no one said shit. Then, just to see if those Arts and Sciences whiners would do something, I left it in the elevator during the Humanities Symposium. And now it has graffiti and urine stains. Of course it does.
Agenda Item Three. This traffic cone is industrial strength rubber. I can beat the shit out of any of you with this thing. And if you say a word about it to anyone you’re getting a 2 on your next eval. And that’s across the board. And do you want to know why? Ok, I’ll tell you why. Because I didn’t really get this from the Prevent. I stole it from an open pothole near my house because I was sick of looking at it. Then of course some dumb dogwalker fell into the hole and the police showed up with the ambulance and were like, “Holy shit. There’s like ten people down there! Where’s the rope? And who moved the goddamn traffic cone?!” And I had to frame the neighbor’s kid and fake dementia just to get out of there. But here’s the point, for the uninitiated. I’m a SCREEN. I have more savings on my watch than you have in your 401k. And I’m not giving that up. Not now, not ever. So we can cut the crap. What’s it going to take to hit 100% this year, Jenny? You’re not tenured yet, and there’s no way your stupid ASMR channel can pay the bills. And Johnny? Office space is tight and you’re still on the naughty list—maybe the English building would help you get nice? I don’t give two shits that it’s been destroyed—it looks better now than before. And don’t think if I send you there that you can walk to our building and use our bathroom. I’ll walk right into the men’s room and put this cone on your stall while your pants are down and have them tow you and the latrine you’re defiling right into the parking lot.
Agenda Item Four: All of you can go to hell. But I swear on my mother’s Christian name, if I don’t see everyone’s name on this prominently displayed website by 7:00 p.m. tonight—then as sure as our mascot’s birthday is listed on the academic calendar as a “co-curricular activity”; as sure as UNIV 1000 will never, ever be fixed; as sure as the meteor strike attached the term “University Sanctioned Disappearance” to half our students—by 7 a.m. tomorrow all of you will be driving to a dual enrollment site in Sycamore, where I doubt they even have bathrooms.
Part II: A Corpus
4. Sad News (November 16, 1979)
Dear SSSU Community,
Sad News!? For reasons we’ll never openly acknowledge, Dr. Pinocchio Lung is dead. And I didn’t know he was sick! We haven’t found his body, but he’s been missing since November 4, the day of the meteor incident, and we’re tired of waiting for him. He leaves behind an unappreciative family that didn’t contribute a penny to Annual Giving Day.
We’re still calculating the institutional windfall of Dr. Lung’s death. But what we can say is “phew!” Dr. Lung’s TRS retirement was just six-months from becoming a real boy, but now both Lung and his retirement are dead as a doornail. Dead. Wood. And it serves his family right for ignoring our repeated requests for money last week. We did everything we could to make giving as easy as possible for everyone, given all the circumstances. But they didn’t care.
Anyway it’s perfect timing. First it frees up money for a new Director of Graduate Stuffings, something my CV has needed for a long time so I can get the hell out of here. Second, it means A+S faculty can shut up now about their so-called “concerns”: We have known for some time that the tree of “student success” must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of “low performing programs.” It’s just a question of who to axe and when. At the last Screens Council the Prevent had the brilliant idea of giving a “Slice of Thanks Award” to the “most unenthusiastic” program on Annual Giving Day. Instead of a plastic trophy, they’d receive a sharpened “Sword of Damocles” to hang in their lobby; and since you don’t know when the sword will fall, you’d better not have it in your building. But Dr. Lung’s death is a Divine Miracle telling us which heads will roll (including his). And re: Dr. Lung’s students—what students? Maybe five or six advisees in a good year? all destined to be B.I.S. majors anyway? Whatever. If any do whine about trauma, Grassley has a thousand dirty animals they can pet.
The meteor destroyed almost everything in Dr. Lung’s office, but feel free to comb through the rubble and take whatever you want. Campus police found a diploma cover described as “prominently displayed” and “immaculately preserved” (Another miracle!). Plus they found a marble safe stuffed full of books. Probably all the books he failed to write. When his widow visited I had nothing to give her—no body, no ashes, no retirement, no words that matter. And she rudely rejected the Dumpster Fire Christmas Ornament I offered her (I think she’s a Communist). So I grabbed the diploma cover and said, “We found this in Dr. Lung’s office. Plus those books I threw in the garbage.” She said, “He’s dead now. You can call him Pinocchio.”
5. Lapiz Lazuli, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, pp. 1-10 (January 1, 1980)
These documents were sealed in a “prominently displayed” diploma cover found in Pinocchio Lung’s office. His widow submitted them to Lapiz Lazuli, hoping a posthumous publication might earn Pinocchio a “3” and spare his epitaph the words “Performance Improvement Plan.”
(a) Walking (September 11, 1979)
I was walking to work when I heard a loud thump behind me and saw a baby deer skidding onto the southbound lane. It gave two kicks then fell still. The traffic continued, everyone ignored it. One car drove right over as it lay there in shock. Then a jeep pulled to the side. A Samaritan, a woman, younger than me. I called 9/11. I directed traffic. We decided to carry the animal off the street. It was just laying there, bleeding profusely from the mouth. We set it on the curb and its soft neck curled awkwardly around. I thought it was broken, but who knew a young deer’s neck was that flexible? A minute later Bambi stirred and jumped dizzily back into the street, making a circle, showing a slight limp. I grabbed her again and held her to my chest. She didn’t resist. I petted her and talked to her. Her mouth kept bleeding. It bled on my pants, on my shirt, on my arm, on everything. As we sat there a neighbor walked out. She stood with us and complained about the speed limit in front of her house and how no one obeyed it. Then a man named John walked by, a religious man I met eight years ago who took over my rental house. He crouched and took a picture of me and the deer and put his hand on his head and said some kind of prayer. Then two college students walked by and said nothing. And then an old Screen of mine, I guess out for a morning walk. I sat there on the curb, a bloody mess with a bleeding baby deer in my hands. I said, “Hello, D—.” He said, “Hello, P—” and walked right past like I was pitching lemonade. Like he didn’t see the deer. Or the blood dripping all over me. Maybe he didn’t. Anyway, I eventually lifted her off the curb and into the yard and held her in my lap. Gnats ate at Bambi’s wounds. I petted her neck some more and she relaxed. Then she started smelling my fingers, and I sensed a change. We weren’t BFFs, but she recognized that I was trying to help. That I at least cared. And I guess she told me in her own way. Soon the police arrived. I said I didn’t know if her leg was broken. The spine seemed ok, but she was bleeding a lot from the mouth. He suggested that we take her to the wood near the abandoned hospital. I grabbed her feet so she wouldn’t kick, and she kicked. A good sign, like a newborn’s sneeze. Then I carried her over a fence and set her down. I wondered: Was she bleeding inside? And would she not live until tomorrow? Or was she perfectly fine—a little worse for the wear, but a lesson learned? And where was her mother? For a moment she lay still. Then she dashed off, hopping on all fours.
Notes for the Fall Awards Banquet (October 10, 1979)
It’s my great honor to present the award for Outstanding Student in Bladesmanship to Jason Voorhees. Over the last thirteen years, no student at SSSU has impacted more lives more directly than Jason. Jason is why we do this job. He is a first-generation student who has overcome all kinds of obstacles. He never met his father, and his mother was decapitated by sexually promiscuous teenagers. When I first met Jason, it was in Machete Welding I. I remember as a freshman he struggled mightily with belonging and social anxiety. He joined Anime Club and within a month was the only member left. And in class, group work was almost impossible. I would try to assign him partners, but they would all just disappear after each study session. They wouldn’t withdraw or drop. They’d just ghost me and Jason, and the class, and their families.
Jason also suffers physically. He suffers physically from asthma, shinsplints, and lasting effects of a childhood drowning accident that killed him. Several months at the bottom of Crystal Lake scarred his face beyond recognition, so he wears a custom hockey mask to prevent further injury. He’s worn it so long it’s part of his identity. And it’s a medical device, too, just like his medically-prescribed Comfort Machete, which it took Accommodations forever to recognize for what it is. Yet people run and scream and cry to the heavens like he’s some kind of monster.
But Jason is no monster. Jason is why SSSU exists. He needed every exception in the book to enroll, and we were happy to create new ones to secure that plastic Enrollment Cup. We waived the SAT and ACT requirement, which helped because Jason can’t read or write. We then waived the GPA requirement, which helped because he never attended school. Jason is also our first Principal’s Pardon scholar: we waived Jason’s background check and ignored any criminal history that might have kept him from the dorms. The only issue was FAFSA, but he’s making ends meet as a Lakehouse Whirlpool Spotter and an SSSU Summer Machete Camp counselor.
We’re here today to celebrate Jason Vorhees. Because Jason demonstrates all the qualities we hope to see in our students. For one, he is absolutely determined to succeed. Administrators talk ad nauseam about student “resilience,” and who has been more “resilient” than Jason? He’s been drowned, shot, stabbed, electrocuted, decapitated, run over by a train, bullied online, blasted with bombs, left in outer space, and banished to Hell. Sexually active teenagers once slashed his throat with a boat propeller, and then had sex right there in the boat. And out of wedlock, too! And I think that’s what hurt Jason the most. That it wasn’t Eros——it was Venus. But Jason is resilient. He’s taken four semesters of Machete Welding and never missed a class. And his Capstone Machete is Aphrodite on a stick, and cuts through flesh like a Hanzo sword.
Jason isn’t a dish. They don’t put him on the website. But his hideousness can teach us something about Grace. Grace is not always pretty. Sometimes Grace is gritty. It’s awkward and uncouth and hasn’t showered in years. And it suffers. And it bears that suffering with dignity and courage. That’s Grace. And that’s also Jason Vorhees. He could feel sorry for himself. He should feel sorry for himself. He has no food, no money, no home, and no friends beyond his Machete. He has preexisting conditions that ObamaCare won’t cover. He was killed by teenagers whose only diversion is callously spreading syphilis. They killed his mom. Then they killed him again. And again. And again. They even killed his impersonator in Part V. And yet you never hear a peep from him. No complaints. No self-pity. No excuses. No emails about his alarm failing to sound or his pet capybara wetting the bed. Given how prolific his work, I doubt he even sleeps.
In the end, what I admire most about Jason is faith. If not faith in God, then the faith of a Protestant Vocation. Rome wasn’t killed in a day, and Jason knows that death is a marathon, not a sprint. To quote Churchill, that “failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Let me ask you this: Why does Friday the 13th have so many sequels? Is it because each sequel gets better and better? No, it’s because Jason has taken “Public Speaking” thirteen times and still hasn’t passed it. And someone thought it was a great idea to make that course an Institutional Priority, so here we are. If they’d only let Jason’s Machete do the talking, he’d pass with honors.
We all have obstacles to overcome. But Jason never stops trying, and he often excels. I was asked by another professor to mention “Online Walking,” where Jason stands literally head-and-shoulders above his classmates. Because he walks all day. Just walks and walks and walks, never changing his pace. You’ve probably seen him stalking around campus, especially around the Lake House and pet cemetery. And of course at Chick-Fil-A, where everybody knows his name and his favorite activity is guessing the Shake of the Day. Then he points like Tantalus at a picture of Vanilla Peach or Blood Orange or whatever, and always gets double whipped scream and a bucket of blended cherries on the side. And when he motions awkwardly for another, much larger straw, they don’t judge him. They smile brightly and say, “My pleasure!”
(c) Poems, Part 1(n.d.)
On Leadership
Challenger explodes
Sacrificed for a career
She’d do it to us
On Success
Solids have a shape
Liquids take their container
Numbers say nothing
On Reality
Reality bites
But people suffer and die
When we ignore it
On CVs
Count your trainings
Collect your certificates
Where is your courage?
On the Ego
Grimhilde a mirror
Narcissus a tranquil pool
You take a selfie
On Calling Each Other “Dr.” at Faculty Meetings
Why must we do this?
It’s utterly pretentious
I thought we were friends
Some formality
Shows good rearing and manners
Even tenderness
Yet just listen to
How frigid and unfriendly
Our speech has become
(d) Notes from a Faculty Wellness Check (November 1, 1979)
Person One: I’m here on a wellness check. You’ve been sending me strange haikus. Are you ok?
Person One: “We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self…The former looks for glory from men, the latter finds its highest glory in God, the witness of a good conscience.” “The one city loves its own strength shown in its powerful leaders; the other says to its God, ‘I will love you, my Lord, my strength.’”
Person One: I asked you about disturbing haikus and you quoted St. Augustine. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad. Or just ok. Could you please elaborate?
Person One: No.
Person One: Why not?
Person One: Because you’ll say I’m crazy.
Person One: If you’re reading Augustine’s City of God (Penguin, 1984) recreationally you probably are crazy. But I’m curious why you find those lines compelling. And how this relates to sending me haikus.
Person One: Because the book isn’t about God or religion. It’s about Annual Giving Day.
Person One: Of course it isn’t. But proceed anyway.
Person One: Go ahead, give me that look and tone. But it’s there in the text if you have eyes to see. What defines the City of Man? It’s “self-love.” It’s “powerful leaders.” It’s “glory from men.” It’s seeing everything in the world——people, objects, morality, even God——in terms of your own glory. Now I ask you, how else would you describe Annual Giving Day? I’ll bet you right here, if we had a meteor blast tomorrow that wiped out half the campus, they’d still go ahead with it. First they’d send an email that said, “Sad News, So and So just vaporized.” Then five minutes later, they’d send another email saying, “And oh, by the way, don’t forget to give your $20 tomorrow so we can show in a pretty press release how So and So’s death not only didn’t diminish our Big Trophy Event, but enhanced it!”
Person One: And how do you know they’d do that?
Person One: The same way you know. Because you know as well as I that they Just. Don’t. Care. They don’t care that what they say makes no sense to anyone listening. They don’t care what we teach, or whether students learn it——just that we all pretend they do. They don’t care if we live. They don’t care if we die. They don’t care about anything except a plastic icon of success. Some arbitrary target based on some arbitrary measure of some arbitrary goal, which only exists so that some arbitrary blowhard can praise the arbitrary manner in which they reached it. If the Devil himself said, “To reach target O, kill Dr. J,” of course they would.
Person One: I think you’re being unfair. It’s easy to rail at administrative cynicism, but what about the people who donate? I think they do care——a lot. And their actions show love for the university and our students. It’s not a false “virtue signal” to support your colleague’s project fund to do something cool with their students——it’s an act of friendship, even fellowship. And you’re not a “sell-out” for giving a $100 lifeline to a struggling student organization. You’re a hero, cause that organization may be the only real social support a student has. Right now Anime Club has one member——ONE MEMBER, I tell you——but I’m almost positive that one student still derives a sense of community and belonging from that club that he wouldn’t find elsewhere. I admit, admin’s reasons for doing anything are always dumb——but doesn’t their promoting these “trophy projects” (as you call them) still serve a good purpose? Doesn’t Annual Giving Day help Nursing students cover field trips? Or the Business kids give robot presentations? Might the English department one day fix the women’s bathrooms and have functioning air and heat?
Person One: Bullshit. Ask the faculty who contributed why they did. The list isn’t hard to find.
Person One: I’ll call your bluff. I gave $1069 to Lapis Lazuli and it had nothing to do with being on the so-called list. I did it because I support the magazine and the forum it provides for creative writing, including mine. And because the idea, the content, the students, and the person who runs it are all worth it. And because that same person who runs it is my colleague, and she has a restraining order against me, and it’s the only way I can legally reach out to her, pending appeal.
Person One: You’re lying. I looked at the naughty list, and you were definitely on it.
Person One: Because I gave her the money directly. I was giving it to her, not the university.
Person One: Directly?
Person One: I broke into her house and left it under her pillow. Along with scented handcuffs, Halloween candy, an O.J. Simpson mask, and a “trick or treat” note from Marquis de Sade.
Person One: So you agree with me. You’re tired of doing stupid things whose main purpose is for someone else to tell someone else that they did it, all so they can win a stupid plastic trophy.
Person One: I’ll go to my grave saying “O.J. Simpson” did it. But I’m not here to split hairs, or sever heads. I’ll meet you half way. I suppose you can say my motives are pure. At minimum, they’re prurient. But isn’t that the point? Have you ever considered that pure and prurient motives aren’t mutually exclusive? That love and sex (and pain and humiliation!) can rightfully combine in one act? That to spread God’s Charity, God’s Love, one must occasionally render not only unto Caesar, but also de Sade? And if we’re honest, that flagellation (and especially self-flagellation!) lie at the center of all these things——including your self-flagellating haikus? And if that’s right, wouldn’t it ironically suggest a radical alignment of those prurient motives you so hastily attribute to the City of Man, and the pure ones you so superciliously give yourself?
Person One: No.
Person One: Why not?
Person One: Because unlike Nordberg, I wouldn’t kill people. Even de Sade never went that far.
Person One: But now you are going too far. Sex should be humorous, and humor is just pain transfigured. But you’re way too serious. That’s how people die in the act——they forget how to laugh. That’s what Genesis is missing. When Eve first saw Adam naked, she laughed her ass off.
Person One: Joke if you want. I’m not “role-playing” here. This is reality, and it impacts people’s lives. And I’ve unlocked the secret to this place. Do you want to hear it? Ok, I’ll tell you. You’ve heard the term “student success.” We say it all the time. But that’s just Masonic code language. It’s the code language they all learn to recite at those two-week long Masonic HISS conferences. It’s code language for something called “bureaucratic functionalism.” And the essence of bureaucratic functionalism is that lives don’t matter, only bodies and trophies do. That’s it. The open secret. It’s like when the Challenger Shuttle exploded. No one went to jail, and maybe it wasn’t “murder.” But that doesn’t change what happened. Those astronauts died because their bosses didn’t care about their lives. They only cared about “shuttle success,” get it? We know they didn’t care because the engineers told them the O-rings were too cold, and that it was way too dangerous to launch. But they launched anyway and crossed their fingers. And why? Because NASA was always behind schedule and under pressure to launch more bodies and fake plastic trophies into space, irrespective of actual “learning” or “mission goals.” And this was the trophy launch of all trophy launches with that high school teacher on board. And so the bosses calculated their own career “trajectory”——that it was better to risk blowing up those people than having to explain why their plastic trophy wasn’t orbiting. Sure, they didn’t want those astronauts to die, but they certainly didn’t care enough to risk their own necks by saving them. That’s “bureaucratic functionalism.” That’s “student success.” That’s the City of Man.
Person One: So let me get this straight. You’re telling me that St. Augustine of Hippo, writing in the fifth century AD, wrote a book called The City of God that is a comparative analysis of the Challenger Explosion and Annual Giving Day, and that’s why you’re sending me bizarre haikus.
Person One: Yes. And in response you’re telling me I should buy a leather fly whisk.
Person One: I really do think you’ve lost it, but I’ll bite the apple. So tell me, if that’s the City of Man, and they’re all going to Hell, then who is the City of God, the people you meet in Heaven?
Person One: It’s not complicated. It’s the people who care if other people live or die. People who wouldn’t slit your throat to become Principal of Slightly Bigger State University, or blow you to bits to become Prevent right where they are. Who’d rather risk their own life to save others than risk others’ lives to save themselves. Who treat people as an end rather than a means.
Person One: And how do you know who these people are? Do they also have a Masonic sign?
Person One: Not sure yet. I suspect they do a lot of wellness checks. And a lot of drugs.
(e) Poems, Part 2(n.d.)
On Caring
Takes eyes made to see
No one way to skin a cat
Love has many forms
On Death
Death shall overcome
All the suffering of life
Better still to live
On the Catholic Version of the Bible
Beautiful widow
Cuts off Holofernes’ head
A tyrant is dead
On Wrestling
Wrestling with shadows
To snatch one’s life by the thigh
Is that not divine?
On Jason Voorhees
He drinks from a straw
Studies to honor his maw
Crafts a Capstone Saw
(f) Notes from an Academic Will (Nov. 2, 1979)
I have a strange feeling about tomorrow. Like something very bad is about to happen. Something dangerous to my health. More dangerous even than a space shuttle launch. Truth be told, it’s been on my mind for years. But I haven’t had the guts to do it or even talk about it. A daemon always says, “No! When will you grow up, Pinocchio?” And it lays this guilt trip, “What would your family say?! And have you asked IRB?!!” But today that daemon is silent. Now it’s a headless horseman who says nothing, but extends his hand and offers me a saddle. That’s all I need. I’m doing it tomorrow, come what may. And since I’m finally doing that, now I must do this—something all academics do in secret. Writing my academic will. Because if tomorrow goes how I think it might, someone’s still got to love, feed, and water my books. So here you go:
To 保罗: Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem; Carl Schmitt, Hamlet or Hecuba; Denis Diderot, The Indiscreet Jewels. These should help your administrative career.
To 捷米·马: Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra; Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain; Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead. I give you mountains, caves, and sanitariums. They’re the same.
To 艾琳娜: Andrew Dequasie, The Green Flame; Primo Levi, The Periodic Table; Norm Macdonald, This is Not a Memoir. Because you give us “creative nonfiction”!
To 本杰明: Stephen Kotkin, Stalin, Vol. 1, 2, and 3. To jumpstart your Five-Year-Plan.
To 格伦: Joseph Heller, Catch-22; Don DeLillo, White Noise; Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Because nothing ever changes. It only gets worse.
To 珍妮弗: Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; O.J. Simpson, If I Did It. Because you care for Mr. Rochester. And we’re hunting the real killer.
To 朱迪: Herman Melville, Moby Dick; Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea; C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves. Because you gave me Queequeg, and what did Queequeg ever do for Ishmael?
(g) Notes from a Student Interview (November 3, 1979)
Person One: Good morning, Jason. I see you’ve got your Chick-Fil-A shake and your Machete. And thank you for coming to this interview. This is meant to be both an interview and a check-in. As you know, I want to ask you some questions about faculty care—what caring is, and what it means to you to have caring faculty who support your personal and academic success. But before we start that, I just wanted to ask you: How are things? Is there anything I can help you with?
Person Two: *Silence* *Sip*
Person One: It’s ok, you don’t have to say anything. I just ask because the last few classes you’ve shown up more bloody than usual. Not only that, but they tell me you’ve set some things on fire at the Lake House, including the Lake House itself and the entire forest surrounding it. So we may need to find you another student-work-internship. Maybe the library? I guess the main thing is I’ve never seen your Machete look this dull, like you’ve given up caring for it. And that’s not like you to let yourself or your Machete go like that. And these are just little signs that might suggest something is wrong. And I wanted to reach out in case I can help. How are you feeling?
Person Two: *Shing*
Person One: *Gargle*
Person Two: *Slice*
Person One: *Thump*
Person Two: *Sip*
[Door shuts]
Part III: Graduation
6. WTF News Report (April 24, 1980)
Yesterday Southeastern Sideways State University celebrated the largest graduating class in its history. SSSU faculty, staff, and administration gathered to celebrate 14 living, 52 wounded, and an estimated 1200 dead souls walking across the stage. Yet the ceremony, some say, was unusual. University Elations declined to comment, but we have the following eyewitness account:
Reporter: Could you tell us what you saw today?
Spectator: At first everything seemed normal. There were a few graduates who weren’t maimed by the meteor blast, and those people sat up front for the pictures. Then there were the fifty-two ADA-compliant seats for the injured, and then like a thousand SUPER ADA-compliant empty seats for all the dead students. The Principal gave the normal speech: “If you donated TWENTY dollars to Annual Giving Day, please stand up! If you donated ONE HUNDRED dollars to Annual Giving Day, please stand up! If you donated both of your LEGS to Annual Giving Day, please stand up!” And then there was the Silver Coin ceremony where students told stories about how they were given these “graduation challenge” coins to give to someone who made a difference in their lives. Someone who cared about their success. And students talked about how giving loved ones their Silver Coin was a way to thank them for all the care they had shown.
Then they started calling names. First the healthy, then the wounded, then the dead. And then at the very end—the last student on the list, I guess because they had no idea how to classify him—was this guy Jason Voorhees. He was wearing a black (but mostly red) graduation robe and a square graduation hat above a worn hockey mask that had clearly seen better days. When they called his name he put down his Chick-Fil-A cup and stood up. In one hand he carried a three-foot machete, sharpened to the teeth. In the other he carried what looked like a professor’s decapitated head, bleeding profusely from the mouth. As he took the stage the Principal and Prevent looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, left a diploma cover in a “prominent place” for Jason to grab, and then ran like thieves to the back. So did the Screens, the VPs, even the photographer. I don’t think they were familiar with Jason’s story.
And now it gets strange. At this point Jason walked to the front of the stage, still holding the three-foot machete in his left hand, and the professor’s bloody severed head in his right. For a good minute he stood still as a statue, staring straight ahead—not at, but past the crowd. Maybe he was thinking of his dead mother, and how proud she would have been to see him on this stage today had she not, too, been decapitated. Or maybe the Chick-Fil-A shake was bothering his stomach and he had diarrhea. But in one instant he snapped out of it, and with his left hand he threw the machete with all his might into the orchestra below. At that moment all the gawking stopped, and other people shit their pants. The machete had pierced the ground six inches deep and stood in upright defiance of anyone who might try to grab it, or anyone who might fuck with its owner. There were rubies and red diamonds in its polished golden hilt, and the shine was blinding. It was the most beautiful weapon that anyone there——alive or dead——had ever seen. And as shock turned to awe, someone in the audience screamed, “Excelsior!” And then someone else screamed, “Excalibur!!!” And the arena burst into wild applause! Some even shed tears.
After a while of that Jason assumed that same stolid gaze, and once again fearing for their lives, the audience stopped applauding. Then turning away from them, with both hands he lifted the professor’s head and looked into his eyes. A last flow of blood dripped from its lips and onto Jason’s mask and gown. Then, gentle as a lamb, he lowered the professor’s head, cradled it in his right arm, and caressed it tenderly with his left. He stared again, as mute as Billy Budd into the professor’s eyes, as if searching for words. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled something out. It was round, shiny, and polished. It was a Silver Coin. For another minute he stared uninterruptedly—intently, curiously, lovingly, happily, and sadly. The way one does as a funeral. And he rubbed the professor’s dead cheeks, and stroked his dead chin. Then finally, he opened the professor’s dead mouth, and like a Catholic priest filled it with one ounce of dead silver. Then he closed it. And he closed the professor’s eyes. Then he set it on the stage and walked off.
Reporter: Interesting. Then what happened?
Spectator: At that point the Principal and everyone else walked back onto the stage. The Principal went to the rostrum and said, “Thank you Jason. That is another great example of how important our Silver Coin Challenge is to our students and faculty. And so what I’d like to do now is recognize ALL the faculty who have received Silver Coins. If you are a faculty member who has ever received a Silver Coin, please stand up.” And they did. And then she said, “Don’t just stand up, let us SEE your Silver Coin! Please hold them up in the air!!” And they did. And then she said, “You can do better than that. I wanna see them HIGH and UP CLOSE so we can take a picture!!!” And at that point something happened I’ll never forget. One faculty member just launched their Silver Coin straight at the stage. It missed the Principal’s head by maybe two feet. Then another did it. And then another. Until everyone started throwing their Silver Coins at the Principal, who pretty soon was taking an old-fashioned licking. And not only her. People threw their Silver Coins at the Prevent, and then at the Screens. One Screen tried to shield herself with a traffic cone, but it was a big illusion. So she pretended to bat the coins away like buzzards.
I guess the audience thought this was all part of the show. Because next thing you know everyone in the crowd started throwing change at the stage. Quarters, nickels, dimes, pennies. Bitcoin, Minecoin, Dogecoin, Robux. Anything they had. Some threw their purses. Others their wallets and credit cards. A few threw their car keys. Someone yelled, “Chicken jockey!” and threw a rooster. It didn’t stop until everyone in the building was out of money, out of breath, and out of hope. At that point the Principal returned to the stage and restored the microphone. She lauded the crowd for their “generous contributions to next year’s Annual Giving Day campaign,” and asked anyone still alive to stand up and remove their caps. Then they sang the Alma Mater.
Reporter: What happened to Jason?
Spectator: I don’t know. He never did grab that diploma cover. And he never came back for his Machete. I heard a rumor he applied for a mid-managerial position at Chick-Fil-A. Good for him.
7. Announcement from University Elations (January 20, 1981)
Please join us in celebrating the test-tube birth of Dr. Pinocchio Lung’s first-born son, Iron. As a gift to Little Iron, we have decided to return his father’s head, and his chess set. After combing through the rubble in Dr. Lung’s office one last time, one additional item was found–—a chess table with a game that appeared to be unfinished. On Black’s side of the board was a scorecard, a pen with lemon ink, and the name “Kriegspiel.” On the White side the scorecard stopped at 43 moves, then abruptly read “ZugZwang.” Computer evaluations later confirmed that White, though resisting well, had an objectively losing position, while Black had been cheating with AI.
John LeJeune is a political science professor and father of twins living in southwest Georgia. His research on violence, education, and political thought has appeared in various journals and edited volumes, including recent pieces in LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory and JGPA: The Journal of the Georgia Philological Association. John’s favorite writer is his daughter Katherine, and his favorite historical feud is the Cold War, which gave us Fischer vs. Spassky on the chessboard, and Balboa vs. Drago in the ring.
