Three Hundred and Twenty Nine...

What Good is a Book?

"Why is it that we must be forced against our will to read these mediocre works of literature anyway?!"

It was the 16 year old girl in the third row of the class who would not shut up.

Mr. Leonard sat slouched forward on the edge of his desk, slowly rolling over a copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles in his hands. He was a man approaching his late seventies and severely worn from years of teaching kids who no longer believed in anything that came before their immediate time of existence. He exhaled a long wheezy sigh, as his aging body seemed to crumple to the floor.

The girl continued, pushing her black rimmed, designer glasses up on her nose. "I mean, essentially all of these writers are so undeniably obtuse, not to mention obsolete, and they're all essentially wholly consisting of nothing but hot air! Hot air I say! I mean, let's consider this book I am holding here, the one you had us read last time? Slaughter House Five? I mean, what the hell was this atrocious, nonsensical book all about anyway? This Kurt guy is a certified loony! And Catcher in the Rye? Don't get me started. It's just the meandering of an individual who wanders around pondering his existence and bemoaning his troubles!"

She reached down and pulled another book from her back pack.

"And this selected novel I have pulled from my back pack and now hold in my left hand, and I will have you notice for a moment that I have immaculate finger nails, a bright mauve colorization, the aesthetic merits of which one could not argue against. But as I was saying, this book I am holding, here, well, I can't even enunciate the title?! Or even the author's for that matter. I believe this would be Russian but is that matter really of importance here? The book itself is absolutely horrid!"

Mr. Leonard, sliding his hands down his withered face, said, "Why do you have all of these books in your backpack?"

"Oh, I was going to burn them after the period of my day which I refer to as school had come to it's inevitable conclusion."

"Oh."

"Anyway, this one, put your eyes here, which would now be my right hand, your left. This work of literature is entitled, Sometimes A Great Notion. God I hate this book, detest it, abhor it! It was so uninteresting and it was essentially, in-disputably lacking substance in any substantial way! All of these antiquated writers, why do we even bother to listen to them anymore? Why even bother? Let's be frank, I mean, they're generic, I mean, geriatric, they didn't even comprehend, essentially, what they were essentially talking about. What I am trying to say is that, writers suck! I'm better off not reading them at all! I mean, I could write a better work of literature than these dolts but I won't because every book ever written is stupid and writers are stupid, they are terrible people, you know? Sometimes I want to go and take a gargantuan shit right on Kurt Vonnegut's gr-"

A large book soared through the air, hitting her in the face.

"Oh my God! Did you not just pick up Infinite Jest and heave it across the room at me striking me directly in my nose?" Blood leaked from her nose, dribbling down her chin, pooling on her desk, and onto her shirt. "You totally threw a substantially sized novel, which is inarguable since Infinite Jest is just over one thousand pages, locating it in the upper echelon of obscene page counts, and this said book, this tome, hit me in my said face!"

Everyone sat up, wide awake, staring at Mr. Leonard, who stood up, straightened his tie, and walked around behind his desk. Retirement was less than a year away but he was not thinking of this at the moment, he was wondering how easily a metal bat could crush a 16 year old's skull. He dug around in his desk for a moment and procured a large metal bat. He turned and looked at the girl, slapping the sweet spot of the bat in his palm.

Cupping her hand over her nose to catch the spilling blood, the girl asked, "Are you presently holding in your hands a thirty six inch regulation college metal baseball bat?"

Mr. Leonard stepped up to where the girl sat, bat in palm, mind gone. Carefully lifting the bat above his head, preparing to bring the wrath of over 100 years of baseball bat engineering perfection down on her skull, he said, "Kurt Vonnegut was a great man and-!"

"Uh, no he wasn't! And, furthermore, what are you doing with the aforementioned baseball bat suspended above your head in such a menacing position?" She held up her index finger to signal him to wait and said, "Just a second I absolutely must acquire a photo of this partially humorous, yet partially terrifying pose for placement on one of my several Facebook galleries, it's exact location to be determined at a later time." After digging around in her back pack for a moment, she pulled out her iPhone, aimed, and clicked a photo.

He loosened his grip on the bat and looked around the room. All of the students were staring at him wide eyed, tightly gripping their desks in anticipation. He lowered the bat to his side and dropped it on the floor. He hung his head and tears rolled down his rugged cheeks.

She slid the iPhone back in her bag, procured two tissues of Kleenex and stuffed them up her nose. She looked at him bug eyed and continued, "So, anyway, the most atrocious book I've ever, indisputably, read in said class would have to be...1984. That book is super ridiculous, beyond absurd. Let me rephrase-"

A boy seated in the back, stood up and proclaimed, "I have Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis!"