Ramageland

I awoke to thunderous slamming on my front door and sprang from my bed, worried that something was wrong. I fled my room and made hast through the hall leading to the staircase. After sliding down the railing of the stairs, I braced myself and as quickly as possible hauled the door open.
I didn’t exactly expect who I witnessed. My brother had been out that night, so I guessed it was him coming home early in the morning; maybe he forgot his keys. But it wasn’t him. Some haggard hybrid mix of a lumberjack and motorcycle-bad-boy was heaving knelt over on my front porch.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
The pot bellied man replied: “Possibly, but more Importantly, Can I help you?”
I was waiting for him to draw a gun and make demands, but it never happened. We had a temporary stare-off as I tried to figure this guy out. “Who is this and what does he want?” I thought to myself.
The giant man on my doorstep began to grumble and talk:
“If you won’t speak, than allow me to. My name is Jonathan Ramage. You I presume are David Brown. If I read my class roster correctly you should be in my Principles of Rhetoric class this fall.”
“…Yes…That’s me.” I replied uncertainly
“I thought maybe we could go on a little excursion to better acquaint you with the subject matter of the course.”
“An excursion? To where?”
“Oh let’s just call it…Ramageland!”
“What did you mane a theme park after yourself?”
He ignored my sarcasm and beamed at me while I evaluated the situation in my head. I had never seen this man who claimed to be a teacher in my life, and he had invited me to venture with him to an unheard-of destination.
With two weeks left of my summer vacation I expected to relax, sit by the pool; maybe take a trip to the beach…Not this. But I thought, maybe this would be exciting. I felt like I could trust this guy, I felt in my gut. My friends always went on extravagant vacations; half of them were currently away. I could have some stories to tell them for a change. On an impulse I made my decision, and replied, “Ok sure.”
“Brilliant!” He cried with joy and skipped like a school girl to his motorcycle, which I hadn’t noticed earlier.
Maybe I wasn’t ready for this trip. I had never been on a motorcycle before, and I wasn’t ready to trust a stranger on one.
“I’m not sure about this anymore,” I quivered.
He looked at the bike for a few seconds and then before my eyes the bike transformed into a slick red convertible. My mouth dropped gapingly. I stumbled in amazement towards to car, and sat myself in the new leather seats.
“Are you more comfortable with this?” He inquired.
“I…I..?”
“Ok then, let’s go!”
He peeled out of my driveway and sped down the street like a formula one racer, the wind burst into my face and I couldn’t even keep my eyes open. The situation was so confusing. Everything happened so fast and I still didn’t know where we were going. I think Mr. Ramage sensed this, because he began to slow down and veered of the main road onto the scenic route which no other cars occupied.
“Thanks” I said, assuming he understood.
“You’re wondering what we are doing here” he commented.
“Yea, what’s the purpose of this trip, and where’s Ramageland? What’s Ramageland?”
“Well, the purpose of this trip is to teach you about Rhetoric. And I’ll hold off on telling you too much about Ramageland”
Ok, that was a start. Now he’s talking some sense.
“So what is rhetoric?” I asked him
He began to snort and his stomach jiggled as he laughed. “It’s not as easy as ‘what is rhetoric.’ But what is it like? What does rhetoric do? What is rhetoric in terms of other things? I will offer you no formal definition of the term, because no such thing can exist and contain the large spectrum of what rhetoric is.”
I began to get frustrated and remarked: “Ok so what does it do? This means nothing to me. And if it should mean anything to me you could have just waited a week to tell me about in class. Why should I care?”
“Not bad! You’re loosely using rhetoric already!”
“What?”
“You’re thinking. You’re arguing your points, pleading your case. With rhetoric you can make rhetorical claims, even if they’re against rhetoric!”
“But I don’t understand? I still don’t even know what rhetoric is, nor do I care!”
“That’s the beauty of it! There’s no autonomy, rhetoric is for anyone, and it can be used in any situation to any ends!”
My mind felt cloudy. I could tell Mr. Ramage could sense this, and he slowed down and parked the car along the side of the road. He began to speak slowly.
“Have you ever heard a presidential speech? Have you ever argued your way out of punishment? Have you ever spoken to a salesman? If so, you have experienced rhetoric. It’s like but not limited to persuasion. It’s talking around things. There are no universal truths in this world, and you can justify and ‘prove’ almost anything by the means of rhetoric.”
“You’re crazy” I bluntly retorted, blowing him off.
“If you believe me to be than…I suppose so.”
“Ugh! I wish there was a world without rhetoric!”
“Do you really?” He asked.
I looked at him inquisitively and then responded with a smirk, “yea, sure.”
“Ok then…” He replied
Wind flushed through the air and I lost my sight. I felt a chill run up my spine and my feet lifted off of the earth and I felt heavy, yet weightless at the same time. I tried opening my eyes and my head spun, light flashed, and I could hear nothing other than my heavy breathing mixed with the hurricane surrounding me. I felt myself crash into the earth and then it all stopped.
I stood up, coughing and catching my breath. I opened my eyes and I stood alone on a plain. I looked below me and saw the chalky grey earth that I was standing on. The ground was hard and I as stepped forward I heard my steps echo. The air was dank, and there was fog disallowing me from seeing more than 30 feet ahead. I turned and looked behind me and saw nothing. I looked left. Right. Nothing. “Where am I?” I thought to myself. “Ramageland?” I thought. Then I heard something coming from behind me. I turned around and made haste towards the noise.
Images began to formulate as I moved forward. When I arrived in the vicinity of where I perceived the noise came from, there was a gathering of some sort. There were rows of seats leading to a decrepit stage with two decaying colonial wooden chairs facing each other. Placed on each unstable chair was a manikin. Each manikin was stained and looked worn-out. One was missing an arm; the other had assorted chunks missing with stuffing protruding out of its various wounds. I took a better look at the crowd, and the audience was occupied by close to a hundred lifeless manikins as well.
“Where the hell am I?” I thought. I continued to muse over the situation and then my thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Mr. Brown, take a seat next to me and enjoy the debate.”
I looked over my shoulder and there was John Ramage, sitting amongst the crowd of stoic bodies.
I crept over to Mr. Ramage, avoiding contact with the corpse-like viewers. When I arrived he pushed a manikin out of the seat next to him to make room for me to sit. The manikin fell to the ground; dust particles and dirt escaped the body and hovered in the air. I took the seat timidly.
“Is this Ramageland?” I whispered.
“No, this is quite the opposite.” He replied.
“Well, where are we, and what kind of debate is this?”
“We are in a world with no rhetoric which you wished for, and this is what a debate would be like in this world.”
“But these aren’t even people, they can’t even say anything!”
“They might as well be people; it would be just the same.”
“Ok I get it. Can we just get out of her?”
At that I felt a harsh wind again and I felt compressed as I lifted off the ground and my sight became a blur. A few seconds of confusion passed and I arrived back at the convertible, and I sighed with relief. Rhetoric began to appear a little more appeasing.
Mr. Ramage suggested going for a walk, and I agreed. While walking I noticed a weevil crossing the path we were walking, and instinctually from my bug-murdering childhood days, I stepped on it. John Ramage was appalled, yet excited simultaneously.
“Why would you do such a thing?!” He bellowed.
“I don’t know? I didn’t really think…Sorry” I said in defense.
“Think about it, make an argument for yourself! Have bugs ever gotten into your house, or ruined a tree or plant in your yard? What you just did could be argued as wrong. That beetle was defenseless yet you still squashed it. But you could also argue it was not wrong. You were just expressing your power, and you have that power to do such a thing. You could argue that bugs can contaminate food and can spread diseases. You killing any bug possible could prevent this! With rhetoric you could defend something little like the morality or immorality of killing a defenseless bug, or theoretically something as grandiose as killing a man.”
Ramage then continued; “Is killing universally wrong? Maybe the society you live in views it as wrong, but only in certain locales. Take the war the country is involved in for instance. Are American soldier wrong for killing Iraqis? They’re humans too. Would a man be wrong for killing another man in retribution for the latter man killing the formers son? Society generates “truths” but there are none, and there are always exceptions. ‘Killing is wrong’ is a generally excepted maxim. So why is it right in war? Which side is at war for the right reason?”
I looked at him perplexed. My brain was churning.
“It’s the art of proving opposites.” He stated.
“So rhetoric can be good, to prove things wrong or right, but can’t it be used negatively as well? What if a man killed someone with ill intentions or for no justifiable reason at all?” I asked.
“Well, rhetoric is amoral at best. It can be used by anyone, and it can prove anything. A ‘guilty’ man can benefit using rhetoric, and can prove he is innocent.”
“I get it, I get it. But where is this all going; you still haven’t even told me the way to Ramageland.”
“How do you feel about rhetoric, are you getting it yet?”
“Yea, I feel a lot more confident than before, but there’s still room for improvement.”
“Then you’re already there,” He smiled.
Mr. Ramage was a quirky man, but I enjoyed his company. He would later prove to be a proficient teacher. We continued to walk and debate in Ramageland; where I had just arrived, after having been there all along.