The Disease of Art

Because we’re related to Issac Newton, my family felt pre-bound to the obligation of loving the sciences. My sister excelled in her research of how the veins are irritable and look for ways to cut corners. My father discovered that the brain imagines it’s a tree imagining it’s a brain. My mom created the long-running PBS show, “Science: Science.”

I proved to be an embarrassment to my family name by failing miserably in my kindergarten physics class. This troubled my parents, and they had our family doctor inoculate me with the arts vaccine to deter my interests in things creative, giving the sciences a chance to get back into my mind.

But due to a strong negative reaction to the vaccine, I got a library card and started reading Chaucer. This developed into writing fantasy stories about strange people I met while walking on the road to the candy store.

Here’s one that I managed to save:

On the way to the candy apothecary,
I came upon a bent-snake named Smythe.
Smythe told me of near-by fields of sugar cane,
where a lad could sate his sweet-tooth
by eating a fair dozen raw canes.
But I knew better than to trust a bent snake,
and poured salt on the fang-toothed creature,
who proceeded to shrivel,
and I wore Smythe the snake as a neck-tie.