The Lottery, circa 1999

I have this memory from high school. It was English class, I'm pretty sure it was my sophomore year. We had just read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson- I think anyone who has ever taken an English Literature class knows the one I'm talking about. A town gathers in a yearly ritual, one who's form and purpose has been mostly forgotten. Each family draws lots, and one family draws the piece of paper marked with a black spot. That family draws again amongst themselves- even little Davy. And then Mrs Hutchinson, matriarch of her family, screams that "It isn't fair, it isn't right," as her village, her friends, her family, take up rocks to stone her to death.

The children had stones already. 

Even little Davy.

Reading this short story still makes me feel sick to my stomach.

So on that day in 1999, in sophomore English, we read "The Lottery". There may have been a discussion about tradition or something, frankly I can barely remember the name of our teacher that year. What I remember is that packing peanuts were passed out, and we were put in groups of four with those sitting around us. Each group sent up a delegate to draw slips of paper- one of them marked with a black spot. Then that group each drew their own slips, and revealed which of them had drawn the unlucky mark.

And then, at our teacher's encouragement, my classmates all threw their packing peanuts at that person.

And then, at our teacher's encouragement, my classmates symbolically stoned a classmate to death.

I felt cold watching it happen. "There's always been a lottery," says Old Man Warner. It's just the way things have always been. It's a tradition, why question it? I remember looking around at my classmates, and down at the packing peanut still sitting on my desk, and back again. It was all a game to them, a harmless excuse to throw some stuff around the classroom. The villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original box, but god help us, we hardly had time to forget. We had no tradition, no rhymes about "lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." All we had was the assurance of a leader, and the approval of a mob, and I realized in that moment that was really all they needed. No tradition, no superstition... just enough people that they could all convince each other that it was ok.

Whenever I read The Lord of the Flies, or The Hunger Games, or any other story about people turning on each other in that moment where men become beasts, I think of sophomore English class, circa 1999. I remember that the turning point is really just the lowering of a standard that has always been there, and I feel cold again.

It's a tradition.

It's only a game.

It's a packing peanut sitting on my desk in English class, the stark white of the styrofoam contrasting against brown wood, like the wood under the black paint of the box, as I realize I am the only one in the village not to throw my stone.

It's a paper with a coal black spot, drawn to single someone out

...and the children have stones already.