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McKinley Gough

Brenda McKenna

Writing 1010

31 October, 2018

Common Core and Eternal Damnation

Asher furiously scribbled on the asphalt to try and get every mark down the way it was in

his book. The book and the writing along the circle's edge was in Hebrew which made every

stroke already foreign but it was much harder to make the lines correct on the black road

compared to the relative ease he had experienced when he made the circle on sidewalks. He

finished his work, consulted the old leather bound book once more, and knew that there would be

no other time he could do this. His parents were out of town for the weekend, and this night

happened to fall on a full moon. By all accounts, there was no possible way to make this a more

perfect night, and still he felt his chest quiver with every heartbeat and his stomach buzz as if full

of angry wasps. He moved his messenger bag towards him to the corner of the crossroad he

stood at and lifted his book. With the knowledge of what he was about to do and a shaky voice,

he began the chant he had found scrawled in the margins of the book.

“Angel Fallen to depths from Hell, I call to thee today,” The chalk lines of the

summoning circle ignited with searing blue flames, “With your might and Eve’s first bite I

declare myself as free.” Asher bent down and pulled from his bag a red apple. He bit into it and

threw it into the flames and said, ”If you, oh Daystar, come and share your light; gift me my

wishes and do with my soul however you like.” With every word he said the flames got higher

and higher until he said his final word and all the flames died completely. The chalk was

completely burned away, and all that was visible in the pale moonlight was the reflection of his
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glasses and the bit apple in the center of the road. He stood there for a while and after a while

pulled out his phone to check the time. His phone read 11:59 pm and, disappointed that it didn’t

work, he turned around began to head for home. His grey converse slightly squeaked against the

road and when he turned his back the clock stoke midnight. The asphalt where the circle was

began to ripple and shift as a hand reached up and pushed against the road as if it were fabric.

Asher whipped around as the sound of a dress being ripped apart at the seams rang through the

night. A clawed hand reached up and grabbed the apple that lay on the ground. Looking around

frantically to see if anything else was there, Asher returned his gaze to the crossroad where an

elegantly dressed man now stood. The apple was gripped in his porcelain hand and he looked

upon asher with a wolf’s smile on his face.

“Well done young man!” said the man. “Well done indeed. Very classic with the whole

full moon and cross roads thing. Most people don’t go through nearly as much trouble as you

did, especially with the incantation and everything. So dear Son of Adam, why did you call me

today?”

Asher began to walk towards the man and fiddled with his hoodie strings as he

approached. He said, “Well, partly I wanted to see if you were real. It’s not exactly a comforting

thought I guess, but it's good to know.”

The man unbuttoned his dark blue suit coat and began to walk towards him. “Curiosity

hasn’t exactly worked well for your kind in the past when it comes to dealing with me, and I am

certain you know it since you were clever enough to summon me. So why, pray tell, have you

called me?”

“Well, uh, you see Satan-”

“Lucifer will do”, the man corrected. He sighed and said, “Christians decided to change
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up my name when I fell and it just became a whole...big...thing. My friends and…” He ran his

silvery tongue across his still smiling teeth and continued, “You correctly acknowledge my name

as Lucifer in your incantation by translating my name to english to be Daystar and I’d prefer it if

you referred to me without that slang term.”

“Right, um, Lucifer, I am in a little bit of a pickle. My mom is sick, and uh, I would ask

that you heal her but, now that I know you're real, I'm kinda scared as to what you might do to

heal her. If you were to draw out her suffering I’d feel terrible, so I guess it's just best if she

passes naturally.” He closed his eyes and crossed himself at the thought of his mother. Lucifer

looked at his display and held in a chuckle at the theatrics of some Christians. Asher continued,

“I know she can’t stay around, so I want her to remember me as a perfect son. My grades are

slipping because my school teaches everything the hardest way possible and I also want to get

into a really good college so I can be a good chemist-”

“Chemist? Like, an Alchemist?”

“Uh, yeah kinda. But anyway, my teachers use stupid Common Core curriculum and so

they make no sense, and I guess I just want you to make me, like, the smartest person in the

world.”

Lucifer cocked his head. “You don’t think the curriculum makes sense?”

“God no!”

Asher winced. Lucifer chuckled, “I’ve gone toe to toe with Her before, Her name doesn’t

scare me. And besides, the Common Core is actually a very well developed model. I know, I

helped develop it.”

“But it’s so confusing. It asks you to ‘think about’ and ‘discuss’ everything, including

math problems we don’t even know how to do. Even my counselor thinks it's confusing. He
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told me that college students have to take, like, two remedial classes because they didn’t learn

the material right when they were in high school.”

“That is more the fault of the American Legislative system than the actual Common Core.

When I was working with the secretary of education of the Common Core we knew we had to

stress soft skills such as critical thought so that students could keep up in America’s increasingly

social job market. We stressed that it shouldn’t be at the expense of base knowledge but since

your country uses a rather inefficient system and each individual state gets to set the curriculum,

that got lost in translation.”

Asher rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t matter what the goal of it was, the point is that it’s like,

really confusing. If it is the state’s fault, then Common Core is too vague. It's so confusing it's

scary to do. It makes students feel like they’re dumb or something.”

Lucifer looked at the boy who had stopped playing with his hoodie strings and was now

staring intently at the Angel of Pride, as if he was challenging him. Asher had reminded him of

someone but he just couldn’t put his claw on it. After the silence between the two had grown just

long enough to be awkward but not long enough for Asher to feel like he had stumped Lucifer

with his last statement, Lucifer said, “Dear boy, feelings aren’t a good metric if someone is

learning. Test scores are. The issue with the old curriculum is that the tests were so bland. One

might easily be able to pass a math exam without ever once setting foot in a classroom so we

changed it and then, again, mortals misinterpreted it. When intelligent people who understand

education are put in charge great results are seen in their standardized scores. It was shown that

an information based coursework with Common Core standards worked exceptionally when

implemented in a couple of private schools in New York.”

Asher scoffed in disbelief. “Don’t you hear the problem in that? Thats so, so… classist!
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A couple of schools populated by rich white kids isn’t a good sample when the majorit-”

“Unholy shit!” Lucifer said with wide eyes. He’d figured it out. Joan of Arc! Asher

acted just like him. Shame Joan had fought for the other side, at least if he went to hell Lucifer

would make sure people respected his pronouns unlike those uppity punks in the clouds.

“What? What is it? Are you trying to distract me because you know I’m right? You

looked shocked now, because the simple fact is that Common Core is confusing for low

economic students and it adds to the dropout rate. Jesus, you’d be blind not to notice the injustice

that is happening right under our noses.”

“I know your sins, mortal. I fell from grace due to the fact that I knew I was better than

blindly taking orders from your uppity God. She treated it like a mercy to me for allowing me to

live, so I thought I’d give her creations the mercy of making their own decisions like I had. Yet

you have the gaul, the tenacity, to talk about injustices committed to the lower class when you

and your family rose to wealth on top of their backs and claim it even while wearing an outfit

that would easily total to over two hundred dollars? At least I have the balls to admit the few

flaws I in which I have, but I assume big balls wasn’t a gift she gave you.”

Asher spat at Lucifers shoes. His eyes shifted from their normal golden hue to an icy

blue. “Listen here young man,” Lucifer began. His clothes began to sizzle and little blue flames

sparked up on his bow tie. The soft lilt to his voice started to become more guttural as he said, “I

had hope that you might be intelligent. I thought a man who wishes to study alchemy would be

able to accept the truth that fact based education alongside Common Core works well to create a

deep understanding of a topic and provide soft skills. You disappoint me.”

Asher craned his neck up to look at the face of the now nine foot tall Lucifer with is pale

white wings outstretched keeping him from setting the ground ablaze. His heart rate went from a
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jog to a sprint and his knees locked in terror. Stupid idea, he thought to himself, stupid, stupid,

stupid. Asher closed his eyes and crossed himself and began “Hail Mary, full of grace.”

Lucifer looked down at the boy in disbelief. People had done dumb things before when

they summoned him, but a Hail Mary? He shrunk down to his normal size and tucked his wings

back into his suit coat. Then, to the shock of Asher, began to laugh. Asher continued, “ Holy

Mary, Mother of God-”

Lucifer held his stomach from the pain of laughing so hard as he walked up to him and

put three fingers over his mouth. “I’m stopping you, not because it hurts me to hear, but it hurts

me to watch. Its pathetic. Like a chihuahua thinking it's a great dane. Cute for a minute, then

just pathetic. I don’t know what it is with you Christians, but you all do it at some point. I give

Kennedy the presidency, I ask him to cut back on the hooking up with random women, he hides

in the oval office and brandishes a rosary at me. Elizabeth the second threw a bible at me when I

asked her if she would want to come have tea with me and a couple of buddies.” He rolled his

eyes and began walking backwards. “You people really need to get more creative, but till then

you’re not worth my time.”

Asher was crunched up trying to figure out everything the archangel had just said.

Lucifer got to the center of the crossroads and said, “Sorry love, but no deal. Give my best to

your mum if I haven't already given it to her in person. Good luck with the whole alchemy

thing.” He blew Asher a kiss and erupted in a burst of fire, leaving Asher with his immortal soul.

Lucky him.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/opinion/how-common-core-can-help-in-the-battle-

of-skills-vs-knowledge.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/opinion/sunday/the-common-core-costs-billions-

and-hurts-students.html
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