My Mentor, Metaphor the Great

After I staggered, struggled , stumbled 2 blocks S to Lake Eola--with the eviscerating June sunlight stabbing shards of rainbows into my brain--my steps took me to the left where I alighted at the Japanese pagoda at the NE qaudrant and chanced upon my mentor, Metaphor the Great.

A local writer of some renown--columnist for the Sentinel and author of several ironic crime novels set in Orlando environs--sat and considered the world with his somewhat rumpled and rheumy eyes.

Seeing me, he chortled, took a glug from his flask, and greeted me with, "Tommy, do you have anything for me to read yet?"

"Well, not really, just some crazed scribblings."

"Fear not, grasshopper, of such scribblings came Miller's Tropic of Cancer".

So he asked, "Why do you labour so to try to write what you see as truth?"

Insert some of my incoherent grumblings here.

"You only have to look at some physical, factual fact and relate that to anything else to make a point. Close you eyes, breathe deep, open them and tell me the first thing you see."

"That strangler fig to the to our left."

"Hmmm, top branches turning brown, I see a metaphor for the decay of a society that has gotten away from core principles."

"Whose principles? What core?

"Why Judeo-Christian of course."

"So you claim to have become a Christian?" (In my astounded tone.)

"No, just use the phrase, hoping to get my column syndicated. If I really sold out, I'd write of Democrats as spawns of Satan.

"Yeah, that'l get you some coin from Fox. How about that tattooed lady jogger with the nose ring?"

"A sign our younger generation chooses to use their freedom to define themselves and create a new paradigm for these United States, the Phoenix ink on her back a sign great civilizations rise from the ashes of the old."

"Damn, I hate the word "paradigm."

"Pule not on my paradigms, pilgrim, they serve for naught but to model what I see."

"Who can sat what anyone sees?"

"It doesn't matter; nothing matters."

"Maybe everything matters.

"You stole that from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues."

"Couldn't find a Shakespeare line."

"There you have it lad, since we have nothing new under the sun, just steal something good."

With that, Mr. Metaphor heaved himself to his feet, straightened his silk paisley tie and tried to tuck his rumples striped oxford into his Dockers pants, and stepped off in his topsiders towards the Sentinel building.