AllFreeNovel
Share Us
TheBeginning
Chapter 6
Sarah, 13 years old
San Diego, California
“Mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Why is there a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk?”
Diana Murdoch looked at the man in question pensively before turning toward her ten-year-old.
They were currently on an hour-long bus route headed to her workplace. The ride passed through several underprivileged neighborhoods, so sadly, the sight wasn’t as uncommon as it should have been.
“You shouldn’t point, Sarah. It’s not polite.” Diana tried to change the subject before it upset her young daughter.
“But how am I supposed to show you what I’m looking at if I don’t point at it?”
“Good question. What do you think my answer is going to be?”
“That I should use my entire hand when identifying the subject of my query to facilitate my listener’s comprehension.”
“And?”
“Give a more specific description that enables my listeners to identify their queries without having to point.”
“Exactly,” she answered her brilliant child tenderly.
Diana and her prodigy husband believed it was important to impart as much knowledge as possible to their daughter, so they turned learning into a game.
Her husband would begin every conversation with a hypothesis and encourage Sarah to defend her point of view with any available facts by bribing her with a piece of cake. This worked every time because her daughter had a sweet tooth.
“It doesn’t really answer my question, though. Why is the man sleeping on the sidewalk? Isn’t he cold?” the child asked.
The woman should have known her diversion tactic wouldn’t work. Sarah was a Pitbull when she wanted something. But how do you explain the correlation between poverty, crime and homelessness to your precocious daughter, when your first instinct is to protect her?
“I’m sure he is, but the shelters must be full,” Diana answered truthfully.
“Have you ever wondered if there is an anthropological explanation for homelessness in a society as developed as ours? It makes no sense when you think about it. Our GDP is in the trillions.” the child questioned, making the young man in front of her stare at them with bulging eyes.
“What the heck? Hey, kid!” the man called out to them and both mother and daughter gave him a curious look.
“Yes?”
“I couldn’t help but listen.”
“And?” Sarah prodded impatiently when he struggled for his words.
“Do you know what anthropological means?”
“Of course.”
“Tell me what GDP stands for.”
The kid rolled her eyes at such a simple question. “It stands for our country’s gross domestic product.”
