Sometimes, it IS just a story.

The last half of my senior year in high school, I chose a class called Science Fiction as my literature requirement. I had read a lot of classic sci-fi, and on the reading list were a couple I'd not seen.

Thought it might be fun.

The class was taught by a guy named Bruce Grigsby.
I remember a lot about him, actually.
Sort of funny that I do.

I once went to him in the morning before school to tell him that one of my friends was having a crisis...(he really was, they'd just done an intervention with his dad and the feces had hit the fan...) and that he needed to talk and that I was going to skip class.

I was not marked absent. He never said a word about it.

He knew a bit about the situation I'd come from, too.
And that I was sort of.. drifting. That I was hurt.
And he was kind and supportive without being weird about it.

He hated his name. Had hated it his whole life.
Told a joke about it.
"Is it a boy? Is it a girl? Ah, who cares. Let's just name it 'Bruce'."

So maybe that was part of his problem. 
;)

He also mentioned more than once in his classroom ramblings that any man who lives with a pregnant woman is a hero. I thought then, without knowing nearly as much as I do now, that any woman who slept with him was an idiot. It struck me as miogynistic... but of course now I know that some guys just... can't shut up even when it might be a good idea.

So Bruce was heavily into symbolism. He never met a story that was just a story. Oh no. All of them were simply loaded with symbols and philosophies. And not only were they loaded with them, he, and ONLY he, was qualified to interpret them. Subjective things like interpreting stories? Only he had the inside scoop. The rest of us could only listen and learn, Grasshopper.

I got an A on my paper written about Stranger in a Strange Land by saying that until all of us learn to grok, the real meaning of the story would remain beyond our full grasp. That all we could do is draw superficial lessons from the story, because we mere mortals are unable to completely grok.

I didn't get an A on my paper about Childhood's End.
I said it was a waste of time to think about Earth's children being born and groomed to be part of 'the Overmind'.

And that although there were lots of possible symbols in the story, one could also argue that it was simply that... a story.

But according to Grigs, there was no such thing as 'just a story'.

So at the end of the term, we were to choose a science fiction book that we had not discussed in class, write a book report about it, and share our thoughts with the class.

I decided to write a book report on a book that WAS just a story.
A complete fabrication.
As in, I completely made it up.
Made up the number of pages and the name of the publisher and the date published and the author's name and gave it a fictitious library number.

I chose to write a book report about Sim-T.
Sim-T was a humanoid robot.
He was not aware he was a mechanical being.
He thought he was a man.

His creators put him and many others just like him on the Earth of the future, and loaded them with everything needed to destroy mankind.

He infiltrated many areas of life, and was fully accepted by everyone he came in contact with.

I made up a catch phrase used by the population (who'd been attacked many times before from outer space...) "Are you in your own world today?'

I made sure that my book report talked about the idea that Sim was a trend follower... that he never did anything independent.

He loved music, particularly classical.
Mozart could bring tears to his eyes.
Sim fell in love and married a woman.
He began dreaming about starting a family.
He wanted a little girl.

Of course clues kept popping up that he should have figured out... and finally, toward the end of the book, he realized he was not a man.

As he neared the conclusion that he was not only NOT human, but dangerous to the people he had grown to love, he and his brothers and sisters across the globe, from Berlin to Boston simultaneously blew up, taking out the entire population of the world.

The entire planet drowned in toxic waters, poisoned by the contents of Sim and the others.

The story closed with Sim's voice box floating on the waves, crying brokenly. He'd been destroyed, along with the whole world, but the guilt and his battery were both so powerful that the crying would last approximately 200 years.

Now how's that for symbolic?

I don't remember everything I wrote. I used everything I could think of to toss in there... there was so much sincere symbolism I got shivers.
;)

I remember laughing like an idiot after I turned the book report in. I thought I might get in trouble. But mostly, I didn't care.

What was funny was, Grigs wrote at the end about how much he enjoyed that story the first time he read it and thanks for the reminder and he was going to go to the library and check it out and read it again.. it was just that good.

And that my interpretation of the symbolism in the story was spot-on.

Damn right.
I knew exactly what the author was trying to say!

Here's to you, Grigs.
And your interpretations of symbolism, which even now are different from mine and your efforts to reach kids... I liked you, you're one of those teachers who actually made a difference, and you still make me smile today. :)

And in looking at this photo, you have my sympathies for the sling on the arm... I only wish I had no idea what that feels like.

Picture shamelessly lifted from a Google search... here