The Test - Excerpts

by Ralph Greco Jr.

"Ready class," Mrs. Anderson began as she returned to the front of the group.

The teacher's unusually deep voice bounced off the empty dusty shelves. Despite her large frame, Mrs. Anderson was a demure woman in temperament; she had never liked this room for its cavern-like acoustics. The children should be tested in a proper space, not an unused library, she thought then as she had often. Silently damning herself for never really pushing for a better facility, what the thin-lipped woman managed here was all her own design, sanctioned to be sure by those few courageous enough to deflect and disavow.

"Positions please," Mrs. Anderson announced and the fourteen children moved in one wave to lay face down on their mats. It was a sight that had taken the forty-three year-old mother of two her twenty years teaching to get used to; all those little white rumps lying still on burping seas of red plastic.

greco speaks...

I can't seem to see my mind clear of the compounding silliness that confronts me everyday.

Producing entertaining satire (at least to me it's entertaining), songs and yelling within the confines of my mind I attempt to battle the injustices I see outside my front door and read in the newspaper (which I really try not to read). It seems a global-wide epidemic of monumental conceit has led us to a place where people are more concerned with being right then being sympathetic, kind - even simply polite. Each side thinks they are so opposite from the other, when in fact it looks like the chasm they claim is between them seems to be shrinking on a daily basis, squeezing out a mass of watered-down jelly I have to step over like so many land-mines just to my over-priced coffee.

So I place my fingers on a keyboard or lift my guitar pick in hand and try to strum or write through this silliness, which I am coming to fear ain't really all that silly after all.

greco bio...

Ralph Greco, Jr. is an internationally published author of short stories, plays, essays and coffee can labels. Ralph is also an Ascap licensed songwriter and has performed his self-penned songs the world over. When he isn't engaging himself in the various activities above, he attempts to keep his monsterous ego in check.