A Fable

The children went to school and when they had finished eighth grade they smiled at the teachers and said, "Is it good, this that we have done?" "It is if you use it to go to high school," snarled the teachers. "Otherwise it's garbage."

Shaken, for they had expected to be beamed on rather than snarled at, the children went to high school and when they had their diplomas they asked the teachers, "Is it good, this that we have done?" "It is if you use it to go to college," snarled the teachers; "Otherwise it's garbage."

So the children went to college and at the end of four years' study asked the usual question and got the usual answer.

The children burst into tears. "Why are you so cruel?" they wailed. "Why is everything we study garbage unless we use it to get into another program that proves in turn to be garbage? In what does the series terminate? An infinite regression of garbage?"

"Shut up, you twerps," screamed the teachers; "Get your asses into grad school so you can be like us. Didn't you realize that that was the idea all along?" The teachers' bloodshot eyes nearly popped from their misshapen skulls; viscous spittle dripped from their rotted tusks.

Enraged, the children drew their long knives and hacked the teachers' heads, arms and legs from their torsoes. So general a slaughter ensued that only one teacher escaped, by fleeing to the mountain. The children heaped the severed body parts on a canvas sheet, carried them to the river, threw them in, and bade the fish come feed on them. Soon white bones, glistening through the water, were all that remained of the teachers. The children washed up and went to the library to read.

After a week the teacher on the mountain felt safe coming down; searching for the children, he found them in the library. When he had watched them awhile, he said: "You can't earn any certificate, diploma, or degree by doing this. Why bother?"

"Knowledge is its own reward," said a child, and turned a page.