Philosophy 104: Ethics, with Crazy Joe Siegel instructing. Read the basics, Spinoza, Hegel, Kant and Long Fuller’s Spelunkian Explorer case. Our ethical grounding well tested, Joseph turned to cannibalism and suggested that the vast majority of us were cannibals. We laughed and as a group denied this with thirty variations on “no way,” “are you nuts,” and “I’d like some of his koolaid if you don’t mind.”

His point was simple, once he explained it. The difference between us and a sheep wasn’t all that great. Little did we know genetics would some day suggest that difference was far smaller than even he imagined. Both mammals, both, he noted with a snicker, easily led. And both, for the most part afraid of German Shepherds. We had no problem eating lamb, much as we had no problem eating cow. How big a leap would it be to a human. Huge to the mind, far less so t science. He had us and he knew it. And yet we all had a feeling he was right. No one wanted to be eaten by a bear or lion or other wild beast, but no one would object when a beast ate one of its herd. So, he said “we draw the line at what?”

From the back of the room came “sentience.”

“Ah, so thinking is what sets us apart from other mammalian species. Is that really it. And the bear that is smart enough to chase you up a tree he knows he can climb isn’t thinking? The lion that backs you into a cave knowing you have no exit isn’t thinking.” Joe smiled, knowing yet again he had us.

A small hand rose cautiously from the second last row. To Professor Seigel’s nod, a voice so shaky its gender was impossible to determine squeaked “self-awareness?”

“Well,” Siegel said, “at least you’ve read some of the old standards. Sure Spinoza would probably agree with you. Kant would give you a short argument then concede. Gautama Siddhartha, on the other hand would laugh is ass off at you, and suggest that all you have done is proven your incapacity to actually recognize enlightenment if it happened to bite you on the butt. And, by the way, how the hell would we know if a bear were self-aware. Some species seem to mate for life. I know you will say that they just have superior visual memories and this gander is not the same as that one and the goose knows it.”

“But Professor,” David in row two, who was a bit arrogant and far too self-assured in most things, piped up, “recognizing another is nothing like recognizing yourself, in understanding your uniqueness. Animals remember as a breeding and procreation mechanism. That is way different than self-awareness. Even you must know that.”

“So, David, if I understand you correctly, the key difference is that humans are the one species capable of complete arrogance, and you have amply just proven that.”

He always wondered how his life might have been different if he had or hadn't this or that. It was always the other thing, but that too failed him. If he had flunked his physical, had been drafted and slogged the paddies high on pills and booze, hadn't enlisted in the Air Force before the Army could grab him. If he hadn't been shipped to Vietnam, anyway, laying waste to his careful plan to do his time Stateside, playing golf on weekends, (the Air Force had good food and better golf courses). If he hadn't been on duty in the dead of night for being caught with half a joint. If he hadn't shot the young man trying to get through the perimeter fence, mostly by bouncing off it repeatedly. If the man had been VC or even NVA rather than a drunken local teenager with a clubbed foot. If he hadn't allowed the nightmares to consume him. If he had succeeded just once, whether with pills or razors. If life had been fair, if only a little.

Adam was thrown violently out of fitful sleep by the ungodly noise. It was several minutes before the sound congealed into a song blaring from a radio. It was several more before he, groping on the floor, found the clock radio under the corner of the bed where, flailing with consciousness, he had knocked it. It would be a bad day.

He always awoke in advance of the alarm. Fifteen minutes of NPR and off on his morning run. Four miles in thirty-two minutes. Thirty-four if the aching in his left knee came back. Then a shower. Leave at precisely seven, crossing East Avenue at 7:10 home by 7:32. His feet knew the route, its rhythm. He didn’t have to think, the lights knew his pattern, and he, theirs.

He dressed and stepped out onto his small porch, the one that threatened to flee the house. Lacing up his running shoes, he stepped down, feeling a twinge in his left ankle as his foot hit the concrete walkway, heaved up by the ever-expanding roots of the old willow. It was clearly going to be a bad day. He took the next step and felt and heard the snap at the same moment. Without looking at his foot, he knew his ankle was broken. He condemned the gods, and particularly those who were carpenters.

His ankle throbbed. It had been three hours since he arrived in the ER. He looked anything to read other than “Prostate Health and Self-Examination.” The TV in the corner came alive: “Four dead in freak accident in the city. In a freak accident this morning, four city residents were killed when a bus driver suffered a fatal heart attack. Three of the dead were standing on the corner when struck by the bus. One of the deceased, Jim Flack regularly ran along that street and could run that route “in his sleep,” a friend said to the reporter.

Jim was an acquaintance, who occasionally asked Adam to run with him when the met on the street, but Jim’s usually started later than Adam. He saw Jim yesterday as Jim was finishing and Adam setting out and suggested Jim join him for his earlier run, “things are quieter and safer.” This day was beyond disaster. He missed his run, he broke his ankle. An almost friend was dead. If he had been on time . . . If he convinced Jim to join him. A large man, the name “Vinnie, Transportation Services” embroidered over his shirt pocket, tapped Adam on the shoulder and helped him into the wheelchair. He wheeled Adam into a little room with a single chair and examining table, smiled and left. In the waiting room, the newscaster said, “in traffic news, the accident at 7:10 this morning that shut down East Avenue has been cleared, the Avenue reopened by the police.

In the treatment room, Adam cursed his parents, carpenters, doctors, his ankle and the maker of his alarm clock.