Marge worked at the Story Factory, in the Shoveling Department, where she worked all day shoveling terrible stories into the Terrible Story Furnace. She didn't really write herself, well, maybe a little, maybe some journaling here and there, some false starts, but nothing polished. She wrote, but she didn't write, anyway. Until one day near the end of her shift, while Marge leaned pensively on her shovel, a pipe carrying exhaust fumes from the Language Generation Chamber (where the Creation Fire was stoked) sprang a sudden leak. She sighed deeply several times, breathing the fumes, and presently found herself with an Idea.
Where was Marge, just then, with her hands folded delicately over the polished wooden handle and the large sharp blade balanced precisely on the ground like the single incisor of some interesting, one-toothed animal, at the precise moment in which Marge was visited upon by an Idea? That's right: second catwalk, Shoveling Department. Marge plucked up her courage. Dizzied by excitement and slightly hypoxic from the fumes, she fed her time card into the machine, kachunk! And hurried home to begin her story.
Marge wrote at a furious pace, as if being pursued by wild dogs, or as if she were a wild dog pursuing something, pausing periodically to twirl her pencil like a baton and consider the metaphorical space above and to the front-left of her head, which teemed with images and ideas, before bearing down again to continue writing at a furious pace, the tip of her pencil scrabbling wildly after the words which lunged just ahead of her like a pack of you-know-what.
The story leapt from her.
After an elegant beginning and a gut-busting middle, she found herself nearing the end of the story on horseback, being pursued wildly by Carpathian bandits on horseback. The pursuit was hot, and escape was uncertain, but her sorrel mare's lungs heaved hugely as she galloped across the dusty plain just ahead of the darkly handsome bandit captain and his savage knot of brigands. Twice the bandit captain reached for her and came so close that his rough, ring-laden fingers brushed strands of Marge's flying hair, but Marge whispered words of encouragement into the ear of her sorrel mare in the language her mare best understood, and twice she surged ahead, and reached the treacherous mountain pass unscathed. Her sure-footed mare carried her through, and at night she circled back to the ring of fires marking the Carpathian bandit's camp, stole past the brooding brigands, and slunk catlike into the darkly handsome bandit captain's carpeted yurt, where she discovered that he was not only darkly handsome but also well endowed, and where he discovered that his former foe was the only woman strong enough for his love, and they ruled the plains together with benevolently iron fists until they perished gloriously in battle, having lived truly and well, the end! Marge gasped and tipped over backwards in her chair and lay on the floor, her chest heaving amply.
It was the best story in the world.
She went outside to smell the night and gaze at the stars, and she perambulated the house until sunrise. Then, refreshed, she went back to work at the Shoveling Department.
Did Marge then possess an air of quiet, triumphant satisfaction because she knew the story she carried rolled up in her back pocket to be the best in the world, ever? Did her story hold the potential to bring to people laughter, tears, terror, joy? To change people's whole perspective on things and to crystallize meaning for them in a big big way? Was Shift Manager Jerry presently in front of her, ejecting spittle from sluglike lips as he chewed Marge out for wool-gathering on the job? Yes, yesyesyes, and yes. Marge calmly regarded Shift Manager Jerry's tirade until Jerry, unnerved by Marge's calm, stepped backwards and brushed his sleeve against a hot pipe and caught on fire, and went up in flames that Marge was obliged to calmly extinguish, which immediately triggered an Incident Review Review with Jerry, Marge and Mr. Large. Mr. Large, impressed by Marge's uncanny poise, supplanted Jerry with Marge as Shift Manager and packed Jerry off to the burn ward. Shift Manager Marge returned to the Shoveling Department and strolled along the catwalk patting one palm with her rolled-up story like a baton, surveying her new domain, and heaved a satisfied sigh just before the story slipped from her hands and dropped into the Terrible Story Furnace.
Marge gripped the railing with both hands, staring at the spot where the flash of white flame marked the sudden and complete dissolution of 100% of the story she had written. Frantically, she ran to the bulletin board and ripped from it the first pieces of paper her hands fell upon, which happened to be the Safety and Shoveling Technique Placards, an action that Mr. Large observed with disapproval from within his glass office that lorded above the Shoveling Department. Marge wrote as much as she could remember as fast as she could, but when she was finished and read back over her words, her heart turned to uranium and began poisoning the rest of her: the reproduction was a laughable attempt, possessing none of the magic of the first. What remained was a bad Harlequin romance, with Carpathian thrice misspelled.
Gone, her sure-footed sorrel mare.
Gone, her well-endowed bandit captain.
Gone, her potential to bring laughter, tears etc.
Marge lumped home and wept, shortly after Mr. Large had demoted her to Shoveler, Third Class for Placard Removal and Defilement.
After several days of tears Marge, severely dehydrated, crawled to her desk, climbed from tear-puddled floor into chair, and waited, soggy pencil raised. No stories leapt from it. Where did they go? Where had the last come from? Then she remembered: The broken pipe. The exhaust fumes. The Language Generation Chamber. Marge received, just then, her second big Idea that week: she had to get as close as possible to the Creation Fire. Screw the fumes - she had to behold the Fire itself. Then - and only then - would she find her way back to that moment of Original Mystery, and from that all-knowing place, she would re-write the greatest story in the world.
As she had been crying for several days and attempting unsuccessfully to write for ten minutes, Marge had not reported to work, and had been fired by Mr. Large. This was no deterrent. She dressed in black, donned stealthy felt slippers, and scaled the Story Factory fence in the dead of night.
When Marge reached the Language Generation Chamber, she was breathing hard and also bleeding badly from having been temporarily waylaid by the sharp accordion of barbed wire atop the Story Factory fence, but she was there. In the middle of the Chamber, the Creation Fire roared orangely inside its great cistern, the one window in the thick door glowing like the eye of God, or like the eye of an orange-eyed whale representing the leviathan of her subconscious. She approached the window, felt its exquisite heat. The Original Mystery was in there, in front of her. She closed her eyes and reached for it with her heart. It was no good. She would have to open the door to behold it, just for a moment. Marge braced herself for the heat. She grasped the handle with the pot holder she had brought along just in case, turned it and swung open the door. There! She could feel it so much stronger now, the prickles of heat tap dancing across her bloody skin. It drew her in. Just one kiss from the fire, Marge thought, will be enough.
Marge leaned in, touched the fire, and was consumed.
Where was Marge, just then, with her hands folded delicately over the polished wooden handle and the large sharp blade balanced precisely on the ground like the single incisor of some interesting, one-toothed animal, at the precise moment in which Marge was visited upon by an Idea? That's right: second catwalk, Shoveling Department. Marge plucked up her courage. Dizzied by excitement and slightly hypoxic from the fumes, she fed her time card into the machine, kachunk! And hurried home to begin her story.
Marge wrote at a furious pace, as if being pursued by wild dogs, or as if she were a wild dog pursuing something, pausing periodically to twirl her pencil like a baton and consider the metaphorical space above and to the front-left of her head, which teemed with images and ideas, before bearing down again to continue writing at a furious pace, the tip of her pencil scrabbling wildly after the words which lunged just ahead of her like a pack of you-know-what.
The story leapt from her.
After an elegant beginning and a gut-busting middle, she found herself nearing the end of the story on horseback, being pursued wildly by Carpathian bandits on horseback. The pursuit was hot, and escape was uncertain, but her sorrel mare's lungs heaved hugely as she galloped across the dusty plain just ahead of the darkly handsome bandit captain and his savage knot of brigands. Twice the bandit captain reached for her and came so close that his rough, ring-laden fingers brushed strands of Marge's flying hair, but Marge whispered words of encouragement into the ear of her sorrel mare in the language her mare best understood, and twice she surged ahead, and reached the treacherous mountain pass unscathed. Her sure-footed mare carried her through, and at night she circled back to the ring of fires marking the Carpathian bandit's camp, stole past the brooding brigands, and slunk catlike into the darkly handsome bandit captain's carpeted yurt, where she discovered that he was not only darkly handsome but also well endowed, and where he discovered that his former foe was the only woman strong enough for his love, and they ruled the plains together with benevolently iron fists until they perished gloriously in battle, having lived truly and well, the end! Marge gasped and tipped over backwards in her chair and lay on the floor, her chest heaving amply.
It was the best story in the world.
She went outside to smell the night and gaze at the stars, and she perambulated the house until sunrise. Then, refreshed, she went back to work at the Shoveling Department.
Did Marge then possess an air of quiet, triumphant satisfaction because she knew the story she carried rolled up in her back pocket to be the best in the world, ever? Did her story hold the potential to bring to people laughter, tears, terror, joy? To change people's whole perspective on things and to crystallize meaning for them in a big big way? Was Shift Manager Jerry presently in front of her, ejecting spittle from sluglike lips as he chewed Marge out for wool-gathering on the job? Yes, yesyesyes, and yes. Marge calmly regarded Shift Manager Jerry's tirade until Jerry, unnerved by Marge's calm, stepped backwards and brushed his sleeve against a hot pipe and caught on fire, and went up in flames that Marge was obliged to calmly extinguish, which immediately triggered an Incident Review Review with Jerry, Marge and Mr. Large. Mr. Large, impressed by Marge's uncanny poise, supplanted Jerry with Marge as Shift Manager and packed Jerry off to the burn ward. Shift Manager Marge returned to the Shoveling Department and strolled along the catwalk patting one palm with her rolled-up story like a baton, surveying her new domain, and heaved a satisfied sigh just before the story slipped from her hands and dropped into the Terrible Story Furnace.
Marge gripped the railing with both hands, staring at the spot where the flash of white flame marked the sudden and complete dissolution of 100% of the story she had written. Frantically, she ran to the bulletin board and ripped from it the first pieces of paper her hands fell upon, which happened to be the Safety and Shoveling Technique Placards, an action that Mr. Large observed with disapproval from within his glass office that lorded above the Shoveling Department. Marge wrote as much as she could remember as fast as she could, but when she was finished and read back over her words, her heart turned to uranium and began poisoning the rest of her: the reproduction was a laughable attempt, possessing none of the magic of the first. What remained was a bad Harlequin romance, with Carpathian thrice misspelled.
Gone, her sure-footed sorrel mare.
Gone, her well-endowed bandit captain.
Gone, her potential to bring laughter, tears etc.
Marge lumped home and wept, shortly after Mr. Large had demoted her to Shoveler, Third Class for Placard Removal and Defilement.
After several days of tears Marge, severely dehydrated, crawled to her desk, climbed from tear-puddled floor into chair, and waited, soggy pencil raised. No stories leapt from it. Where did they go? Where had the last come from? Then she remembered: The broken pipe. The exhaust fumes. The Language Generation Chamber. Marge received, just then, her second big Idea that week: she had to get as close as possible to the Creation Fire. Screw the fumes - she had to behold the Fire itself. Then - and only then - would she find her way back to that moment of Original Mystery, and from that all-knowing place, she would re-write the greatest story in the world.
As she had been crying for several days and attempting unsuccessfully to write for ten minutes, Marge had not reported to work, and had been fired by Mr. Large. This was no deterrent. She dressed in black, donned stealthy felt slippers, and scaled the Story Factory fence in the dead of night.
When Marge reached the Language Generation Chamber, she was breathing hard and also bleeding badly from having been temporarily waylaid by the sharp accordion of barbed wire atop the Story Factory fence, but she was there. In the middle of the Chamber, the Creation Fire roared orangely inside its great cistern, the one window in the thick door glowing like the eye of God, or like the eye of an orange-eyed whale representing the leviathan of her subconscious. She approached the window, felt its exquisite heat. The Original Mystery was in there, in front of her. She closed her eyes and reached for it with her heart. It was no good. She would have to open the door to behold it, just for a moment. Marge braced herself for the heat. She grasped the handle with the pot holder she had brought along just in case, turned it and swung open the door. There! She could feel it so much stronger now, the prickles of heat tap dancing across her bloody skin. It drew her in. Just one kiss from the fire, Marge thought, will be enough.
Marge leaned in, touched the fire, and was consumed.