Where are the wisdom givers now, the gurus? Is their absence just proof that they are so large or so few?
The speaker addressed a sizable crowd, both young and old. He followed the rows up to the lights.
He spoke: We know that in societies that do not change, the aged are venerated, because experience accumulates but rarely changes; the aged contain and know more than the young. But we know also that in societies that change and change rapidly, the aged become redundant, their experiences quaint and useless. With all due respect, I say this. In simpler societies, slowness is a good thing. The crops never change; whispers move at the speed of wind in the night; and the rituals can be memorized; and we know exactly why we have them. But in states of speed and complexity, the aged cannot keep up; they are left behind and are forgotten and grow into a perpetual state of forgetfulness, tweetlessness, moving room to room looking for an outlet to plug in their rotary phones. They grow tired, while the young grow forceful, ever increasing and growing more powerful with the new. But do they have the forbearance; do they have the discipline? Do they know when to sleep?
An old man raised his hand.
See, he raises his hand. He wants me to see him and treat him with respect, to acknowledge that a raised hand means anything to me. Where is his culpability now; where is his understanding now? He thinks that raising his hand is acceptable.
He should just speak. Why don’t you just speak your mind, old man? a young man said at the back. Man, you piss me off with your little old skinny white, raised hand and your old listening ears and your futile viagra. The thought of you with a hard on freaks me out.
The young man stood and as he came down the steps he slapped the old man across the head and said, You’re too slow, too inhibited. You want the rituals to stay the same. You want someone else to feed you. And you, speaker, the young man said, you pitch nothing we haven’t already guessed. Look at us, filling in the holes and the spaces, and, what’s worse, cleaning up your messes. So, I say we run you from this place, maybe even drink your blood. I say, he said, turning to the other young people, I say we rise up and remove this crust from the edge of the sandwich. Come on.
The young men and women stood, their litheness threatening, and already they’d unsheathed their glimmering devices.
Wait, my original question was a confirmation of my place, the speaker said. The answer is: I’m the guru.
Ha, if you’re a guru, then I’m Frodo. We knew what you would say even before you said it. It was already recorded. It’s on the newspaper’s front page but the feeds are already two days ahead of it. Did you know there’s video of you being helped across the street by some kid?
Where? Where is this video?
Out with you. Out with him. I’m taking over.
No, I am, said a woman with hair like a frozen shot of purple spray.
No, me, said another.
I should run things, said another.
Meanwhile, the aged and the speaker were being kicked from their seats and their places. One man was being dragged across the stage by his long gray beard. He kept saying, no, no, remember Gandalf.
I remember friggin’ Gandalf. He returned after being killed, but that ‘s a myth, a lie, an improper application of plot. There is no magic, old fool. Get that guy out of here.
The oldest are lightest and they are easy to dismiss, carry, and pack into crates. Outside of the auditorium a stack of boxes rose high, filled with the old men and old women. Accumulated crates full of old people weighed down the harbor barges. American old people; Mexican old people; Iranian old people–all pressed into boxes and floating off slowly downriver.
A young woman held a stethoscope to one of the boxes. She’d hooked the device into an iPod so that the whimpers that came from inside the box were saved onto the web.
Inside the auditorium the youngsters gathered. They began making videos; they wrote in their journals; they invented interesting devices that actually worked and generated very little heat and after each was finished a new team set to improve upon it. But even before it had been improved, a new device was thrown into the pile, and yet more teams went to work on its improvements until the auditorium was lit with the energy of competition and devices and papers filled with innovative equations and theses.
Rumors came that an old man had escaped from his box and was rushing on his way and that he should be here in a few days at his present speed.
When he gets here, we’ll make him the tester, said a young man. A lamp. Glue.
At night, the city pulsed. Cars pulled into the wet black streets, the air warm after rain. In a cafe, two men traded business cards and departed together. One of the men stooped to tie his shoe and was killed by a speeding car.
The next day, the auditorium was full of grief for the death of the young man. Everyone was quiet.
We should have a service, a young man said. Make a plaque or something. It was my fault. I should have walked him home. We’d had a few drinks. Someone skyped their sadness from Brazil. Someone flicked the image of a cluster of burning candles.
It’s not your fault, a woman said. It’s just the way things are; shit happens.
We should get back to work, someone said.
A door at the back flew open and an old man with a long beard waddled in. His eyes were wild. A few sticks of hay clung to his beard. He said in a voice that sounded like the brakes of a train, Remember Gandalf. Remember Gandalf.
