Life Immolates Art

Zippy was stressed out by all the pop quizzes in Ms. Fulcher’s class. His anxiety was causing him to lose weight. Even his hair was thinning. At recess, he and a small group of friends would sit around a trash fire and complain. 

“I hate Mrs. Vulture!”

“I hope she dies!”

“And gets eaten by a vulture!”

“Yeah!”

One day while riding to the slug farm with his mom, Zippy saw the word “Rebel!” spray painted in block letters on an abandoned barn. Zippy wondered who had done it. Art had been banned for years, in North Carolina, anyway. They must be pretty brave, he thought. 

Zippy stared at the graffiti again on the way home. The image flashed in his mind multiple times throughout the day. That night he got an idea. At first it seemed crazy, but then he started to think, Maybe I can pull it off. 

In his room, Zippy got a sheet of paper and a pencil and was about to start writing when his imaginary friend, Hotdog Tomato Head, arrived. 

“No, it’s not homework,” Zippy said. “It’s hate mail.” He explained his idea. 

Hotdog Tomato Head asked Zippy how mad he wanted his teacher to be. 

“I reckon pretty darn mad!” he replied.

Hotdog Tomato Head instructed Zippy on what to write, and helped guide his hand so the drawings and handwriting didn’t resemble Zippy’s penmanship. 

“Oh, I hadn’t even thought of that!” 

The next day Zippy’s teacher gave them quiz after quiz. For Zippy, it was torture. Finally, the school day was coming to an end, and, with the final quiz, Zippy slipped in a quiz completed by a student named Chuck Dick.

The next morning when Zippy walked into class, the room was colder than usual.

“May I turn down the AC, Ms. Fulcher?” said Randal, the teacher’s pet.

“No. Take your seat.” 

Ms. Fulcher watched each student enter the room. After the bell rang, she closed the door and stood at the front of the classroom saying nothing. A hush fell over the room. 

“Does anybody know how many trees are cut down—senselessly murdered—in the Amazon rainforest every minute?” Ms. Fulcher scanned the room. “Two thousand. Two thousand trees have been cut down since I’ve been speaking. Really think about that." She mentioned oxygen levels and animals burning alive. Then she held up a piece of paper. When Zippy saw his handwriting, the doodles of penises peeing and Ms. Fulcher’s headless body bleeding, something that felt like a flame ignited in his belly.  

“Imagine you’re an innocent tree in the rainforest. Go on. Imagine it! ‘Hello! I’m a happy tree!’” she said in a high voice, then, “‘Uh oh! Here comes a big, nasty logger!’ He and his cronies murder you and your family and they chop you up, boil you till you’re mush and flatten you into paper. PAPER ISN’T INNOCENT!—But we need it. It’s a tool to help us learn. You may not truly understand this until you’re older, but everything in life has a cost. Does the education of human beings justify the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest?” 

Ms. Fulcher scanned the room. 

“Randal” she said. “Do you think we should cut down the Emerald Forest?”

“No, ma’am.” 

“Well, that’s what’s happening. Not here. Not in Emerald Isle. But it’s happening. This morning in Brazil, a boy walked outside to find a smoldering field where there was once a forest. Did you know that?”

“No, ma’am.”

“His name is Raul. How is he different from you, Randal?” 

“I-I don’t know, ma’am.”

“The only difference is that your paper is made from his Emerald Forest.”

Randal said: “I didn’t do it, ma’am!” 

“No, Randal, you didn’t write this filth. But you’re not innocent.” Ms. Fulcher scanned the room as she spoke. “Every time you sign your name on a sheet of paper—that’s blood on your hands. There’s blood on ALL of our hands. And that, boys and girls, is the cost of your education.”

Ms. Fulcher took two steps forward. “Zippy,” she said in a contemplative tone. “What do ecologists call the Amazon?”

“It’s, uh, the, um…rainforest, ma’am?” 

“Yes, but what metaphorical term do they use for the Amazon rainforest?” 

“It’s, um, do you mean, like, what they say in, that sort of…um—What? What is the Amazon? The um. Nature?” 

Ms. Fulcher looked at Zippy as if he was a wad of gum stuck to the bottom of a chair. 

“Class, what do ecologists call the Amazon?”

The students all said, “The Lungs of the World.” 

“That’s right. We’re cutting off chunks of our own lungs to have paper. Trees are pressed and cut and packaged and weighed and shipped in gasoline powered vehicles to stores running on electricity all over America…the amount of manpower that goes into a single sheet of paper is mindboggling. And for what? So some little good-for-nothing can scribble low-life filth upon it.” She paused to let this sink in. “Wasting paper? It’s a disgrace.” 

Ms. Fulcher walked behind her desk and picked something up. When the students saw what it was, they shifted in their seats and a murmur arose. 

“Quiet!” she snapped. “I think, there’s no getting through to you.” Ms. Fulcher raised the red container above her head and doused herself in gas. The powerful fumes made the children cough. “Maybe you need to see the spectacle first hand. Maybe you need to see a little death!” 

And with that, she dropped the can and flicked a lighter. 

A clear, blue flame engulfed their teacher’s body like a blanket. Some students watched, and others took notes, as if it might be on the next pop quiz. When the lunch bell rang, the students filed past the ash heap and down the hallway to the cafeteria. 

“What the heck was Ms. Vulture talking about?” one girl said.

“Something about not burning trees,” another girl said.

“She’s right, you know?” a boy said.

“Of course she’s right. That was never the issue.”

“I know, it’s like, if she’d stop giving us so many pop quizzes, they wouldn’t have to cut down so many trees!”

“Or, they could, like, let us have computers again.”

That afternoon, Hotdog Tomato Head asked Zippy if his teacher mentioned anything about the joke pop quiz.

“She set herself on fire in front of the class,” he said.

“What? Really?” 

“I told you she was a little over the top.”

“Over the top? That’s putting it mildly.”

“What do you mean?” said Zippy.

“I just figured she’d make like a tree and leave.”

“That’s a corny joke.”

“Maybe,” Hotdog Tomato Head said. “But betcha don’t have a pop quiz tomorrow.”