bird brain

You were never ashamed of having a brain.

Its insatiable thirst for new knowledge.

A burning yearn to learn.

You were never ashamed of having a brain, and you wanted to feed it all that you could. Therefore, it was no surprise that when you got your first big boy paycheck you went and bought yourself a brand new encyclopedia set.

An entire encyclopedia set. A 150-pound heaping of leatherbound-brainfood. A collection of literature heavy enough to crush a cranium.

You placed it on some shelves in the living room of your apartment, amongst some ceramic busts, tiny sculptures, and miniature globes that you accrued at a garage sale. They were what an interior designer would call “smart objects.” They proudly supported your books.

And you had grand plans to read them all! A to Z; from Aztecs to Zaire.

But things didn’t go as planned. You worked long hours at your job. You got promoted. You fell in love. You were too busy learning about life to learn a little more on the side.

You moved into a new house. The books were rented out to your study. You got married, teamed up with your wife to make a kid. You teamed up again to make another another.

The study became a bedroom. The books were demoted to the basement.

And those books just sat there. For years, they collected dust bunnies. The dust bunnies fucked like bunnies and continued to grow. They soon grew to be a small colony. They even formed their own government.

Years later, you decided to have a garage sale of your own. You uncovered the books when you were going through old boxes of shit. And all of the sudden, you felt that spark. The yearn to learn it was back.

You wondered to yourself, when was the first encyclopedia created? 

You went upstairs to your computer and went to Wikipedia.com to find the answer.

You thought again.

What was I thinking that day when I bought an encyclopedia set?

You were ashamed you didn't use your brain.