Interlude, # 1
Well, it seems this technologically challenged Author hit the wrong button, so to speak, and saved a title, without a text to save, as well. Since he [of course he’s a he; a woman wouldn’t be that daft!] has no idea how to delete a “published” blank page, he is pausing to do a recap, like a Prime TV series, because he can scarcely remember what’s happened before himself. All right then. But who am I? Now that I think about it, in this story, there’s an “author” who is not really the author, if you have ever thought about stories and their writers. Sometimes the “Author” takes on the role [or is it roll? No, I’m certain it’s role; English is such a confusing language!] or should I say, pretends to be, the narrator. I don’t know why that happens; it just does! Damn it!
Obviously, there are various levels of reality at work throughout: there’s the outside Author, who, once the story is finished, is no longer with us. Shakespeare, you will have noticed, is dead! His stories live on, as in the sonnets where there is an I (eye) at work: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate….” Rough winds and so on, if you see my point? So, there’s the outside Author, an inside author, a narrator who pretends he is not the author, though of course he is; actually, that is the “I” (eye) of the story; then there are the characters, the little lower layer, ahem, so to speak. I suspect the author is schizophrenic, but that remains to be seen. The real Author had to look up schizophrenic! Well, I would have as well, but that’s neither here nor there now! Okay! The summary! The author decided to let me get it!
A Prince, named Godric, is in a tower writing a story, though at the beginning of the story he had written nothing (nudge, nudge); there are no doors in the tower, though there may or may not be a trapdoor in the floor. The Prince thinks there is, but the author tells me there isn’t, really!
Then a shadow in the corner of the room starts talking to him. [Can you believe this stuff? Er…That’s probably a real question. Okay, it is a real question: willing suspension of disbelief, and all that. [I get it if it doesn’t work for you with this fairytale; won’t hurt my feelings, probably.]. Then the shadow turns out to be a talking crow named Philip. [The Shadow is a bit upset that it didn’t get an uppercase “S”! It will get over it!]
There isn’t a door, but there is a large mirror on one wall, windows on the other 3 sides. The Prince looks into the mirror, sees, instead of himself, a lovely Princess, Elesandra, in a room somewhere else. He and the bird, Philip, step through the mirror, talk to the Princess, yada, yada, yada! He falls in love, the text doesn’t say, wants to be a suitor, she agrees, classic comic structure—a strict father stands between the Prince and the Princess. Godric must make a hasty exit. He and the bird step back through her mirror this time. You see in this reality a person can travel from mirror to mirror or from mirror to the outside realm of reality.
O yes, there will be, probably, a small, good, golden fire-breathing dragon unless something eats it that shouldn’t. Pontifex, that’s the dragon, or just one of the dragon’s names, though the Prince doesn’t know the half of that character yet.
Godric’s father is King Bolt of Nodd, better if it had been King Bolt of Knolt, but that’s as may be for the nonce; Elesandra’s father is King Andor of Ardor. Thus far Chapter 1, if we skip the talk about Evil which amounts to Nothing!
Chapter 2 involves the choosing of the right path, a magically-appearing lunch, and a discussion of being, ontology, and the mystery of identity; the author has just barely skirted epistemology, mostly. After that the Quest begins in earnest once the bird, Philip, has sussed out the right trail. “Sussed out,” I like that, has a really nice ring to it; it’s probably British. I use these odd words, then I have to look them up to make certain they mean what I think they mean! I meant the author has to do those things. Text and story get away from him from time to time, as do many other things, time being one of them.
Goodness, that’s about it. There are monsters out there. With any luck they will stay out there, or maybe not. Maybe luck has nothing to do with it, just the Lady Fortune, an Angel, who “tastes her bliss and turns her wheel,” or vice versa. I, I mean, “he” forgets. Even if they only read the Inferno; she’s there, and at least that would be something. Well, you can lead a horse somewhere relevant, but he forgets the rest again. “ O what a noble mind is here o’ er thrown.” Anyway, Chapter 3 coming up, since Godric and Philip decided on the Right Road!
Image: always good to know what you are seeing, in so far as that is possible, of course.
