Just curious!
March 20, 2008 at 6:33 am 3 comments
Ever wondered what happened to the cat? The one that got slain by it’s own curiosity? I wonder what sort of cat it became after shaking off the dust of death from it’s back and returned to the land of the living for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or … 9th time. I wonder what it started doing when curious (old habits die hard). If it turns on the tv, grab it’s bag and go out window/shoe shopping, get stonned or spend all night partying. Or if it refuse to cave in, got curious and died another death.
Don’t you think, perhaps, that a cat who isn’t curious would resemble this generation? A generation so unmotivated, so bored that it would go to great length for a bit of excitement? To perverse or self destructive lengths, most of the time?!
That’s what i feel whenever I see my little brother (14) going in and out of the house, “as if there is a pin on his behind”, whenever a film he’s seen before or a talk-show he doesn’t like comes on tv. A curiously uncurious generation scared to be left alone with it’s thought!
I’m not saying, although decades older, I am any better. I have none of the wide eyed interest and the feverish excitement of my teens when hearing about something I’m not familiar with. No more reading everything that fall in my lap. Or trying to hook up with a follower of every strange religion I heard about. No Bob Marley, no UB40, No Don Williams! But I get curious from time to time. Like yesterday evening, for example. I got curious about boxing. If it’s a sport, or a bad day? Why the word “the ancient Greeks started it” seems to encourage things that should be condemned. And if curiosity killed the cat, lack of curiosity won’t kill us all dead?
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: All in a day's work.
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1.
Tsegaye | March 21, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Hey!
I’ve enjoyed reading this article, and I’m still looking for the other article. I can’t find it, did you remove it? At any rate, you’ve put in words what I was thinking about yesterday. Lack of curiosity, but also information black out of sort. I am going to do my personal share to stimulate and maybe even SHOCK people into digging (especially the younger generation). Very refreshing to hear Bob Marley, UB40, and Don Williams mentioned in one breath. Lol…ciao
2.
sistu | March 23, 2008 at 6:38 am
I think your writing is fundamentally flawed. Allow me to explain.
You are writing under the premise that the story about Caty’s death is true. Yet i have always maintained that that “fact” can’t be anything more than a wishful rumor started by wishful rats. The same Rats who were just made aware of the elder’s plan to go on Caty’s crusade and wanted to nip the idea at the buds. (Fasika was around the corner, world cup was this very summer and there was no time for crusade)
“No need for the crusade, Papa”, said Mamush Rat. “iko leminabatk, ante kizenam bekt”, said Abey Rat. “coz Cat is dead”, responded Mamusha. “E?!?” said Abeye unconvinced, unable to believe that Mamush, this evil sprout of his own doing whose only ability in life is chewing on the mesob and shitting on the injera (while it should be the other way around), would ever be the bearer of good news.
“Curiosity killed it” said Mamushiye, offering the first word on this week’s spelling list (the Cs) as the most definite cause of death for Caty. He had just been memorizing for his dictation test, ironically the only thing in his life that could have made the crusade an acceptable activity for upcoming days.
Abeye, to whom “curiosity” sounded pleasantly like “Klashinkov” saw no reason to believe that the word meant anything other than a massive fenjee exploding right under Caty’s feet. How different the story would have been had it all taken place in Amharic.
Some weeks later, Abey died a happy rat. His last thought in his last minutes was that of a massive explosion near the Gulicha just as Caty was nearing it to do her “belahu-tetahu-istee-demo-tinish-isat-limuq” routine near the fire; the same routine he watched her do once while the blood from Mamusha’s enat was still visible on the corners of her mouth. That little thought, that little knowledge that justice had been served, gave him a great last moment.
Even as the new Caty, who looked ominously, almost exactly (had he not known better), like the old Caty, was mekoretatem-ing him piece-by-piece he had the comforting thot that he had not died at the hands of his archenemy.
“Curiously Getaye”, said he with his last breath “lijochen Tebikilign. Kegonachew atinetel”
Fair Enough?
3.
abesheet | March 24, 2008 at 5:41 am
Lol, Sistu. I’m humbled. Beautiful writing. Convincing argument. Can’t say fairer than that! 🙂 Ebakish atitfi!