The Hidden Curriculum

The Hidden Curriculum1

People are always asking me if I’m feeling better today. As if the cuts riddled across my body like a jigsaw some kid started putting together then got sick of and left on the floor aren’t evident in themselves that I’m not.2

Somehow, they always find some kind of silver lining, some kind of reassurance that somehow things will be ok again like they were before. What they fail to see is that if things were ok before this never would have happened. 3

If I were to die right now what would be my greatest regret? Would it be something that I’ve done or all the things that I haven’t?4

She said that when she got out of the hospital that we would go camping or fishing or to the snow.5

She never once used the word “if”. For her it wasn’t a question of whether she “would” get out, only a matter of “when”. This place was like a cage for her almost as much as the withered, mangled vessel her body had become. She smiled through her broken teeth and asked me what I wanted to do today.6

She was always happy to see me. Even like this when no-one else could stand to see me, she was always brightened by my being there with her. Her and I were the same now. Broken angels.7

I saw her as she was before it happened. All the times I’d hurt her I should have been hurting myself. Now I couldn’t stand to see her in pain. Her pain was to see that I was in pain, but I wasn’t the person I was before, and the person I was I hated. He did this to her. He did this to us. But if this hadn’t have happened then he’d still be alive.8

Every thing he was existed as a whisper hidden within our daily curriculum. You can’t hear him but he’s there.9

Have you ever had a near death experience? You know that feeling that you get when your car, travelling at 80km/h, stops suddenly and catapults you out the front windscreen and through a thousand shattered pieces of glass, ready at any moment to slice you open, embed you into a tree and transform you into a piece of modern art that used to be your body? Yeah, well it’s a lot like that. After the accident we felt like we were still soaring through the air, but we were really just standing still, that is, if we could stand. Most of us never will again.10

They say that creation only leads to destruction. For us it was the other way around.11

We all died that night, regardless whether or not we survived. We died and we were born again.12

They say that if you start thinking that everything is hopeless then it starts to not matter so much. Not becoming famous or being the best at what you are. If you know that you’re going to die and really accept that it’s going to happen then all the little things in your life are a whole lot more important.13

You forget that you didn’t go to confession before they put you in hospital. You forget that an entire society must be destroyed so that civilization can continue to exist, and what’s more, you begin to wonder if it really should. The one ever-present factor in humanity is self-preservation. Maybe that’s why when you’re about to die it doesn’t really seem that important.14

That wonderful person you never got to meet. The last thing someone ever said to you. That story that you never got to write. These are the things that course through your mind as you cover your face, telling your relatives “Don’t look at my face, I must look terrible!”15

You forget that you’re not some fucking tourist on the other side of the world, witnessing things that they may never see again, all the while thinking; “Shit, did I leave the gas on?”16

When the last of an extinct species begins to die at their feed leaving blood stains across their Italian designer shoes, the first thing that will hit their mind will be “Shit, I just got these.”17

The brave person says something of intelligence. The intelligent person says nothing at all.18

I used to sit alone and stare at the cool kids sitting at their table. Half the girls in my school were snotty little princesses whose fathers could buy the ground from under them. The other half pretended to be.19

Like the other half. The better half.20

We use little facts to describe everything about life.21

What we too often do though is omit certain facts that give the sentences relevance.22

Colgate was voted number 1 by nine out of ten dentists (as a potent herbicide).23

Jenny lost 25 kilos in eight weeks while on the “fresh fruit” diet (and shortly after died from liver failure)24

Have sex before you marry and you’ll burn in hell for eternity (but of course, sleeping with little boys is perfectly acceptable, just as long as you don’t say any naughty words).25

You never know when the prize in your oatmeal might be a razorblade. That’s why you don’t eat it. That’s why you brush your teeth. That’s why you go to church on Sunday. That’s why you spend every waking moment of every day wondering “what kind of hair-care product really speaks to me as a person?”26

That’s why you’re afraid.27

You never truly cherish the things you have until they’re almost gone.28

Sometimes, we wouldn’t talk. We’d just sit and wait, wasting the time that was quickly running out.29

After she died I thought of a thousand things I could have said to her. A thousand things I wished I’d heard her say. Now everything I hear has the volume turned down as we all try to forget how she was before she died.30

Somehow though, we were relieved. Her suffering was over. Ours was just beginning.31

We’re all tied to this same fate. We’re all destined to die in a hospital bed worrying about how our hair looks. Or in an ambulance screaming, hoping we wore clean underpants, quickly forgetting the pool of blood leaking from one of our vital organs. Or on the ground, with an inch of lead buried deep in our chest as wonder “if all this was so my family could live in happiness then why am I dying and leaving them behind to mourn for me?”32

Would you choose to die like this if you had the choice? For those who won’t remember your name?33

Those who can’t create destroy. Those who can’t do either are forgotten.34

They exist only as a whisper in our daily curriculum. You can’t hear them but they’re there.35

Would you rather forced to be good by society or bad on your own accord?36

Would you rather be free on your own or happy that someone is there even if it’s just to keep you in your cage?37

The only thing of which I am certain is that I can never be certain of anything again.38

The only thing we can remember is the way we felt when they were alive, because back then, we were too.39

This house is our cage. This door is our escape. Only we can ever choose to be free. And only then will we ever be free to choose.40

By Jesse Brand ©200741