"A Story of Nine Objects"

Our story so far: What had started out as an innocuous idea of Mrs. Cook's for a Rhetoric competition soon escalated into a full-scale riot, as students everywhere began writing insane speeches and reading them aloud. The only catch? The speech must contain, some way or another, nine specific objects, namely: baseball, voltage = current x resistance, a red rose, a felt-tipped pen, a rubber ducky (specifically, Mr. Duck from Controversial Jack but did they listen? No!), flying cows, a water shooting flower, liver, and flags.

Friends, Americans, Portuguese, and of course my fellow baseball players, I come before you this day with a purpose of the highest importance. It is a matter that stretches far back in time, back even before being a multi-celled organism came into fashion. This matter has occupied every people of every race throughout every time and every place. Throughout the ages our many species have worked together amongst and between themselves, striving towards one common goal. Sometimes we have fought amongst ourselves, but ultimately the goal has never been entirely lost from our sight. Our pursuit has gone on, just like the Energizer Bunny because, after all, voltage equals current times resistance, and by golly, we sure have met a lot of resistance in our quest. But never fear - time marches on, and so do we. Even if we ARE a bit behind schedule.

My friends, consider a rose, a red rose, the symbolic force behind our collective, collectible lives. It is a simple icon to perceive, so basic, and yet so profound. And interestingly enough, no matter what may happen to that rose, still it will remain a rose, and from that state it will never change. Paint it yellow, or blue, or even chartreuse, it's still a rose. Yank off its petals, dismember its roots, even still it's a rose. RIP IT to SHREDS, GNAW IT into a MILLION PIECES, PULVERIZE THE DARN THING WITH A CHAINSAW for all I care, but still it remains a rose. Nothing can change that. And can't you see? There is a rose, an immortal rose within all of us, waiting to be watered by the Watering Can of Clear Perception, waiting to taste the Miracle Grow of Goodness, waiting to drink in the Hidden Underground Reservoir of Happiness buried beneath the Flower Garden of Truth. We've been searching for these things ever since the seeds to our souls were planted in the beginning, never giving up the search, working with what we could, when we could, how we could.

Like a felt-tipped pen, for instance. With even such a simple object as this, we can be delinquent, graffiti-drawings fools who keep their cools while swimming in pools inside law schools. But that's beside the point.

My friends, as the metaphorical cars in the Assembly Line of Life, our quest for meaning and a yummy tuna fish sandwich have been going on for a long, long, long-long-long time now. Whether we are nearing the end of the line or not, I cannot tell you. But only yesterday, yea, YESTERDAY, my friends, a truly unprecedented new turn of terrifyingly terrorirific events took place. Mr. Duck, who I'm sure we all know and love as the steadfast rubber-ducky companion of the late and great Controversial Jack, while searching for the meaning of life near the world's hugest helping of liver and onions, was tragically struck down by an errant, flying cow. *Pause to allow the portent of the message sink in to the crowd.* Tell me, fellow American and Portuguese dairy farmers, is this really the kind of world you want good people like the Taco Belle chihuahua and Mr. Duck to live in?

And yet, this is not the whole extent of the injustice. Every day, thousands of people die from natural causes alone… thousands of people die from old age… and no doubt, thousands more will die from such causes before the next day is up. The slaughter must stop!

My friends, put down your collective and collectible flags. These are the temporary, passing things in our lives: grasp hold of something of more worth. The day is yours, my noble friends. For in your hands rests the powers OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people, WHY the people, HOW the people, and… I seem to have lost my train of thought. Fellow not-a-flying-giraffes, carpe fenestras, seize the windows! For through them come the world's last strains of hope in the continuing sunset that everyone seems to keep riding off into.

But the news is not all bad. No doubt many of you will be delighted - nay, overjoyed - nay, BLITHE - to hear that Mr. Duck did not perish in the incident. For, happy to say, at the last minute that that dreadful fell bovine executioner fell towards the unsuspecting Mr. Duck, a strange thing happened to occur. A water-shooting flower, long since abandoned by the respectable clowns of the world, happened to see the dreadful drama unfolding and, thinking as quickly as a water-shooting flower generally could, pushed Mr. Duck out of the Angusine assassin's terrible trajectory at the very last minute. For those of us wearing hats today, I would ask that they please remove them in a moment of silence for that noble bloom, forgotten by the world but not forgetting its own strong sense of moral justice. We, fellow gardeners, shall remember its philanthropic sacrifice forever, shall we not? And never shall we forget the left-handed fruit it knowingly reaped from its action - hideous deformation, fate of death, and trampling beneath an unnamed errant flying cow.

And still, a rose it remains. Thank you for your time.