Ten Rooms

I'm a little embarrassed by my last entry because I'm not sure if it was too harsh.  It's just ... I really believe that everyone is fundamentally decent and kind.  No one does harm to another because of some fundamental flaw.  The myth of the evil human being is like the myth of the Devil or the myth that pitbulls are intrinsically violent animals.  

I read a book where the author created a character, a sociopath, who rapes men as a teenager and later joins the Taliban to perpetuate terror.  The main character, Amir, grapples with the question of the man's redeemability for the whole book.  In the end, Amir stabs the man in the eye.

Actually, I'm wrong.  Amir never questions the man's evilness ... he was definitely evil.  The challenge for the main character has more to do with bravery - putting a stop to what he knows was wrong.  I guess, if I were the main character, that wouldn't be my battle.  I'd just want to know if the evil man was actually, somewhere, good.

In middle school, I was bullied by a husky, aggressive girl.  One day, she cornered me in the bathroom, and violently banged the wall next to my head.  I covered my face and cried until she went away.  After the bathroom incident, she was nice to me again.  Eerily nice.  The kind of nice that is perched like a glass on a window ledge.  

One day, we were working on a class project together. She asked, "What do you think is going to happen when you die?"  

"I'm going to heaven," I said.

She glared at me, so angry, and shouted, "Oh, so you think you're good, huh?"

If I could go back, I'd say to her:  "Maybe if I had the opportunity, I'd build a house with ten rooms.  Maybe Amir would be one of the men who kills dolphins.  Maybe you'd miss the wall and hit my head.  And we'd all lose our ticket to heaven."