Free You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik

you otherwise, I’m explaining his views and those of everyone else we’ll discuss. Please don’t go home and tell your parents that I’m a godless heathen who wants to convince you that your respective religions are absurd.”
    Everyone laughed except for Abdul, who sat there nodding over and over again. It was a strange way to disagree but it was his.
    “So there’s the problem: we’re born and left to determine meaning, that is, ‘L’homme est condamné à être libre. ’ Anyone speak French?”
    I raised my hand.
    “Gilad. Will you translate for us please?”
    “Man is condemned to be free.”
    “Good. And what do you think that means?”
    I felt my heart beat faster and the blood rise to my face.
    “Take a shot, Gilad.”
    “Choice is a curse.”
    “Bullshit.” Colin again. Silver ignored him.
    “Why would it be a curse?” he asked. I remember his eyes on me. I was embarrassed. I wanted to escape but I felt an intense desire to defend Mr. Silver.
    “According to Sartre?” I asked.
    “To begin with.”
    “I guess because if there’s no God and we are free to make decisions then we’re also responsible for those decisions.”
    He smiled at me with what I was sure was pride. He nodded.
    “Beautifully said.”
    He looked at me for a moment and then went on, “So then, if there’s no God and we’re responsible for our decisions why would that be a condemnation?”
    “Because everything we do is our fault,” Rick said squinting up at the diagrams on the board.
    “Why is it our fault? I don’t really see that,” Ariel said.
    “Well, if God doesn’t exist then it isn’t his fault,” Rick went on.
    “But those aren’t the only options. What about our parents, our environment, our families, where we’re born, diseases, handicaps? Isn’t it ridiculous to say that either it’s God’s fault or just our own?”
    “That’s not what he’s saying,” I said.
    She turned to me.
    “What?” She seemed amazed that I’d contradict her.
    I thought how I wanted to touch her.
    Silver sat on his desk with his arms folded watching us.
    “What Rick just said . . . It’s Rick, right?” I asked.
    Rick had turned his attention from the board and was looking at me as he’d been looking at the diagrams.
    “What Rick said, was that everything we do is our fault. Which seems to me exactly right. No matter what our parents do for a living, or where we grow up, or the diseases we have. We’re still responsible for what we do .”
    “Whatever,” Ariel said.
    Silver pushed himself off his desk and looked coldly at Ariel.
    “Tell me your name again,” he said.
    “It’s Ariel, Mr. Silver.” She seemed surprised that he didn’t remember.
    “Ariel, right. You may or may not agree with Gilad but ‘whatever’ is an inappropriate response. Gilad spoke clearly and respectfully. Your dismissal of his comments only reveals your own shortcomings. Don’t do it again. Please.”
    There was a long pause. Ariel’s pale face had turned red.
    “If you have something intelligent to say please say it.”
    She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows at Silver. “O.K., O.K.” She smiled at him. “I’m sorry, you’re right.”
    Lily said, “So what’s with the scribble?”
    He laughed. “The scribble,” he said, looking finally away from Ariel, “is what human lives are—disorganized, meaningless, purposeless, insignificant, and without order.”
    “Bummer,” Lily said.
    “Maybe,” he said, and drew a grid over the chaos. “So what’s this?”
    I knew.
    I watched him, praying he’d call on me until he did.
    “It’s what we pretend life is.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Oh!” Hala said. “Like, religion is the grid.”
    “Go on.”
    Lily looked up from her drawing, “So, all the stuff we do—eating with our forks in the left hand and our knives in the right. All that shit, that’s the grid?”
    He smiled. “What else?”
    “College. Jobs. Laws. Grades,” Rick said angrily to the grid.
    “So,