Kids, Lies, and Caligula

A Complaint in Pain Major

I’m sat in the audience of this small concert hall. On stage is a repulsive little boy dressed in a full formal suit. He has a golden chain hanging from his pockets and a pair of big white trainers. He is currently violating Mozart with the help of a minuscule violin. The strident notes travel through space and seem to have found an area of pain I didn’t know existed in my brain.

I check the time: one hour left.

One after another, proud children hop onto the stage and provide a toe-curling display. What demonic ritual is this? Why have they invited us? Aren’t they supposed to teach them how to actually play?

Soon it’s my own tender daughter who steps in, proudly plucking four notes on her baby violin. I applaud wildly, smiling and waving. She is chuffed, but all I can think about is how fucked up our world is.

Are we delusional to expect reasonable human beings while we, adults, lie to our children constantly?

I propose to change this. We shouldn’t fall prey to our love of our little ones; we ought to tell them the truth from now on. Tell them that yes, we will die and putrefy at one point or another, that yes, their little piece of music was shite, and they have to work real hard to get better, and that no, mum and dad are not wise, they are just TIRED.

But I’m a coward, I can’t.

As the concert draws to a close, I approach the music teacher and thank her wholeheartedly, feeling dirty in the process. I do hope my handshake doesn’t betray my loathing. I know I’m overreacting, but it’s one of those things.

I am still tempted to make a stand, to put my foot down, to jump on stage and utter a primal scream, before explaining that the world as it’s made is unacceptable, that we ought to change it, change things, that we can’t carry on like this! But I lack courage, I just go with the flow. I’m like everybody else.

As we are making our way home, I’m carrying my girl’s violin on my back and wondering why I always think of things like these in such moments. My daughter carries a flower bouquet and smells it, it’s nice and sunny, the birds are singing, and I’m thinking of Caligula.

Back home I listen to Bach for an hour to cleanse myself and I start feeling much better. Then, as always, I accept with bitterness the great hypocrisy of life.

Maybe I should let her struggle, let her see the raw edges of this world, but then again, maybe I should just let her be a child. There’s a peculiar comfort in the discordant notes of childhood. A place where innocence doesn’t yet know the sting of truth.

Perhaps there’s a lesson there too, one I’m still trying to learn.

R x