[THE LESSON]

[THE LESSON]

THE MUSIC FOR THIS ONE...
http://youtu.be/awH_oqctSXQ

As the boy walks out onto the sand of the beach he notices the fiddler crabs running and he hears the sound of the water as it whispers its song...shushing against the rocks ...sinking into the sand.

He looks out at the horizon and sees a boat riding on the water, its sail full of air as it floats across the screen of his view...fully panoramic.

This is a far cry from the place where he lives and he tries to put that place away ...to bury it in his subconsious.

The seagulls fly around his head and he throws bread into the air as they swoop and pluck it from the sky in mid flight screaming their pleas of want into the day as the sun shines in all its life giving warmth.

He starts to walk down the beach and is soon away from all of people who inhabit the area where he got out of the car. He stops to examine things as he walks. The jellyfish that has washed ashore...the dead fish with a hole ripped in its side as its cloudy eyes stare into nothingess.

This is his first time here by himself, away from his parents and his friends. Just him and the beach.

He sits down and leans back on his hands as they dig into the sand and sniffs at the air, it seems as if he can smell the beginnings of man and he wonders if this is what the first man to see the ocean saw.

In the distance he sees a dolphin as it jumps into the blue of the sky in his plane of view and his heart swells in his chest and seems to want to explode in his chest as he marvels at the beauty of it all. 

He thinks about his girlfriend and his friends who are at home in the projects and he wishes that she would have come with but all she seems to see is that place...that life.

He wants so much more.

He stands and begins to walk again. He just walks and walks...there is no way to get lost on the beach. Thats what his dad told him when he was young. When his family was still a family. When he was as green as a young tree.

All of a sudden he sees a man sitting on the beach in front of him and it seems that the man just materialised from the air...from the sand.

The mans hair is in dreads and he does not look up as the boy approaches so the boy starts to walk past him between the water and the man. The man still does not seem to see him but says " Son what is it you seek?"

Even though the boy knows that they are alone on the beach he looks around before he says "What?"

The man raises his head and the first thing that the boy notices are his eyes which seem to pierce him to his soul.

"I said what are you seeking son...what has drawn you to this place...at this time?

The boy seriously contemplates walking on...on leaving this spot but something makes him stand there as the man invites him to sit down on the sand.


The boy sits down and it is a minute or two before the man speaks again and he does not look at the boy as he talks at first he continues to look at the ocean as if it holds all the answers.

"Son do you know what ocean this is?" he asks the question and he waits for an answer as if he does'nt know that this is the Atlantic ocean.

The boy says "The atlantic ocean." The man turns and looks at him and asks him if he knows the history of this ocean.

"Did you know that your ancestors crossed this sea centuries before the first white man? That on the floor of this same ocean the bones of your ancestors cry out at the folly of our people...the fact that we have forgotten them."

The boy listens as the mans tale unfolds. As he tells a very different history of the African people than he has ever heard.

The man talks of ancient queens and kings, of empires, of treachery and deciet, of the system as it exists today for the modern african race.

The boy is captivated, it seems as if this man was sent just to teach him... to talk to him.

As they talk the man asks him if he eats pork and the boy answers no. For some reason he stopped eating it about a year ago. Something that he had heard or something.

The man sees to be pleased with this answer and he tells the boy not to ever eat porks again. There is no way his mind can be clean if he eats of the swine. It was forced upon the slaves to slow down their thought processes. He mentions something that the white people used in a nutritional campaign. YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.

The man and the boy talk until it is almost dark and the man stands and walks back to where the boys car is and they talk for a little while longer.

The boy asks the man his phone number and the man tells him that it is not necessary.

The boy is disappointed and the man sees this and says to him "When the time is right ...when you are ready, another teacher will come. I cannot give you more than you can digest at this time.

The boy gets into his car and when he turns to say something to the man he is gone. The boy looks around for a second before he realizes that there was no other car here.

He drives back to the city and opens the door to his apartment and is confronted by the sounds of his family. His mother walks out of the kitchen and wipes her hand on the rag as she says " Dondra called you boy. I dont see what in the world you see in her. She has no ambition but this projects son. I want so much more for you."

The boy looks at his mother without saying anything and goes into his room and closes the door.

He has a lot of thinking to do.