Tales from the Golden Age
by David Ackley
Characters:
Ned, a writer of epics, a person of solitary disposition and questionable hygiene
Johannes, inventor/entrepeneur
Scene: A mudflat in really olden times, someplace like Phoenicia or Assyria, one of those places everybody's heard of but nobody can find.
Ned is writing on the mudflat with a pointed stick when Johannes enters, a scroll under his arm.
Johnannes: How's the latest coming, mate?
Ned: All right...if it wasn't for the wind and the friggin' rain.
--How's that?
--Every time I finish a chapter, the wind comes up and buries it in sand. Or the bloody monsoon washes it all away. So I got to start all over, and half the time I can't even remember what name I give the hero.
--Gilgamesh, was it?
--Somethin' like that. What you got there?
--This here? This here's a scroll and the stuff wrapped around it, that's your basic papyrus.
--What's it for, Johannes? A bed sheet? Something like that? Pretty handy bed sheet roll, I'll give you that.
--I was thinkin' it's something you'd be interested in, for the odd epic.
--What? To buy? Talk to the wife. She takes care of the bedding.
Johannes unrolls the scroll to show the writing on the papyrus.
--No. To write on. So's you could take the product round to your customers and wouldn't have to be all the time draggin' them out to the mudflats for a demo before the weather blows in.
--There's a thought...Let's have a look...Little curly, in't it? I prefer something that'll lay nice and flat for you. Can't beat your old mudflat for that. Your mudflat won't budge an inch in a year.
--Except for the wind and the rain. And the buffalo coming down to the waterhole for a drink.
--Fucking buffalo, the writer's curse.
--Here, I'll leave this off for you. Give her a test drive. Let me know what you think. Oh, and you'll need one of these reeds, and some of this ink. I think you're gonna love this.
He leaves and Ned stares after him in disgust.
--Bloody inventors, always trying to sell you a bunch of shit you don't need.
He kicks the papyrus, quill and ink out of his way.
--Give me a pointed stick and some good level mud every time. Now, where was I at? Ginger Mac? Gil the Mensch?
He sets contentedly to work with stick, in mud.
Ned, a writer of epics, a person of solitary disposition and questionable hygiene
Johannes, inventor/entrepeneur
Scene: A mudflat in really olden times, someplace like Phoenicia or Assyria, one of those places everybody's heard of but nobody can find.
Ned is writing on the mudflat with a pointed stick when Johannes enters, a scroll under his arm.
Johnannes: How's the latest coming, mate?
Ned: All right...if it wasn't for the wind and the friggin' rain.
--How's that?
--Every time I finish a chapter, the wind comes up and buries it in sand. Or the bloody monsoon washes it all away. So I got to start all over, and half the time I can't even remember what name I give the hero.
--Gilgamesh, was it?
--Somethin' like that. What you got there?
--This here? This here's a scroll and the stuff wrapped around it, that's your basic papyrus.
--What's it for, Johannes? A bed sheet? Something like that? Pretty handy bed sheet roll, I'll give you that.
--I was thinkin' it's something you'd be interested in, for the odd epic.
--What? To buy? Talk to the wife. She takes care of the bedding.
Johannes unrolls the scroll to show the writing on the papyrus.
--No. To write on. So's you could take the product round to your customers and wouldn't have to be all the time draggin' them out to the mudflats for a demo before the weather blows in.
--There's a thought...Let's have a look...Little curly, in't it? I prefer something that'll lay nice and flat for you. Can't beat your old mudflat for that. Your mudflat won't budge an inch in a year.
--Except for the wind and the rain. And the buffalo coming down to the waterhole for a drink.
--Fucking buffalo, the writer's curse.
--Here, I'll leave this off for you. Give her a test drive. Let me know what you think. Oh, and you'll need one of these reeds, and some of this ink. I think you're gonna love this.
He leaves and Ned stares after him in disgust.
--Bloody inventors, always trying to sell you a bunch of shit you don't need.
He kicks the papyrus, quill and ink out of his way.
--Give me a pointed stick and some good level mud every time. Now, where was I at? Ginger Mac? Gil the Mensch?
He sets contentedly to work with stick, in mud.
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Author's Note
Destined for the Naked Rowdies Group where there's still plenty of free parking for materials of a low comical nature.
Membership rolls now open!
Bus tours Welcome!!
Other stories by David Ackley
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And lo did the fledgling Union Of Amalgamated (Gilgamated?) Scribes come into being to provide their members with some protection from unscrupulous travelling salesmen and the closed guild shop that was the livery company of publishers.
Great fun. Enjoyed it.
Thanks, Marc. Yes, how it all begins, from the Gilgamated Scribes to Fictionaut in a paltry couple of millennia. Amazing.
You've really set a standard here, David. What a stick-in-the-mud that Ned is, though you've just got to admire someone who can remember what he wrote after the fuckin' buffalo done mucked it up! Now what would Plato say?
Thanks for the read, mate. Plato? He's the one with the cave, right? Don't envy him, trying to write on them wet walls in the dark and all.
Hi there, Cool and Dangerous. While this isn't particularly dangerous, it does strike a chord. Bloody inventors, indeed! If MS Word changes their ribbons one more time.... I used to love sitting in a corner of the Nuremberg castle, writing in pencil in a school notebook, darn it!
This was fun. Plan to read Part II shortly.
Thanks, Beate, glad you have a taste for low frivolity. Yes... I once whiled away several hours at the bar of the old Wursthaus in Harvard Square, pretending to be Hemingway at the Brasserie Lipp. Unfortunately for me, pencil or MS word, drivel will always be drivel--especially after 3 or 4 beers. Thanks for the read and having a laugh.