• There is an old story which many or may not interest you but nevertheless will be the bulk of this introduction, the way a horrid breakfast can be the bulk of your morning or a long car chase can be the bulk of your week. It does not go on to say that you have to read this, nor does it go on to say that your neighbor isn’t watering her garden, or that your other neighbor isn’t planning a midnight party in which will be to the expense of your week, which was going so well up until now. It is simply a tale in which we should all hear. It is simply a tale in which should be told around a measly orange campfire, in a bunk bed in the middle of a wet, cold night, straining necks to lean in close enough to hear each other, whispering so the cook might not awake and have to beat you both to a pulp.

    The tale acquaints us with a young woman named Lois, who may or may not be extremely striking and sharp. She also may or may not be an astounding writer, and she may or may not be a brilliant cook. She may or may not be the young woman who lives next door to me, or your cat’s girlfriend. She might just be Lois.

    She might be adventurous. She might, once day, decide to go exploring, but rather than voyaging on some beautiful hill full of yellow and purple flowers, complete with bubbling waterfalls and (tamed) bears, she might explore the confines of her own home. She might be looking for the cookie jar, and, upon being unable to find the porcelain thing, she might just give up. Or not.

    Maybe she’s a fisherwoman, fishing for dead people. Maybe not. Maybe she’s an astronomer, gazing at the constellations and the moons and the yellow people on those moons, and the neighbor’s hammock, which cradles a fat, hairy shirtless man in striped swimming trunks.
    Maybe not.

    Nevertheless, if you are expecting a definite answer, I don’t think there’s a way I, simply an observer, could give you one. I could make assumptions based on what I’ve seen already, but I don’t think I’m up for the challenge of actually telling you a story.

    There is a reason why this is one of the greatest tales every told. It’s because I’m not the only one telling it. You’re here, with me, rambling on about some (perhaps) fictional character that may or may not even exist. I have no part in this other than having my fingers dance on a keyboard to make a few Times New Roman, 12-point-font, puny words that may or may not paint an image in your head. No. You are creating these images yourself. You’re seeing what you want to see, with a little help from black letters on white paper.

    We have this character, whether she is real or not, named Lois. I’m not going to tell you how Lois looks but she may or may not have dark hair. She may or may not have white skin. She may or may not have beautiful green eyes. She may or may not like to wear a frilly yellow and blue dress on her trips to the beach, and she may or may not like you when she first sees you.

    Now that we have established the possibility (let’s face it; it’s merely a possibility) of Lois being good-looking, perhaps she should have some personality traits. Perhaps she is a nurturer. Perhaps she is a mother figure to everyone she meets. Perhaps she is not quick to anger. Perhaps she is calm like the sea on a summer midnight walk. Perhaps she giggles when she doesn’t have to. Perhaps she loves you, too.

    And now we should put Lois into a situation that makes her uncomfortable. We need to create conflict, remember? We need to make her have to get over some sort of obstacle that is standing in her way, like a giant elephant or a metal wall plated with yellow sponge. We need to see that she changes when she comes out of that dire position, when she finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel. And then, we need to make her realize that the end of that dark tunnel was merely a suggestion of her imagination, and there is not green, beautiful land at the end of it; in fact, there is a blank drop-off, into thin air; she’ll fall, fall, fall like Alice down a winding tube until SPLAT, the possibility of her still being alive fairly thin, she conquers another set of obstacles…and so forth.

    So what about that divergence of wits? Perhaps she is trying to teach a class in which the students are much sharper than even she may or may not be. Perhaps the students belittle her and make her feel humiliated in front on the principle who will eventually fire her for not being able to bring that D average up to a B. Perhaps she’ll lose her job, end up on the street, selling cocaine, selling her body, and perhaps even that won’t work. Maybe she’ll eventually kill herself because there’s no other way out.

    Perhaps she’ll realize, when the homeless guy says, sitting next to her, this line, that she is completely “S.O.L”: “My wife kicked me out…talk about a ‘hound dog’.”

    The quoting of an aphorism like the angry barking of a dog or the smell of overcooked broccoli rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen.