So things begin with yet another childhood memory being crushed and distorted by the nimble fingers of adulthood that thrive like parasites on the cold hands of reality. Well, it’s not like it’s something I didn’t know already, I’d read the very thing my professor was trying to explain in a book some time long ago. Like most things in life, we know everything, somewhere deep in our subconscious, we just refuse to see it, accept it, and simply choose to ignore it or call it untrue. If you say something is the truth long enough, you’ll start to believe it eventually, vise versa with lies, resulting in a blurred mess of incorrect and correct ideas we call intellect.

Today, my professor was talking about the bubonic plague. He was trying to elaborately depict the symptoms of said plague through a nursery rhyme, or song, you might be familiar with it. Ring around the rosie. as in the rings on the skin that would develop around puss filled rosies, or sores. Pockets full of posies meaning the posies and flowers people would use to cover the smell of disease and decay. Ashes ashes, we all fall down well, you get the idea.

Anyhow, as it turns out most things in childhood come from a rather less light-hearted topic. Take sleeping beauty for instance. When the prince arrived having ridden through thorn and thunder, he saw the princess lying deep inside her slumber. Many say that upon this sight he wept, but instead he got straight to work and with her cold body he slept. A child was born from the unmoving mother, conceived of a corpse like no other. The babe sucked on the mother’s fingers searching for a meal, in returned sucked the poison delivered by the spinning wheel. The princes woke to her dead daughter, and proceeded to lovelessly wed the despoiling father.

My ever-eloquent professor was just getting to the ashes part, snapping me out of my usually unusual reverie.

“Ashes ashes is actually meant to be achoo achoo, to represent the final symptom of the plague, sneezing and coughing, right before we all fall down.”
He said smiling at his infallible cleverness in that pun. I couldn’t help but interrupt his glory.

“Professor, I thought the song was meant to say ashes, to represent the cremation of the deceased bodies form the plague. Is that theory merely another interpretation of the song, or is it simply incorrect?”
He smiled proudly.

“Well, the plague did come quite some time ago, therefore we can’t know any of this for sure, unless that is, you know someone that was alive during the medieval era, which my dear, I highly doubt. However, I would venture to say that it would be more correct to say achoo, while not disproving the concept that the suspected original words are incorrect.”
So basically he was saying that he was mostly right, he simply threw in a bunch of words and complexities to try to throw me off in his condescending matter. He couldn’t have just said yes or no. He should have though; it would have been easier… for him and me both.

“Well, you’ll have to pardon me, I mis-phrased the question, considering the concept that nothing can truly be incorrect.”
His sassy smiled vanished, and he looked at me disapprovingly.

“Don’t be preposterous. To say that would imply that nothing could be correct either. Or do you believe that there can be light without darkness?”

“Hardly, sir. But I do imply the first statement. Nothing can be correct except for the acceptance that nothing can be proven.”
He rolled his eyes at that.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous. Evidence is proof, substantial knowledge, however scarce, is available to the world, you know.”
I sighed.

“No, sir. All due respect, but everything between heaven and hell, the extremities included, is all purely concept. Everything is theoretical.”

“I may not know of heaven and hell, but what about the desk in front of you? Is that not real? What about the clothes you’re wearing? Or yourself? Or me? Are we all nothing but ideas?”

“Precisely. We are our own concepts, or perhaps even someone else’s, given life by though.”

He sighed.

“You are my brightest student, but in your years, you have not once formed a coherent thought, and today you present yet a new idea. You are a mad hatter, spinning riddles with no answer. You might as well just ask me why a raven is like a writing desk.”

“ ‘Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front.’ Also, Poe wrote on both.”
He laughed at that, and I smiled at the occurrence that he appreciated my comment.

“And they are not riddles. Reality simply cannot be proven, likewise all of existence. For instance sir, could you look me in the eye and tell me that I am here, and this is all real, and that the very concept that I am dreaming all of this is inconceivable?”

“I’m not entirely sure that I could.”

“Precisely! And you likewise you couldn’t tell me that I am not merely someone else’s dream. Or that maybe I am really inside a box somewhere far away, while a bunch of scientist analyze the world and reality that my imagination creates? Perhaps I am, and right now, they might be growing concerned that I’ve discovered them.”

“I would be more concerned with getting out of that theoretical box you’re in.” He said smiling, but it was a friendly smile, not laced with arrogance and condescendence that smiles often have, regardless of how well hidden.

“Or in a test tube! I could be a bubble in a test tube given though and life, or I could be a little girl’s daydream while she sits in class listening to her teacher drawl on and on- no disrespect, sir.”

“None taken.”

“I could be a leaf blowing in the wind, just like I could be the wind itself, or a star floating in the distance. Nothing could be proven, and no one could tell me I am incorrect, because how could they? You never realize you’re dreaming until you’re awake, and by then it’s too late.”
He looked at me with something that could be wonder.

“You are quite a creature, aren’t you?”
I assumed it was a rhetorical question, but I shrugged nonetheless. Right then, the bell rang, and all the other students hustled away, oblivious to the turmoil in my mind, mimicking the turmoil of their very existence.

“Well, I will tell you one thing, child, you will one day be positively admired for your ideas, or completely shunned for your madness.”

“All due respect sir, but either or would mean the same to me.”
He shrugged.

“I suppose. Then again, everything is a matter of perspective, is it not?”
I smiled. It was the best kind of smile, no teeth showing, and not big, barely noticeable. It’s a smile that reaches the eyes. It doesn’t display teeth, or make you double over clutching your stomach. This is the kind of smile that is not for a camera, or for your family, or even for your friends. It’s not a smile for you, to convince yourself of an idea, but rather a smile that sneaks out on its own, hidden from the world, but not from you.

“Yes, sir, yes it is.”
I gathered my belongings preparing to leave but then he stopped me at the door.

“Professor? From your perspective, what do you think you are, a madman or wise man?”

“Definitely a madman.”

“And me? Am I a generous or a lunatic?”
He paused, grinning.

“You’re both. After all, aren’t they the same thing?”
As the last word left his lips, I woke up.
…You never realize you’re dreaming until you’re awake, and by then it’s too late…