Masterclass Testimonials
by Tyler Barton
I.
One man tried to teach me that even crossing the street was a negotiation.
One man tried to teach me an acronym for what he called enlightenment.
One man tried to teach me how to play the rings of a tree like a vinyl record.
One man tried to convince me that the software had glitched by blinking his eyes repeatedly and emitting a dull drone with his mouth.
One man mocked the fact that self-love was how the meek measured progress.
One man tried to teach me that the photo of my son holding an onion by the tunic did not work due to the rule of thirds.
One man tried to prove it was the mob who gave the White House the greenlight for war.
One man suggested certain homes just resist renovation—something to do with auras and fault lines.
II.
One man tried to teach me mirrors were for the weak.
The same man tried to cheer me with a promise that it was the weak who would inherit the earth.
One man floated the idea that it takes longer to fall in love than it does to heal, so we should get started now—but all I wanted was to learn perfect German, which was what the promo promised.
One man peed sitting down out of what he called chivalry.
One man swore he had a freckle on his dick the precise size and shape of his own dick.
One man tried to shut me up by letting me talk and it worked.
One man shouted, “Stop scrolling and fucking listen for once!” and that night I crashed my car.
One man tried to make me laugh in the hospital, knowing full well my cracked rib could snap.
One man tried to teach me how to forge a new rib from scrap metal, bodyspray, and spit.
One man had the audacity to teach me what he called a little lesson about money by not honoring the refund policy.
III.
One man was my father reminding me that I’d had a happy childhood—but I hadn’t yet learned how to tell him that his point, while true, was moot.
One man tried to convince me that what I truly needed was to put my own parachute on first, and I kept telling him that that was not how the saying went.
The saying went like this: put your own oxygen mask on first, and you will inherit the earth.
The saying went: here’s the cardinal sin of Electronic Dance Music.
One man tried to divorce me in a conga line and later swore that was not what he was saying.
The saying went: don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining, or you will inherit the earth.
The saying became: your subscription has run out—renew now for a discount.
A woman asked if I could tell the difference between the men I was paying to teach me things and the ones I paid to love me, so I wrote her a check, because my insurance didn’t cover it.
One man tried to teach me nothing—but instead of savoring this little gift I fired off an email to the support team.
IV.
Early on one man tried to teach me that the world could not be empty, as it was made of atoms, but then from a book I learned that atoms are made of mostly empty space, so I found his ass again, in the deep recesses of the software, just to rehash the argument, and still I somehow wound up losing.
I tried to teach the loud society of earthworms in my tiny backyard to worship me over the moon.
I tried to teach myself to love exercise, but it only worked if I was listening loudly to men, through my earphones, jawing about the ten central myths of freedom.
One man (I discovered during my period of menlessness) was not enough to change anything about a person’s understanding of consciousness.
One man reached out to apologize for my experience, but I deleted the email.
One man on a very different platform promised that for one photograph of my feet in harsh light, I would inherit the earth.
I tried to teach myself weightlifting and soon became trapped beneath the bar, screaming, until my son came into the basement, crying, witnessing it—but then something happened. I heaved the whole thing off of me (though I wouldn’t call what happened learning, or a work of God, or the fruits of proper training, or anything except for evidence that there are chemicals in me that I simply have not met yet).
V.
One man said he was seeing God, and I thought—because he was speaking to camera—he meant me.
One man said there were only seven stories.
One man swore there were only three.
One man proved the number was none.
One man said one true thing, but I fear sharing it will trigger the slow process of falsification.
One man said that when you get this feeling—you know the one, he whispered soberly to camera—just go for a brisk, wooded walk, so I went and walked until breathing got hard and harder and then suddenly oddly easy.
And the trees started speaking to me, but I didn’t know the language, which I swear almost brought me back to the software.
I taught myself almost.
Also, I should say: I am nearly out of money, but I do now have the earth—this earth—if anyone still wants it.
Tyler Barton is a literary advocate and a co-founder of Fear No Lit. His debut story collection, Eternal Light at the Nature Museum, is forthcoming from Sarabande Books. He's also the author of the flash chapbook, The Quiet Part Loud (Split Lip, 2019). In non-pandemic times, he leads free writing workshops for residents of assisted living facilities. Find his work soon in Juked, Copper Nickel, and Best Small Fictions 2020. Find him @goftyler or at tsbarton.com or in Lancaster, PA.
