Gogol.

(photo by Kit Camena, minolta x700 and kodak pro-image 100)


"Where did my friend go?" Gogol asked, impatient.
"They went to the Sunday Mass."
"Why?"
"Because it is a Sunday."
"Why?"
"Because some people go to church and hear mass on Sundays."
"Why? Why do they have to go to church?"
"I don't know. Because they want to go to church. That's the way things are, Gogol."

Dragging him inside the house, he broke free from his mother, asked again the first person he met by the doorway where his friend went. every time people tell him his friend went to church, he asked with a bewildered "WHY".

Gogol, at five, has no sense of religious tradition. In the most logical sense, he is probably the most normal kid, being what he should be at five.
Religion, or religious icons, are almost always used as a figure to help discipline young children. Crazy parents tell their children not to be bad boys and girls because "Jesus will get angry." Since Gogol's parents were atheists, every time they find the need to provide him with a disciplinary figure, they would refer to the police. In the end, Gogol reversed the process and threatened to call the police if he found them doing things he thought was wrong. At one point, somebody had to tell him he would be sent to jail after he punched a classmate. He was not even moved, did not flinch, did not show any signs of fear. He said he can also send to jail any police because his father designs buildings and prisons for a living. 
Gogol, it seems, also does not have a sense of authority. Or at least does not look beyond his parents for other figures of authority. 


-----


"Why is there a cross there?" he quizzically asked his mother while inside the bank, waiting for their number to be called.
"Well, they want to put a cross there so there's a cross there."
"It shouldn't be there."
"Is there a problem with a cross being there?"
"This is a bank, Nanay, not a funeral. Nobody died so we should not put a cross there."
"Some people love to put crosses where they work, even if they shouldn't. It's the way things are, Gogol."

-----