When I was really little, I had this Fraggle Rock readalong thing. It was basically a tape player with buttons in primary colors, and a little dock for your book so that you could read along. There was this one book in particular that was narrated by Red Fraggle, and when the story began, she said, “Press the red button if you’re here. Press the yellow button if you’re not here.” And as far as I can tell, this was my first moral struggle in life: The struggle between inherent morality and scientific curiosity. I knew I was there. I knew the red button applied to me. I pressed that red button every day, sitting on the brown shag carpet in my footie pajamas. Red was the button I had a moral obligation to push. Red was the button my parents would expect me to push, because they were raising me to tell the truth. And yet that yellow button called to me. Day after day, this dilemma wore me down. Until one day I thought to myself, “I’m gonna do it. Today is the day.” So when Red Fraggle gave me the instructions re: the buttons, which by that point I had so studiously memorized, I pushed the yellow button. And in a moment of panic, I dove behind the couch and burrowed myself under a blanket I’d left there in preparation for my evil scheme. I knew on some level that Red Fraggle was fictional and that a tape recorder and an open book couldn’t see me, but since Red was offering me an option, I had to believe that there was a reason. I stayed very still behind the couch. I held my breath, giddy at my own cleverness. Whatever otherworldly force was in that tape recorder, monitoring that red and yellow button, it wouldn’t be able to find me here. And then Red Fraggle said, “If no one is there, who pushed the button?”
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 03:39:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015