Service to Society

I possess, by temperament, an excess of civic virtue. The urge toward social uplift, collective welfare, and public good is packed so tightly inside me that it rarely finds room to breathe. Most days it merely simmers; during the rainy season it overflows. It escapes my chest, runs through gutters and drains, travels rivers and canals, and finally dissolves into the sea—so thoroughly that one can no longer tell where salt water ends and my sincerity begins.

This same moral surplus carried me from matriculation to a bachelor’s degree entirely in third division, supplemented generously by repeat attempts—an educational method best described as examinations by installments. In time, I gained admission to a Master’s program in Sociology through the university’s most reliable channel: the single-window—from which students are thrown out unless they carry cash.

My journey from matric to BA lasted ten years and seven months, a duration educational theorists recognize as a sign of intellectual refinement. Such minds do not swallow knowledge; they sip it. Knowledge, properly sipped, never causes indigestion. It becomes healthy blood, circulates gracefully, and announces itself through the occasional academic burp—fragrant enough to turn the surrounding area into a garden.

After my honorary bachelor’s degree, I approached higher education with humility.
“I have untangled the bachelor’s knots,” I said. “Grant me a Master’s.”

The administration replied with admirable clarity:
“Show me the money.”

Open merit, I learned, was an abstract concept. The donation window, however, was concrete. Since my passion for social welfare was boiling—and it was, conveniently, the rainy season—I borrowed a friend’s motorcycle, sold it promptly, and donated the proceeds to the university. My seat was confirmed.

When my friend objected, I quoted eternal wisdom: All is fair in love and war.
As I had embarked upon a war against social inequality, the matter was settled.

University life was a revelation. Escaping the suffocation of college, I entered a world of gardens, butterflies, and men circling them with academic intent. A senior advised me to avoid one professor—too dry, he warned. This was Dr. Allah Yar, known universally as Dr. Dry.

Soon after appeared his opposite: Dr. Mod Shot, youthful in spirit, perpetually engaged in a doctoral pursuit best described as Bumblebee Studies, though the target had eluded him for years. Hearts met. Life smiled.

For two years, I avoided Dr. Dry and his colleagues so successfully that not a single drop of scholarship touched me. Instead, I devoted myself to Dr. Mod Shot’s gatherings, where I received practical instruction in social service: the classification of butterflies, methods of approach, simultaneous observation of multiple specimens, the sociology of bumblebee behavior, and—most importantly—the comparative study of romance and police batons.

Fieldwork proved challenging. I endured book-beatings, high-heel corrections, and several compulsory overnight stays at the police station. On my first night inside, three fellow bumblebees accompanied me. When Dr. Mod Shot arrived the next day and saw us nursing our bruises, he asked gently if the night had been difficult.

“Only your absence, sir,” we replied.

He consoled us: suffering, he explained, was essential. Without it, how could we advance to higher stages—such as jail? A true devotee, he reminded us, must endure silently, even after forty blows.

We took this advice seriously. Slaps, heels, batons—nothing shook our resolve.

On our fifth spiritual visit to the station, freshly enlightened and artistically bruised, we returned to the department to find a notice posted in a prominent place:
Dr. Mod Shot and the entire Bumblebee Order have been dismissed.

I read it twice. Both times, fully conscious.

Today, I drive a motorcycle taxi to repay the debt of the motorcycle I once sold for the public good—
and continue, in this modest way, my service to society.