I went to Khan Academy and took their diagnostic test to see where my math level was at. I kid you not...somehow I ended up at "Put six pretty flowers in this box" level math.
It's been a very long time since school. On the bright side, my lessons thus far have been progressing very quickly. I should be in the 4th grade in no time. :-)
So I'm still about 12 short stories into my challenge, and looking for another idea to take hold.
In the meantime, I'm reading Chekhov, and I think you should too. Just because even when one cannot write, one should always read.
Although Chekhov himself might say otherwise...
***
The Bet
By Anton Chekhov
It was a dark autumn
night. The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering how,
fifteen years before, he had given a party one autumn evening.
There had been many clever men there, and there had been
interesting conversations. Among other things they had talked of capital
punishment.
The majority of the guests, among whom were many journalists and
intellectual men, disapproved of the death penalty. They considered that form
of punishment out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for Christian States. In the
opinion of some of them the death penalty ought to be replaced everywhere by
imprisonment for life.
"I don't agree with you," said their host the banker.
"I have not tried either the death penalty or imprisonment for life, but
if one may judge _a priori_, the death penalty is more moral and more humane
than imprisonment for life. Capital punishment kills a man at once, but
lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. Which executioner is the more humane,
he who kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out of you in the
course of many years?"
"Both are equally immoral," observed one of the
guests, "for they both have the same object -- to take away life. The
State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when
it wants to."
Among the guests was a young lawyer, a young man of
five-and-twenty. When he was asked his opinion, he said:
"The death sentence and the life sentence are equally
immoral, but if I had to choose between the death penalty and imprisonment for
life, I would certainly choose the second. To live anyhow is better than not at
all."
A lively discussion arose. The banker, who was younger and more
nervous in those days, was suddenly carried away by excitement; he struck the
table with his fist and shouted at the young man:
"It's not true! I'll bet you two millions you wouldn't stay
in solitary confinement for five years."
"If you mean that in earnest," said the young man,
"I'll take the bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen years."
"Fifteen? Done!" cried the banker. "Gentlemen, I
stake two millions!"
"Agreed! You stake your millions and I stake my
freedom!" said the young man.
And this wild, senseless bet was carried out! The banker, spoilt and frivolous, with millions beyond his reckoning,
was delighted at the bet. At supper he made fun of the young man, and said:
"Think better of it, young man, while there is still time.
To me two millions are a trifle, but you are losing three or four of the best
years of your life. I say three or four, because you won't stay longer. Don't
forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great deal
harder to bear than compulsory. The thought that
you have the right to step out in liberty at any moment will poison your whole
existence in prison. I am sorry for you."
And now the banker, walking to and fro, remembered all this, and
asked himself: "What was the object of that bet? What is the good of that
man's losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two millions? Can
it prove that the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment for life?
No, no. It was all nonsensical and meaningless. On my part it was the caprice of a pampered man, and on his part
simple greed for money. . . ."
Then he remembered what followed that evening.
***
What happened next? Oh, you've got to wait til tomorrow to find out...
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