TL;DR
Once upon a time a Reader
wandered into the back of a second-hand bookstore. The immortal Spirits hanging
out there quickly hid inside the books that they wrote when alive.
The Reader paused to scan
a shelf. He saw an enormous leather-bound tome; Megabiblion, by Loquacius Maximus. He said, “I’ve heard of that!”
He reached up, pulled it down, and blew on it. A huge cloud of dust billowed; he
coughed. The Reader opened the front cover; inside someone had written “to the
Mayor” in gold ink. The Reader opened Megabiblion
to the middle and read a passage at random. He scratched his head. He riffled
three pages forwards, then six backwards. He closed the tome and heaved a sigh.
Before returning the book
to the shelf, the Reader removed a slim volume, to make room. He heaved Megabiblion back into its niche, then
looked at the book that he took out. It was Half-Witticisms,
by Tilder. The Reader opened the book to the middle, read a passage at random,
and Tilder’s immortal Spirit whispered this Fable’s Moral.
The Reader smiled. He
looked left, he looked right. He closed the slim volume and slipped it into a
coat pocket. Then he strolled, whistling, to the front of the bookstore, past
the desk, and out the door.
Moral: Never waste a perfect stranger’s time.
Comment:
The title means “too long, didn’t read”. The Moral was writing advice from Kurt
Vonnegut. Everybody reads Tilder’s Half-Witticisms
from cover to cover, but only Loquacius Maximus has ever read all of Megabiblion.
No comments:
Post a Comment