A Foolish Mortal Stuck in Traffic
by Glen Draeger
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Hello Bards,
Since entering The World of Literature I constantly find myself wondering when I'm going to go back. Yet, whenever I go back I'm not expecting it. At work the other day I fell down a long flight of stairs and figured when I got to the bottom I'd be in the giant forest. I was not. Instead, I came to my senses at the bottom of the stairs with sore knees and elbows.
So, I'm trying to teach myself not to think about it—-because Iris never summons me when I am—it always happens when I'm thinking about something else.
The other day I drove home from work on Interstate 8 in San Diego. Traffic had stopped. I sat in my car listening to some music with the windows up and the air conditioning blowing on its highest setting. While I sat there tapping the steering wheel to the beat of the music someone hit me from behind—-not hard, but enough that it gave me a jolt. I looked in my rearview mirror and in the car behind me a man motioned for me to come back to him. I thought that was strange, but I wanted to see if there was any damage. I stepped out of the car, looked at my bumper.
"It's okay," I yelled. "No damage."
This guy steps out of the car and I notice he's laughing. He walks over to me, still laughing, then he suddenly stops and stares at me with a slightly cocked head and a strange, knowing smirk. It irritated me.
"I'm Puck," he said. "Let's go."
Before I knew what was happening he grabbed my arm and we flew into the air. You may be thinking that this sounds like a lot of fun, but ask yourself what it would feel like to be pulled into the sky with the only thing holding you being someone else's hand. It scared me. I kept wondering if he would drop me and the whole time my car got smaller and smaller and then San Diego got smaller and smaller and then America and then the world and then our solar system and then I saw the Milky Way, our galaxy, shrink into a tiny pin prick of light and then I was surrounded by lights, like bees swarming, so many that I had to close my eyes because of the brightness of the light. I felt dizzy and I passed out.
When I awoke Puck was sitting on a nearby tree trunk eating a piece of cake.
"Did Iris send you?" I asked.
"No. Oberon did. Iris asked him to."
"I thought you guys were confined to The World of Literature."
"Not us. We're fairies. We can go wherever we want. We know that you want to know about William Shakespeare."
"Yes," I said. "Can I meet him?"
"He's not here, very busy these days."
We were in a forest, but not the forest I was used to in The World of Literature. This one had much smaller trees that branched out above our heads with brilliant green leaves. A mist drifted around us so that I couldn't see more than 30 or 40 feet in any one direction. Small, green ferns blanketed the ground around us and I heard, but could not see, the running water of a small brook. The place had a dream-like quality about it. As I sat watching Puck eat a piece of cake and wishing I could have some, people began to emerge out of the mist. I don't know why I knew exactly who they were, but I did. Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena emerged to my left. Nick Bottom, Titania and Oberon came from my right. They all sat down around me, on rocks, on the grass and on logs. I wasn't sure what to say so I nodded my head.
"He's considered the greatest playwright who has ever lived," Oberon said.
"Who?" I asked realizing too late that the answer was obvious.
"Shakespeare!" Puck said. "Lord, what a fool this mortal is!"
Oberon stared hard at him. He lowered his head.
"Just think of it," Oberon continued, "he wrote his plays about 400 years ago and they are still being performed today. Most people consider them the greatest plays that have ever been written."
"The greatest?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "Shakespeare wrote about everything in his plays: history, God, philosophy, politics, love, friendship, you name it, he wrote about it."
"You're characters in his plays—how do you know about him?"
"Of course we know about him," Titania said, "we are his creation—and," she said, "Iris let us meet him once. He was born in 1564 in England."
"When did he start writing plays?" I asked.
"When he was 28," Helena said. "Someone called him an 'upstart crow.'"
"That's name of bookstore we have in Seaport Village," I said.
"Very good tea there," Puck said.
Nick Bottom stood up, ran to the center of the circle excitedly: "I could play any part in all of his 36 plays! Would you like to hear me do Hamlet?" He stood up straight with a very serious expression on his face then said, "'To be or not to be, that is the question . . .' Or how about Juliet? He changed his voice to a very high pitch: 'O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?' I can do Falstaff just as well!" Now he pretended to have a big belly and he said in a deep, humorous voice, "'What is honor? A word. What is that word honor? Air—a trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No.' Oh, I can play them all! How about the very sad, King Lear?" He sat down and his face contorted as he pretended to be an old, feeble man. "'I am a man more sinned against than sinning.'" Then, suddenly, his head turned into that of an ass.
"Ha, ha, ha!" Puck and all the others laughed.
"You change me back!" Nick Bottom yelled.
"Not until you sit down and shut-up!" Puck said. Nick Bottom sat down.
"My favorite writings of Shakespeare," Hermia said to me, "are the sonnets he wrote."
"What are sonnets?" I asked.
"They're poems, wonderful poems, some of the greatest ever written about love." She looked over at Lysander who blushed immediately. "Would you like to hear one?"
"I'd love to," I said. "I love poetry."
"He wrote 154 of them. Do you know sonnet 116? It's probably his most famous."
"I think I've heard it before. Something about 'marriage' and 'true minds?'"
At this she stood and began to speak in one of the most beautiful, melodious voices I have ever heard quoting Shakespeare's poem as if she had read it thousands of times:
"'Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.'"
When she stopped it was silent. It seemed that even the birds had been listening, that even the trees and wind had taken notice of this great wisdom.
"Thank you," I said. "That was terrific."
Hermia bowed slightly and sat down.
"We love the Bard," Titania said. "When he died we were all very sad. It was in 1616 maybe on the same day that Cervantes died. He was only 52. His gravestone has these words on it:
'Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.'"
It was Lysander who spoke next. "Shakespeare has influenced many, many great writers and thinkers. He is quoted more than any other writer or book except the Bible. Some people think he is one of the wisest men who has ever lived and I don't know anyone here that would disagree with that."
"I don't think I would either," I said.
Then Puck looked at me and said, "Night, night foolish mortal."
Immediately, with no sensation of movement, I found myself in my car, on the freeway. The car behind me was honking. I looked in my rearview mirror and Puck smiled broadly, but he continued to honk. I accelerated the car and within a few minutes Puck had disappeared in the traffic and I have not seen him since.
Regards,
Mr. Draeger
©2005-2008 Glen Draeger (all rights reserved)
Millstone Education: World Literature / http://www.millstoneeducation.com/worldLit |
