Tempest in a Teapot [finale]
"Teachers' Asylum" episode 4
Read and decide the final outcome…
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Dr Kyrios holds up the empty package of candy your grandkids accidentally left behind this morning after their visit.
“Did you eat some of these?” he asks with concern. “These are psilocybin chocolates. Magic mushrooms.”
“They’re delicious; I opened the bag after they left and just couldn’t stop.”
Dr Kyrios stares aghast, alarmed, dismayed. “Are you serious?”
“What?”
“Do you realize what could’ve happened?”
“Do you realize what DID happen?”
Dr Kyrios opens his mouth to reply—but then shuts it and draws a deep slow breath through flared nostrils, and sighs heavily through his nose. You can see the little muscles flickering in his jaw.
“Did you know what they were?” he asks in a quiet low voice. “That it was drugs?”
“I thought it was just chocolate. What kind of drugs?”
Kyrios gapes again and looks down at the empty packaging still in his hand. Eyes narrowing as he doublechecks the dosage.
“A powerful psychedelic at high doses, similar in effect to LSD,” he says. “You ate all of them?”
“The hippie drug?”
“The hippie drug.”
“Well I sure wasn’t seeing rainbows or rocking my soul to kumbaya,” you chuckle. “So maybe it was a bad batch.”
“What did happen?” Kyrios leans in curious.
“I’ll take you back to the beginning,” you tell him.
Sitting in your recliner reading after breakfast, eating chocolate after chocolate…until eventually the book started breathing; words swimming around on the page like alphabet cereal in milk.
You thought you were just tired, or maybe over-stimulated from the fancy coffee your grandkids had brought; so you put the book away to rest your eyes for a while. Then sounds washed over you like slow spring rain, like your hearing aids were picking up random noises and conversations in the hall—only you weren’t even wearing them.
At that point you realized what was happening; that the hearing aids had actually always been noise-canceling headphones, fitted by the whitecoat staff upon arrival to stifle the screams and spectral student susurrations coming through the walls—not classrooms, but padded cells—part of a concerted and systematic effort to hide the truth of this place from the residents themselves. Inmates in a teachers’ asylum.
You swirled through that maelstrom of dark introspection for a good while; a cacophony of remembered voices chiming in, seeding doubt or uprooting it with songs of success…
Suddenly everything made so much sense. The staff in their scrubs, the open-door visiting hour, the plastic plates and cups. All the better to treat you with, my dear. Dissonant echoes of long-gone classrooms tuned to harmony. The cosmos aligned, pure understanding shining through.
Long hours passed, or maybe days or just minutes…reveling in that delightful trip down glory lane, enveloped in a rhapsodic peace that seemed like it would last forever…
“And that’s when you showed up for our weekly appointment.”
“You ate them what, five-six hours ago?” Dr Kyrios checks his watch. “So what’s happening now?”
Your awareness returns to your cozy independent-living apartment at Neverland Estates, the firm sofa underneath you, the slippers on your feet like fleecy little hugs.
“Everything just feels intensely at ease,” you tell him. “Serene, mellow, effusive.”
“And…the giggles?”
“At one point during that asylum nightmare,” you explain, “I had an important revelation: If the children are giggling—even giggling at you—that means they feel safe with you. Unworried, secure, comfortable. Might as well feel safe with them.”
Dr Kyrios shrugs his chin, dark bottlebrush brows knit over the open wound of his ignorance.
“What I mean is, Doc, whether frightening ghosts, new ideas, or this strange drug—once you stop fighting it and turn toward, explore what it has to offer…the fear dissolves into curiosity, and you can’t help but vibrate in tune with the incredible dynamic unity of it all, as the universe bends around you with uplifting energy.”
“Sounds like quite an experience,” Dr Kyrios mutters. “A real hero’s journey. I’m glad you’re back with us and safe.”
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