Study for Obedience

by Sarah Bernstein

from a young age I was heedful, I took instruction easily and tried to live according to the narratives made available to me.

well imagine how difficult it is for him, his marriage falling apart, his mental health, as though only we in the generation below understood that a man could be both sad and a scumbag,

Every single one of us on this ruined earth exhibited a perfect obedience to our local forces of gravity, daily choosing the path of least resistance, which while entirely and understandably human was at the same time the most barbaric, the most abominable course of action.

I am implicated personally now where before I had only been implicated historically,

whether one can go on living after all, whether one who escaped by accident, one who by rights should have been killed, may go on living.

What right, what reason did they have, one’s ancestors, to flee into the forest, cross the water, peddle rags, go to school – what was it all for, when in the final analysis one was never meant to survive?