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Sean Cronin
American Lit.
Entwistle
10/28/14

The Curious Finding of an Artifact of Personal Importance. (Not Mine)

I will start off this tale of intrigue with a little context of where I lived during the events of
this narrative. I lived on a Military Base called Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and lived in a
neighborhood named Battan. This collection of houses was mostly composed of half circle
roads and cul-de-sacs that looped around each other. In the dead center of the neighborhood
was a park with a massive jungle gym with a rather large forest green slide. The major events of
this story take place around this park, and the finding of the curious object took place in
between two power boxes that contained the worst objects that humanity has to offer. It was
filled with garbage and used condoms (Maybe). But the most illustrious object that was found by
my brother and his friends, with some assistance from my person, was a discarded Playboy
Magazine.
The morning in which the magazine was discovered was a normal autumn day. I woke
up with the assistance of my mother, for I was seven years of age the time of the event. My
brother and I got dressed and ate breakfast while getting ready school. I was completely
unaware of the slight excitement, (The emotional kind), that was in store for me that day. It was
a Friday, so we had the weekend ahead of us as we trudged through our day, which seemed to
never end as Fridays always seem to do. My brother and I, after taking the bus home,
proceeded to meet up with our neighborhood friends as we prepared for a day of adventure,
and a weekend of excitement.

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The air was cold, and the sun was high in the sky. We met up with several boys whose
names were: Ernesto, Eric, Noah, Jose, Jeremy and Jerome. These are the kids that my brother
and I grew up with. We saw them almost everyday, and enjoyed our time together. But this
discovery forced a rift between several of our friends as we brutally fought verbally and
somewhat physically over an object of their teenage angst. Now, let me sum up the events
briefly so you have a general idea of what exactly happened before I explain them in depth. The
discovery happened, then the viewing of the object, then the discussion over the object, then
the came the conflict and then the eventual theft of the magazine.
Alright, so the discovery of the Playboy was a slow yet strangely swift one. It took us no
time at all to find it, but I have a strange feeling that we should have found it more quickly than
we did. Perhaps it was my inner desire to see something like that makes me feel like I should
have seen it earlier. Anyway, it was found in between these two power boxes that were on the
outskirts of the park. We normally hung out there and after a few minutes of talking and
discussing what we planned to do we would be off, but as we stood around the front side of the
box, we saw it. It was rolled up and sort of stuffed in the middle of the two power boxes. At first,
we did not exactly know what it was, we were kind of scared to retrieve it due to all of the things
that could have lived in the crack of satan. When someone became brave enough to get the
thing out of there, we became expressly aware of what we found. This was because it was
clearly titled Playboy with a scantily clad woman on the front giving me a suggestive look.
It was around this time that the entire gang had assembled in a semicircle to see what
the magazine had to offer. It was filled with pictures of naked women posing in a variety ways all
while smiling into the camera that was shooting photos of their naked forms. It seemed
somewhat odd to me at the time, for I had never seen anything like this before in my life. My
brother and his friends really seemed to enjoy the magazine quite a bit, as they fawned over it
like the thing was some sort of deity. There was also quite a bit of writing in the magazine, which
I did not read because why would I, but curious enough a large amount of the paragraphs were

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simply cut out. However my friends didnt seem to care as the oogled over the pictures
concealed by a layer of filth.
After some time, we eventually got bored of looking at the same pictures, and we stuffed
the literature(?) back into the crevice that we found it in. We then walked to the jungle gym and
played for a good two hours before going home for dinner. The entire time during our playing we
talked about the magazine. I was barely heard for I was a simple boy, but my brother and the
others all shared their opinions on which they thought was the best one. I do not remember
what was exactly said, all I remember was their opinions on the articles in the magazine. One
particular image did stand out to me however, I will not go into extreme detail but I must drop a
little bit of the semi-professional diction that I have been trying to use. Essentially, there was one
image where a woman looked like she got a purple nurple. It was a very strange sight, for her
mammaries were somewhat large, but were dominated by the size of her nipples. I am sorry for
whatever discomfort that this may have caused, and I surely hope that I do not get in any sort of
trouble for disclosing this information with you.
The next day, we returned to the power boxes to see if the magazine was still there, and
it was. It had not been touched, which looking back is really surprising. I really expected the
thing to be gone because we lived in a neighborhood where there were a lot of teenagers,
someone else was bound to come across this item. Perhaps someone did, but they were simply
disgusted by the condition of the magazine to swipe it. Eventually, the group of children that we
hung out with came around and we began to discuss who was going to keep the magazine. I
dont really know how that conversation got started, or why they thought that they could keep it
a secret from their parents. These kids we somewhat sneaky, but the sort of parents that lived in
the neighborhood were very keen on discipline and respect. Everyones room was clean, and
they had standards to keep up around the house. Its just illogical to me to think that they
thought that they wouldnt get in trouble. Back to the main problem at hand, the group began to
argue on who would keep the magazine. This tiny insignificant piece of human history caused a

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slightly violent confrontation between a group of teenagers that simply like to look at naked
women. The arguments turned to physical violence as Ernesto kicked Jeremy in the testicles
and punched my brother in the face as he ran away with the Playboy. To think that a human
being would cease all contact with a group of friends that he grew up with to take a magazine
that had seven pictures of nude women in was absurd. That day set a standard in my brain for
what humanity was, although I did not realize that until much later.
If a boy would give up friendships for a petty object, then consider what the rest of the
human race would do for something that was equally, or even more important to them. Entire
countries, natural resources, religious views, ethics and morals were all targets in a global
hatred for whatever people wanted to hate. This hate would inevitably lead to violence as
people do not know how to put aside their differences for a greater purpose. The death and
chaos that ensues each day is a proven point of this. What some men will do for the integrity
of their country is astounding. Regimes and dictatorships are very dangerous things, and when
these things have access to weapons that can hurt a great number of people it becomes even
more of a threat. These people, given this power, will not stop unless they are made to. Their
personal morals, which in some cases simply didnt exist at all, get in the way of what is clearly
right and wrong in this world. That is something that we simply cannot change within ourselves,
it isnt our upbringing that makes us this way, its what we think inside of us, and what humanity
thinks deep inside is an ugly and dark thing. This is, sadly, how I view humanity at this current
moment. It is a honestly horrible view on it, I do not want to think of us humans as ugly beings
but that seems to be the case for most of us. Nor am I saying that I am like this, which is
somewhat narcissistic but I really dont want to be a monster.
Most people keep their feelings inside, their true feelings that is. They have their
own opinions about everything that surrounds them. They may really like something or
someone, or maybe they hate someone or something. Everyone has their own creed, they live
by it, whether or not their beliefs conflict with others around them. Ernesto happened to really,

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really like the magazine. He thought in his mind that he was fully okay with abandoning his
friends for an inanimate object. His inner thoughts and feelings gave him the green light to
forsake everything that he had in a social sense. The neighborhood kids looked down on him
after that. He became a recluse because of what he did. Ernesto got in serious trouble with his
parents on a different occasion, again because of the magazine. Ernesto probably doesn't care,
he most likely feels that what he did was justified. In his mind everything was okay, it did not
matter what happened to him, as long as he got to see breasts.
Well, that pretty much sums up what happened when Sean became slightly more
manish. I actually have a little more to say about Ernesto, some saucy rumours if you will. Okay,
so rumour has it that Ernesto after stealing the Playboy, took the pages out of the magazine and
pinned them to his walls and door. Apparently, he would like lick them or something, but I do not
think that is what really happened. Also, he was arguing with his parents when they entered his
room and discovered the pictures on the wall, they were furious and they attempted to take
them down. When his father reached for it he shoutedDont touch Jessica you !@#$%^ and he
ran with all the pictures in his hand. That boy was truly enthralled by what he saw in the
magazine, although he had internet access and could view things that he could only dream
about. He mustve really wanted the clippings he cut out because he ran away with them for
several days. They eventually found him squatting in a house that was under construction, he
was grounded for several months after the incident.