{"id":1903,"date":"2013-03-08T04:45:28","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T04:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=1903"},"modified":"2013-12-31T01:00:19","modified_gmt":"2013-12-31T01:00:19","slug":"the-art-of-learning-by-kristina-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/the-art-of-learning-by-kristina-england\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Learning by Kristina England"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"encyclopedia\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

The Art of Learning<\/h1>\n

by Kristina England<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It all started when Jamie dusted off her Encyclopedias.<\/p>\n

She was in the attic with her seven year old son, John. She stared at the heavy texts and shook her head. Now you could read about Giraffes or Atlas Moths on Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, what are you going to do with all these books?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEither sell or recycle them.\u201d<\/p>\n

John flipped open one of the encyclopedias. He scanned the words briefly.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I read them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie looked at her son. She smiled. The boy was a bookworm. But by now, she would have figured him for a video game player like his dad.<\/p>\n

Jamie shrugged. \u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat!\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, John came bounding down the stairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, Dad, I just read about birds!\u201d<\/p>\n

Pete looked up and then glanced at Jamie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat in the world is he talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I was taking down the Encyclopedias and he wanted to check them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, and what did you learn about birds, John?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned that they procreate through kissing. But not that kind of kissing. Their bodies come together and the male bird gives the female bird stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie and Pete looked at each other. They both knew what would follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, then I read about humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay, Jamie expected a question to follow the last comment. She hadn\u2019t prepared for John to dive right in and learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019m sorry, mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie held back a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat on earth for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it must have been pretty painful popping me out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie snorted. Pete didn\u2019t look as amused.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were much smaller back then\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but wouldn\u2019t it have been easier to have one of those C-section things?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid the Encyclopedia tell you the details of a C-section?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUmm… I didn\u2019t check.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, well let me know what you find.\u201d<\/p>\n

John scurried up the stairs. Pete looked at Jamie in bewilderment.<\/p>\n

\u201cFind? Our son is going to be traumatized.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo he isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd why do you say that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that boy wasn\u2019t traumatized by walking in on his grandparents last week, how on earth could words traumatize him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see your point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie smiled. \u201cOf course, we should probably tell him that your mother can\u2019t procreate anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pete rolled his eyes at her. \u201cLet\u2019s not and say we did.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. \u00a0Her writing is published or forthcoming in Gargoyle, Haggard and Halloo, Linguistic Erosion, Pound of Flash, and other journals. Visit http:\/\/kristinaengland.blogspot.com\/<\/a> for more on her writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It all started when Jamie dusted off her Encyclopedias.<\/p>\n

She was in the attic with her seven year old son, John. She stared at the heavy texts and shook her head. Now you could read about Giraffes or Atlas Moths on Wikipedia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1903"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2331,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903\/revisions\/2331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}