Flap Jack

A story I wrote in October, 2011.

Flap Jack

Flap jack is a kind old man, a not so subtle old man, who loves to dance about the streets of his beloved town of Rosenberg. He dances around the streets with his cherry oak cane and top hat. He wears a top hat sometimes, but mostly holds it in one hand while he dances, and wears a black tailored suit of tweed. Happy as can be is he, nothing can disturb Flap Jack. His coat tails love to dance with the wind, making a nice flapping noise as he does his peasant jig.

The locals of the town of Rosenberg think this absurd little man is a drunk by the way he jumps and snaps his heels together up and down the town streets, singing aloud off key to his favorite tune. The tune he made up himself:

“Oh, flap, flap in the wind goes my tails. I’ve no care in this whole world, nothing but me and my tails.”

The tune makes no sense, not even to him, but he loves to dance free, hop, skip, and sing this tune of nonsense all through the day anyway.

What many don’t know about Flap Jack is his love for teaching the children. He has a teaching degree of English, one he never uses, but oh how he’d love to teach the children one day. He is sixty-three years old yet no work history is there to be seen on his resume. There is nothing but an empty slate of carefree space. He spent his years carefree, happy as can be - skipping, jumping, flipping, hopping - all the day long, spreading his joy of life to the children that he meets and greets.

One day as he was passing by the local High School and noticed there was a sign on the front window of the administration office that read: In Need of a Replacement Freshman English Teacher At Once!

Flap Jack shouted out in excitement “HOORAY, HOORAY, I’LL BE TEACHING TODAY” he then hopped, skipped, and jigged in a circle, clicking his heels together and making his coat tails go FLAP, FLAP, FLAP, causing the citizens walking past to stare, but old Flap Jack did not care.

He entered the administration office at once, causing a burst of excitement shocks, for everyone knew seemingly crazy Flap Jack, but they did not know he’d be here today.

He removes his top hat, his brown head shining in the florescent light. He smiles, his goatee nice and trimmed, and says in the calmest voice he could muster, “I am here for the teaching job posted on that window. Please, may I speak to the principle?”

The secretary, wide eyed and dumbstruck, pointed to the door behind her, the one that read in big letters: PRINCIPLE’S OFFICE.

Flap Jack jumped up in excitement, doing a little peasant jig, making his coat tails go FLAP, FLAP, FLAP, for a few moments, and shouted a loud cheerfully, “Thank you!” and off he went to the principles office, hopping and skipping the couple feet.

He was about to knock politely on the door, but as he lifted his fist the door swung open in a hurry.

“Who is making all this ruckus! People are trying to do their work! Who is disrupting!” the principle angrily whispered.

The principle was not a friendly man; he was a man that was pretty bland. He rarely spoke above a whisper and required others to do the same. His wear was of a dull tan faded suit. Not quite the kind of suit Flap Jack is wearing, for Flap Jack’s suit looks new.

“IT IS I, FLAP JACK, AND I AM HERE FOR THE TEACHING JOB!” he shouts excitedly, forgetting to keep his voice calm. Calm is not a word Flap Jack knows when he is as excitedly happy as he is now.

“Keep your voice down!” The principle sternly whispers. “This is a place of business! Business does not mean shouting! You must be quiet on these grounds!”

Flap Jack steps back with a look of horror. He clenches his chest as if he has been struck in the heart.

“Oh, my dear sir, I did not know this was a place for such silence! I’ll be sure to keep my voice down, but I warn you. It is impossible for me to when I am as happy as can be,” he said these words very calmly, but his next words aren’t as calm. “BUT MY QUIETNESS LASTS ONLY SO LONG, FOR I AM HAPPY ALL DAY LONG!”

Mr. Principle lets out a grumpy groan and wipes his face with his hand in annoyance. “Fine!” he whispers in his angry whispering way. “Be as happy as can be somewhere else! No one here will use the tone of voice as you! So be gone you loud mouth buffoon!”

The words ‘loud mouth buffoon’ made Flap Jack have a laughing fit. A high pitch laugh does Flap Jack have, a laugh that made Mr. Principle very mad.

“Stop I say! Stop! Stop with your high pitch of annoying laughter!” But Mr. Principle made an uh-oh. He shouted these words instead of whispering. He quickly covered his mouth as if to hide his mistake.

The shout caused Flap Jack to stop laughing. He looked wide eyed in shock at Mr. Principle.

“You shouted! You broke your own rule! For breaking that sacred rule, please do give me a chance at the teaching job!” these words he said were of excitement, but calm.

Mr. Principle had an expression of annoyance on his face, but he knew he had no choice but to agree with Flap Jack. This knowledge frustrates him. The frustration of this knowledge causes him to squint his eyes and stomps his foot while holding back the shout he wants to let out.

“Fine!” he manages to angrily whisper. “You are hired. You begin tomorrow morning at eight o’clock on the dot, don’t you dare be late! The room is in FA 128.”

“HOORAY,  HOORAY, THAT MADE MY DAY! I AM SO HAPPY I’LL BE TEACHING, YAY!” he does a little peasant jig, making his coat tails go FLAP, FLAP, FLAP as he makes his way out of the building.

That next morning, at eight o’clock on the dot, he entered the room FA 128, with a skip and a hop.

There he was surprised to see, the most solemn faces he ever did see. Oh how this made him feel so bad, seeing these children so sad.

“OH, MY DEAR CHILDREN! WHAT MAKES YOU SO SAD! ARE YOU NOT TO BE GLAD TO LEARN?”

The children stare at him in shock, for he did what they were not to do. He shouted at the top of his lungs!

“Mr. Flap Jack sir,” whispers a young blond girl with curls in the front row. “We are not to shout. This is a place of learning, and learning does not involve shouting.”

Flap Jack laughs his high pitch laugh, causing the windows to shutter.

The Children quietly wait for him to compose himself. He soon does stop laughing.

“My dear children, this is a place of laughter and fun! This place has no room for silence and tears! For learning has yet to begun, until there‘s laughter and fun!” with these words he knocks off the papers that were on his desk. As he dances around the room, doing his famous peasant jig, he announces, “No grades are there to be found in this class! Knowledge has no percent, for it is endless! There will be nothing but music and laughter for now on in this class!”

The children let out a quiet HOORAY! But Flap Jack did not like that. He encouraged them to shout it louder by letting out an earth shaking HOORAY!!! And the students immediately followed suit.

So, for three days fun, music, and laughter did last. Three days of learning through a musical stomp and a laughing tune. The students learned their P’s and Q’s even if there was no paperwork or tests to be found.

The children’s laughter spread through the school. In those short days the whole school was in a happy loud laughter and dance, joining in with Flap Jack’s peasant dance.

Everyone was happy, screaming, singing, dancing in their joy. Everyone except Mr. Principle, he still remained a whispering grump.

“Flap Jack, you are fired!” He tells Flap Jack on the fourth day, first thing in the morning as he was entering the office.

“Oh! But why so! I made the school as happy as can be! The children enjoy their learning now! Oh, why would you get rid of me?” Flap Jack cries these words. They were his calmest words yet.

Mr. Principle did not budge.  He crossed his arms and glared, saying in his well known angry whisper, “this is a place of business! Business does not mean shouting! You must be quiet on these grounds!”

Flap Jack left the office with a heavy heart. His shoulders sagging, his coat tails no longer flapping; they are now dragging upon the ground. Will Flap Jack now forever frown?

The children were in an up roar after they heard of the firing of Flap Jack. They screamed “NO, NO, NO! WE WANT HIM BACK! WE WILL NOT LEARN UNTIL HE’S BACK!”

The students went on strike, refusing to go back to their classrooms until Flap Jack was back. Even the teachers did not stop this. On the second day of the strike every one of the teachers in the school marched to the principles office and demanded for Flap Jack to be hired again.

The anger of the teachers helped Mr. Principle to realize his mistake. He now realized how much better the school really was with Flap Jack around. With this realization, he agreed to get Flap Jack back. He went out at once to find him.

Mr. Principle went to the City Park, and there he found Flap Jack, sad as can be, sitting upon a park bench. He was bent hunched over, his tails almost touching the ground. He had a droopy frown of sadness that could be felt all throughout town.

Mr. Principle sat down beside Flap Jack and said pleadingly, “Flap Jack! Please come back to school! You are hired again! Please bring your laughter and joy back to the school! It is a wreck without you! I was wrong, you were right! Oh please say you’ll be back! Teach me the knack of being as happy as you Flap Jack.”

Flap Jack instinctively beamed a smile that lit up the whole town. He popped up and began to do his hip, skip, peasant dance, making his coat tails go FLAP, FLAP, FLAP.

“MR. PRINCIPLE, IT IS SO EASY TO BE AS HAPPY AS ME! JUST JUMP UP, CLICK YOUR HEELS! AND DANCE, DANCE, THE FLAP JACK DANCE WITH ME! LIKE THIS, YOU SEE?”

So he demonstrates for the principle. He jumps up, hops, skips, and clicks his heels together singing all the while:

“Oh, flap, flap in the wind goes my tails. I’ve no care in this whole world, nothing but me and me tails.”

The principle laughed a joyful laugh, one of rustic sounding for lack of use, but the longer he laughed the clearer it got. And as he sang, danced, hopped, and skipped with Flap Jack, his laugh was as high and loud and clear has his. He and Flap Jack danced the peasant jig all the day and night long.

The next morning they arrived at school full of laughter and cheer. The students and faculty were as happy as can be to see them arriving full of pleasantry.

Since that day the school was no longer dull and quiet, it was full of laughter and cheer, just like ol’ Flap Jack.

 [Very rough sketch of Flap Jack below]:

The Tale of the Sufferer

There once lived a man by the name of Zoriah who lived the life of luxury in the city of Bethlehem. He was a religious man, who followed God’s plan, but he had his doubts that grew until he was well in his middle age.  He began to doubt God and the way He ran things, because the city he lived in was in deep poverty, even though he was not. He noticed that many suffer a lot, and he took this as God wanting us to suffer. He refused to go by God’s plan, so he left his city.

Shortly after he left the city of Bethlehem he became ill. He developed Leapers, sores formed upon his flesh, and he became very weak. Soon he was lying weakly upon a bed, people praying around him, knowing he’d soon die. But death he did not get, for he refused to die.

One day, while he lied upon his sick bed with these sores eating away his flesh, a healer came by. Zoriah only traveled a few hours out of Bethlehem before this illness took over. The healer traveled to him, he was asked by the man’s family to save him.

The healer went by the name Yeshua, but many began to call him Jesus. The healer said to Zoriah, “I will heal your wounds and make you whole again, but first you must answer a question. Do you believe in the mighty GOD?”

Zoriah responded in a strict tone, “No.”

The healer nodded and began to heal the sores with just a gently touch of his hand.

Instantly Zoriah felt a tingling all over. He felt it in his forehead the most; he felt his thoughts were being tampered with. He yelled out in rage. He knew that this healer was trying to change him, make him believe in God again. But Zoriah would not stand for it.

He told the healer, “You will not mess with my mind! I will never trust in you or God!”

The healer looked at him with a calm sadness. He was not messing with Zoriah’s mind, but he would not tell Zoriah so. He will let Zoriah find the truth of God on his own.

So instead of responding with words he nodded his head. When he did speak, he spoke no response to Zoriah of God. “Your wounds are healed. You now can wander upon this Earth as you please.”

The leapers were healed away, and he began to regain his strength. Thoughts of Jesus left his mind as soon as the man left his the home he stayed in. As soon as his strength was fully regained he left the home he was in and the city to spread his words against God.

He gained many followers, but more enemies than followers. He lived year after year, one suffer after the next. He got beaten, tortured, and placed in jail many times. But still did he not die nor did he regain his faith in God.

He is now close to 100 years of age… his mind still clear, death calling his name each day but he ignored. He continued to rebel and refuse to die, he did not want to face God and His spiritual world.

So he lived… and lived… as his body died because his time was up. But God, since He gave each of us free will, did not ask the angels to bring Zoriah home.

Zoriah went through many trials and tribulations, causing rebellions against God and His work. He was thrown in jail many a times, beaten, and got leapers again; sores all over his body that would kill any man in days, but not he. He refused to die. He lived through his illness, this time with no healer to heal him. He lived with the leapers that would weaken him… then they’d pass, but they’d always come back.

So he lived another 100 years…. Still fighting against God, escaping jail when he got thrown in it, and going from city and city rebelling. One town he went to did not stand for his words. They did not agree with what he told. He again was thrown in jail after being tortured, but not the typical cell. He was thrown in a dungeon type place, a place pitch black. The door was shut and locked, never to be opened again. So there he lay. Slowly to die – but he continued to refuse to die.

So he lived… in a dying body filled with sores, a cancer now destroying his organs, no food to nourish his body, only the occasional rat that he’d eat raw while it was still alive. The only drink he had was the water that would leak through the ceiling after a rare rain.

He was in that dungeon for 100 years… he now can no longer move, his skin is leathery. He has no meat upon his bones; he was only a skeleton with a leather layer of skin

On his 300^th year his time did come. The door opened, hurting his blind eyes that have not seen the sun for over 100 years. He would have yelled out in pain if he had a voice to. A figure came toward him; a figure of white light, a tall being that was all a glow.  He looked up at this figure and immediately knew what it meant.

The figure spoke, “it is time to come home now. Your time is up.” With those words the man did not object. In those few moments he learned the meaning of his life.  Why he was on this planet, and why God wanted him here and kept him a live all these years… it was out of free will. He had free will, the will he fought to keep, all a long. God let him live to learn the lessons he needed to learn. Through suffering he did find the path to God.

He let the angel guide him home. His soul left the dead body.

The door remained open, in came a girl and boy. They found the skeleton; the body became a skeleton almost instantly. The skin began to deteriorate away rapidly; the hot sun burnt it away. So what these children saw was only a skeleton, a skeleton of a man who lived 300 years. They had no idea that the man only recently left his body… They came here in search for this very body, the story of Zoriah is still told in their town of Bethlehem. They did not know that this body was the body of Zoriah since it is just a skeleton. They left the cellar still full of wonder.

Thousands of years ago people once did live as long as this man, some even longer. Many of them were wanderers, finding their way to self realization in the depths of nature; Gypsy is only one word to call such wanderers.

(photo is of a bog body I found online - posted for a visual image only)