A Funny Thing Happened, (Part 3)

A Funny Thing Happened, (Part 3)

Harry Buschman

The woods grew denser and denser. The only living things she saw were two noisy Oxymorons perched high in the branches overhead shouting to each other, "I'm clearly confused" squawked one. "Act naturally," called the other. She could hear Cliches calling to each other in the swamp to her left. She didn't want any part of that nonsense so she turned abruptly to her right.

"A writer! A writer with paper! Oh, you must be a very great writer. Let me see. Oh, yes beautiful white paper, I'll bet you have a fountain pen too?"

Dorothy cringed as this strange figure advanced on her. Dressed in rags, his feet were wrapped in burlap and every pocket in his shabby coat was stuffed with leaves. He carried a sack full of leaves and he had leaves in his straggly hair.

"Pardon my enthusiasm, child ... my name is Paradox, Professor Paradox ... well, I suppose I'm still a Professor though it's been thirty -- no, forty -- well, ages anyway, since academia. I mentor now. Yes mentor. You know what a mentor is, don't you?

Someone who gives you advice whether you want it or not.

Someone who does it for nothing, for the love of mentoring.

Someone who needs to mentor more than the mentoree needs mentoring."

These last words were spoken at breakneck speed, so quickly that Dorothy only heard half of them. Paradox sat on a stump and mopped his brow with a handful of leaves.

He looked so helpless that the initial shock of his appearance quickly dissipated. Her first question of course, was, "Do you know the way to Emerald City, Professor?"

"Oh, young as you are you must be a very fine author. A manuscript ... words on paper, how exciting. Forgive me for not recognizing you, dear lady, but I have been in these woods a lifetime. I've read nothing, met no one and the only writing that comes to me now are the words that fall from the trees ... the pity of it all, I had such promise."

"My name is Dorothy Scrivener, Professor. I must get out of these woods immediately."

"Yes, a great author with a manuscript and a fountain pen cannot waste her time in this wood ... I know all the authors up to and including James Joyce, tell me, madam are you as famous as he?"

"Who is James Joyce?" Dorothy asked.

Some of the breathless bloom faded from Professor Paradox's eager smile. "Is he so soon forgotten then, oh dear, fame is so fleeting! Where are you going when you leave the wood, my dear?"

"I told you, Emerald City!" Doesn't anyone listen to me? Doesn't anyone know the way?

"Have you been there before, Miss Scrivener? I ask the question because it is a cruel and inhuman city, not a place for artists of the written word, especially those with lovingly prepared manuscripts written in ink on one side only. Publishers sit in board rooms smoking cigars and drinking bourbon whiskey ... agents prowl the streets of the city unmuzzled. Why, an editor seeing you with that manuscript might reduce it to ribbons."

"But this is my masterpiece, "A Night in Arkansas". I'm sure it will be a classic." Dorothy was warming to her subject, "It starts off, 'It was a dark and stormy night as Paula knocked on the door of room 323 of the Hotel Little Rock."

"Fascinating, Miss Scrivener; but I shudder to think of what may happen to that opening in the hands of a bloodthirsty editor. I have been to Emerald City ... they are a heartless lot. May I mentor you, Madam? There will be no charge. You will be interested in what I have to say, I promise you."

More delay, thought Dorothy. She sighed ... "Go ahead, mentor me if you must."

"I walked into these woods many years ago with my two greatest novels. One was a dark sea story of a one legged captain of a whaling vessel who lost his life and the lives of his crew in the vain search for a white whale with a crooked jaw. I met a struggling young author somewhat older than you, his name was Melville. He was unsuccessfully trying to drown himself in the Quagmire of Cliche. In the nick of time I rescued him, gave him my story to assuage his melancholy and sent him on his way. The other was a story of the civil war ... I remember it well ' .... lawsee me Miss Crimson, Melody's a-birthin' and Leslie's had his head blowed off at Antietam! Oh fiddle-dee-dee Tabatha, I'll think about it tomorrow, I'm on my way to Baskin Robbins!' -- It was written on the whitest of paper in a flowing hand." The Professor threw a handful of leaves into the air and read them as they came down. "Where was I? Oh, yes, I gave this novel to a lovely southern lady of no particular talent who ran off to Emerald City as if the devil was after her."

"But, but that was plagiarism." Blurted Dorothy.

"Do you really think so? But all art is plagiarism, is it not? Creativity is handed down from teacher to student like an infectious disease. Have you ever written anything you haven't read before?"

"I'm sure 'Moby Dick' and 'Gone With the Wind' are original -- and so is 'A Night in Arkansas' I'll have you know."

"My dear lady, we have learned differently. When Herman walked into the offices of Simian & Shyster Mr. Simian called in a squad of editors and they cut and pasted for twelve days. The upshot was that they, not Herman, and certainly not I, created "Moby Dick," Herman was given a check for $350; it was a tidy sum in those days, Miss Scrivener. Then they shooed him back into the forest where he will live forever. I see him occasionally in the autumn of the year when the leaves fall, that's the best time to find new words." As Professor Paradox spoke he scattered some leaves at his feet and shuffled them about. "Throw the horse over the fence, some hay. There, that's not bad for an ex-academician is it young lady?"

Dorothy was incredulous, "I simply cannot believe 'Moby Dick' was written in this manner, and even if it was, Mr. Melville had no right to call it his own."

"A man without a fountain pen and paper! How could he be a plagiarist?" The Professor looked upward at the late afternoon sky. "It will soon be dark Miss Scrivener, the publishers will bar their doors. Why don't you spend the night here in the forest with us and continue your odyssey in the morning?"

Dorothy, her mind in a whirl, did not want to spend the night in this absurd forest. No one could be trusted, no one could possibly be who they said they were. "Thank you Professor Paradox, you've been more than kind but before this night is out I will be in Emerald City!"

"We shall be here when you return," the Professor sighed, "We will wait here at the edge of the wood." He walked Dorothy to the forest's edge and from there she could see the minarets and spires of the city gleaming in the late afternoon sun.

"Oh! isn't it beautiful?" she cried. "If I hurry I can still be there before the publishers lock their doors for the night."

Professor Paradox watched Dorothy's figure grow smaller and smaller as she ran toward Emerald City. At last he could see it no longer. He sighed deeply and said, "There goes another one." He took a hunting horn from his ragged waistband and sounded a plaintive note.

The sound echoed throughout the enchanted forest and from every secluded corner, every cave and grotto, from every leafy nest the forest creatures gathered at the edge of the wood. Furry little participles, tiny verbs, playful synonyms and graceful italics all clustered at the feet of Professor Paradox.

"We must wait for her," he cautioned. "She will return, and we must be ready with a comforting word."