The Short Story of George Flowman

The Short Story of George Flowman​

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George Flowman was an ordinary boy who lived in the suburbs of California, who grew to be an ordinary teenager, and finally became an ordinary adult.

He lived an ordinary life – worked for pay, with the pay he bought ordinary food – pizza ,pasta, burgers, chinese takeout – you know, the usual stuff. With the pay he bought an ordinary house – a twin sized bed, two couches, a large television set, a nice sound system, a washing machine to wash his normal sized collection of clothes – you know, the usual hundred odd garments of tops, bottoms, underwear, socks. He spent the usual amount of time at work, to earn the money to pay for these usual things, and experienced the usual amount of stress, vexation, and anger at his job. Everything was just perfectly normal.

Then, one day, before Christmas, George drove down to a crowded shop complex to make some purchases. He got out of his car that was parked far away due to the lack of parking, and started making his way towards the shops. He saw crowds upon crowds of people everywhere, wearing their winter clothing, some returning to their cars some going to the stores. Some excited and anxious, some nervous and troubled, for Christmas shopping was a time of stress and toil for many – gifts had to be bought to light peoples' lives up, and this was a matter of grave seriousness and a source of much trouble.

Suddenly, without notice, everything changed. No...everything stayed the same, the way George saw everything from within his head changed. Suddenly, there was beauty and connection and love and unbelievable, causeless, auspiciousness everywhere. Every moment, every man, every child, the snow, the air itself, seemed innately connected – without concept of disconnection, seemed innately in love and beloved – without concept of hated, seemed an expression of perfect divinity every second – without concept of undivine. Everything transformed, George could no longer feel separate in the smallest way from anyone or anything, everything was him and he was everything – everything was everything, wholly a part of a divine, intended painting. There was no separation or disconnection, the feeling simply ceased to have ever existed.

The change was so total, so profound, that George could not even notice it. Everything was so right and so perfect, that the way he looked at the world before still occurred as right and he did not even remember or think of it at all. George's view of everything had transformed, and with it George such that George knew not even that he had changed.

He kept walking towards the stores. A father and his young child were returning to their car. The child looked at George, George looked right back and smiled at the child as if it were his own, and ruffled the child's hair with love as he walked by. The father was startled, alarmed, almost scared. Quickly, he grabbed the child, and started walking faster on to his car. He sharply reprimanded the child and told her never to look at strangers again, for strangers are dangerous.

George walked on towards to the stores. A pretty young lady was having trouble getting her purchases into her car. Without a moments hesitation, he started assisting her, picking up her bags and putting them into her car. The lady shrieked. “Ill call the police! Get away from me!”. A little confused, yet still perfectly composed and feeling connected, George nodded and walked on.

Just before George reached the store, he came across a young lady who's shopping cart was quite firmly stuck in the snow. Naturally, he started helping her. With a faint, embarrassed smile she said, “thats alright ill get it”, George simply smiled and kept helping. He felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to face a bulkier man. “Didn't you hear her? Get lost, are you hitting on my girl?”. George replied, having understood the threat to be only a question, for in his world hostility and threat had ceased to exist. “Why no, I was helping her with her stuck cart”. The man replied, “Get lost, she has her boyfriend to do that”. Unnerving but a little quizzed, George walked on into the store.

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Two years later, a beautiful snowfallen countryside finds a twenty two year old George leaning on a fence that separates the residential part of the country – a parking lot with a food-van – and a pristine natural forest.. George stands leaning over the fence for an hour and a half facing the forest. Various people buying food from the food van and parking their cars notice him. Occasionally, some would ask “you ok there man?”. George would reply with a radiant, natural smile, “How could anything not?”.

A young girl, eighteen or twenty or so in age, leaning against the van and eating a hot dog takes a fancy to him and his aloof, seemingly maverick ways. She walks upto him from behind and leans over the fence next to him.

“Hi”, she says.

“Hello”, says George, love and connection radiating from him.

“Whatcha doin here by the fence all by yerself, stranger?”

With a twinkle of mild humor in his eyes, George replies...”I'm contemplating...the loss off..a friend”

Catching on, she replies smiling, “Well, how did you lose your “friend””

“Well, really, it wasn't him who was lost from this world, but this world that lost him”

“Whats that all fancy mean now?”

“ He never fit into this world, so on this very day, he walked into that there forest”

Startled, she said “Now why did he go and think that? Why did he not fit..everybody can fit”
“Not him..something was different about him”

Amused, she replies, “O yea? How so”

With a smile, George replies “A better question would be, how not so?”

“You see, he could not feel separate. He could not understand what people seem to call “possession”, he could not understand the “me and us” people would attach to themselves and their friends and the “them” that they labelled everyone else. It simply made no sense.”

“ Where was he from, this “friend” of yours?”

“ He was of this world, of this universe, he simply was, and thats all he knew and cared to acknowledge. “Where from” didn't register as a sensible question to him. Fuck-him-sideways, but he could not see himself and everybody else, everything in existence, as anything less than a close, connected brotherhood.”

“ That sounds like a beautiful way to feel, so what was his problem?”

“His brotherhood didn't seem to feel the same. And his apparently..different, disposition had other seemingly “abnormal” effects on him that he could see as nothing but natural”

Quite intrigued, and fancying George more by the minute, she stands closer to him, plays with her hair, and asks, “What kind of effects?”

“ He couldn't seem to get his head around the concept of “work” that his brothers seem so addicted to, in spite of how it worries and troubles them. He couldn't get his head around the need for large amounts of this “money”, the hundreds of sets of clothes to look better to the very people that they disown even before talking to, the televisions to watch other people even though they seem to force disconnection upon themselves from real people that could be watched, the big houses that cost so much and have so much space for just a man and his wife and children to grow up, separately from the rest of his brothers.
He couldn't seem to get his head around their concept that one does not simply go up and talk to or embrace brothers that he has not met before. He couldn't seem to not want to be connected to everyone and everything, to not want to help every one of his brothers in need. Some of his brothers had lost themselves to a dark path of violence that hurts them as much as the other brothers that they inflict the violence upon – His other brothers seemed to feel that these kind of brothers must be alienated, reprimanded, and despised. He couldn't seem to look at them in any way other than as lost kin who are in dire need of his support, love and direction - not abandonment and hatred...
He couldn't seem to feel that animals and trees were less important and inferior and slaves to our species, even though his brethren seemed to think that this is natural and treating animals with equal respect and attention is unnatural. You see now, how despite everything, he seemed just not to fit in, and received curses, was feared, and ws made the object of hostility by the very brethren that he felt so at one with and so compassionate towards?”

Utterly entranced, the girl cannot help herself. She looks George in the eyes and flirts, “Your friend sounds like a swell guy..one in a million. You know, he didn't have to leave into the forest..he could have found himself a nice dame to settle down with who would never have thought anything but the best of him...”

With a smile, George replies “Ah, but he could only feel equal love, equal connection. He could not settle down, he could not call one girl “his” and keep his relationship with her different from his relationship with the rest of his sisters. He could not call the house or children “his” and “protect” them from “others “– he could not see anything or anyone for them to be protected from , he could see no “others”– for all he saw was equal connection and equal love for all his brothers and sisters everywhere”

Disgruntled and getting ready to leave, the girl snaps “Well, what did he think he would find in there in the forest?”

George looks into the forest. After a few moments of silence, he replies, “Other species seemed to feel the same way around him as he did about them. They would stop squabbling and feeling separate around him, and would feel at one with him in his presence, and would receive him with the same love that he approached them. He thought it better to be there, until and unless perhaps the brothers of his own species one day found him to be natural”

“Your friend was probably right”, the girl says, and leaves.

Soon after, George walks into the forest.​

George Flowman never returned. The civilized world forever lost a purity and grace that was the embodiment of that which is needed to save it from its' own darkness.

How many George Flowmans have YOU caused to leave your world today?

 

Story ending edited.