Wiz 2.0

Here's a new chapter for BRYAN THE TYGER, I hope I like it.

[I got tired of graffiti-ing tygers onto junk ads, so, for the next few days, the obligatory images that accompany these announcements will be just lazy attempts at hand-drawing copies of ad photos with felt tip marker.]

P.S.

In other news: my Public Private Diary is fully printed; also I made a list of my latest novels that have been printed but not included in any collection.

Chapter Thirty-Six

I Bryan the Tyger and my soul-mate Myala the Black Panther now descend from the pyramidal turret in the glimmering moonlight. We pace thru the desert sand for a few thousand parasangs.

Myala breaks the silence: “I wonder if we’ll meet any people, out here in the wilderness.”

“Yes,” I reply, “and I wonder if they’ll be Orangutans, Humans, or Felines.”

Soon a speck begins to enlarge from the vanishing point. — It proves to be manlike.

“Greetings,” I say. “You look human to me. I’m Bryan the Tyger, King of the Whole Entire Universe — I can’t figure out why so many of you homo sapiens escape my memory when it’s impossible that I haven’t met you before, as I am the same Burning Tyger who rescued the global population and brought all earthlings to Jupiter while Planet Earth enjoyed overheating, and then I brought ye all back, when tempers cooled. The only folks that should be strangers to me are the Orangutans, because they somehow popped up and overran the surface of this place while we were all away. In fact, come to think of it, I tend to suspect that their presence is a practical joke being played upon reality by the Jovians, since the latter species switched spots with us during the Lava Epoch; thus, they could have planted them, to plague us. — Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce you to Myala.” I gesture toward Myala.

“We’ve met,” sez the man; “and you’re right — it’s easier for us humans to remember you two than it is for you two to remember us individuals; for you shuttled thrillions of earthly beings to and fro, thru the outer spaces, and I’m sure that, at a certain point, our individual personalities and appearances tended to blend together in your recollections; whereas each one of us harbors the clearest impression of a Fiery Tyger and a Luminescent Panther who brought us away from our melting planet and then back home again. My name’s Bryan, by the way. I am a wizard.”

“Bryan!?” I quail; “but that’s MY name. — You aren’t my double, by any chance, are you?”

“No,” laughs the wizard; “there are many people named Bryan in the world, and we all spell our name with a ‘Y’, not with an ‘I’: every single one of us. — And there are two ways to prove that I’m not your double; first, I’m human in shape, not the least bit feline . . .”

“True,” I’m starting to tremble less already.

“And, secondly,” the wizard continues, “if I were your double, then you and I would cancel each other out. — Lo, how many lives do you have remaining?”

I count on my mighty forepaws and then answer: “Eight; cuz I gave one up to save Jesus the Albatross, who was tied as a burden around Myala’s neck, back when she was the Eye of Providence.”

“See?” sez the wizard; “that proves it. If I were your double, you would have seven or less lives. And, look, I still have a full deck of my own . . .”

The wizard displays a radiant orb in midair between us, which plainly shows that all his lives are in order.

“Whew!” I say. “You had me worried, when you said that your name is Bryan. I’m sure that I’ve met other creatures who share my name before, but I’ve never exchanged words with them. That’s kinda eerie.”

“It’s intensely eerie,” sez the wizard; “that’s what makes it so enticing. Wouldn’t you agree?”

I think for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

The wizard smiles and nods with aplomb. “Now what did you two seek me out for — do you want any debts cancelled? Need me to sprinkle magic dust on a Senator?”

“Seek you out?” Myala laughs. “We didn’t ‘seek you out’ — we just ran into you by chance, because we were walking thru the desert.”

“Are you serious?” the wizard looks shocked. “Most people come out here to ask me for favors. I don’t think I’ve ever just encountered a genuine passerby. This is quite interesting.”

“I agree,” smiles Myala.

“Would you like a hotdog?” I say, holding up the satchel that contains the remains of the score that I procured from the vendor.

The wizard sniffs the air of the satchel. “Are those gourmet dogs?”

“Yes they are,” I answer proudly. “They have ketchup, mustard, and relish.”

The wizard looks sorrowful: “I really shouldn’t.”

I shake my vast Tyger-face, “Well, suit yourself.” Then I turn and ask Myala: “You wanna split the rest of these?”

“Sure!”

So we begin to eat from my stockpile of gourmet dogs while we chat with Bryan the wizard.

“Where are you from?” I say, with my mouth full.

“Kansas,” sez Bryan.

“Is that so?” I swallow and take another bite. “Whereabouts, exactly?”

“Have you ever seen The Wizard of Oz (1939)?”

Now, putting two and two together, my eyes widen and I stop chewing: “Oh my gosh — are you THAT wizard?”

“No, no, no,” sez Bryan the wizard, shaking his head very earnestly, “there’s no relation at all, we only share the same profession — like you and I share the same first and last name. I only mentioned the film to answer your question about what part of Kansas I’m from.”

“Wait,” I say, incredulously (I still haven’t chewed my food since asking this wizard if he is “THAT wizard”); is what you just said true?”

“Yes,” sez the old man. “I authored this book that you are starring in.”

I choke. “And you’re trying to tell me that you’re from the same Kansas that’s in the movie — in the scenes that they filmed in black-and-white?”

“No,” sez Bryan the author and wizard of the dark arts, “I mean that I’m from the same place in Kansas as Dorothy.”

I swallow and take another bite of my gourmet dog, “But Dorothy now lives in Golgonooza,” I inform the wizard; “I know this for a fact, because I settled her there — we dropped her off at the Chankly Bore, together with the Emilies: Ms. Dickinson and Ms. Brontë.”

The wizard makes an angry face: “First, I repeat, I’m talking about the movie, NOT the book. And, second, I remember you jumping out of the hot air balloon when it was flying over your castle. I caused you and Myala to turn into fireballs and land in your shark-infested peninsula waters, while the air-balloon floated off, after you mauled my doppelganger.”

“Ah,” I say, my Tyger-mouth filled with hotdog, “then you are THAT wizard.”

“For the third time,” sez Bryan the author, whose words we know are true, “I’m talking about the 1939 film.”

“Alright,” I say, “so you’re from the same part of Kansas as Judy Garland (whom I happen to know is from Grand Rapids, Minnesota — but I’ll refrain from mentioning that detail, since I’m supposed to be a Tyger); and it’s true, I didn’t stick around to see if the Emilies’ hot air balloon actually crash-landed on the proper island of the afterlife. It doesn’t matter — everything’s make-believe. So let’s move on to something more interesting, because I’m running out of dogs, and I would like to keep talking with my mouth full.”

Myala attempts to rescue the conversation from the ornery temperaments of us Bryans: “Mister wizard, why don’t you tell us what brought you out to this sector of the desert. We felines arrived here simply because we were wandering – our assumption was that if we keep walking north-northwest, we’ll eventually stumble upon civilization.”

“Ha!” the wizard succumbs to a strong, reflexive laugh, “sure, if by ‘civilization’ you mean ‘the subtlest circle of Dante’s Inferno’ — it’s pure bedlam out there; the only way to escape the madhouse is to enter a madhouse.”

Myala tilts her vast Panther-head. “What do you mean?”

“The United Fiefdoms of Orangutanland,” sez the wizard. “U.F.O. — don’t tell me you haven’t heard the locals repeatedly chanting this! — I say, the only sane place is the institution.”

“You mean the mental institution?” I ask.

“No, the Institute of Art,” Bryan the wizard rolls his eyes; “of course I mean the mental institution.”

I frown, “OK, jeez, I was just trying to clarify, since most people actually like Orangutan Land and would be surprised to hear someone speak of it in such a contemptuous tone. You yourself understand, because you have the advantage of being a wizard, as well as the most exuberant author that the U.F.O. shall ever produce, in all history; and Myala and I get it, too, because we are mutant jungle-beasts who are literally brilliant (I’m on fire, and she glows in the dark); but most of the human inhabitants of this planet, who, knock-knock,” (here, I pantomime knocking on a door with my mighty Tyger-paw, except I use the author Bryan’s head) “comprise the sum of your possible readership, don’t feel the same way: they assume that the Orangutans who rule the land are good folks who mean well.” I toss a full dog in the air and catch it in my Tyger-maw. “But I’d like to hear your answer to Myala’s question: What brought you out to this neck of the dunes, in the first place?”

“I will address that,” replies Bryan the wizard, “but, first, let me just correct you on one point: You say that ‘the human inhabitants of Planet Earth comprise the sum of my possible readership’ — I’d say rather that they comprise just some of my possible readership; for I know with a surety that hyperdimensional daemons are my target audience.” He adjusts his star-spangled robe in a sumptuous manner. “Now, as for what brought me to this wilderness in the first place: Well, initially I came out here merely to satisfy my curiosity. You see, I used to live in a ranch house near the border, and I would often sit by my window long and long, observing the desert. And I began to fix my attention upon something in the midground, which seemed to be some sort of reed shaking in the wind. Then, one day, I said to myself, ‘I simply must go out there into the wilderness of the desert and get a closer look. I need to find out, once and for all, exactly what that thing is.’ So I arose from my chair at the window, donned my Merlin-robe, grabbed my wand, and marched headlong into the sandstorm. When I arrived at the spot, sure enough, I saw nothing but a reed shaken with the wind. ‘Ha-ha! I was right!’ I cried at the sky, holding up the figs. (That’s Dantean slang for showing the gods both of one’s foremost fingers.) But then I turned and noticed a wholly other distraction: I seemed to espy a man who was clothed in soft raiment:

“‘Is it a mirror?’ I said to myself aloud, like an atheistic fool. (Atheists don’t believe that other divinities can exist.) Then I sprinted in that direction . . .

“The figure sprinted likewise. This action perplexed me, for it proved my theory both right and wrong, all at once: it made my guess seem correct because a luxuriously attired gentleman mimicked my motion; and yet it made my guess seem incorrect because, if the phenomenon were truly a reflection, then the figure should be dashing toward me, not, as was the case, away.”

“And what happened next,” I ask.

“After that, this fellow entered into a mansion, seemingly to hide from me,” sez Bryan Ray the wizard.

“A mansion in the desert?” sez Myala. “Sounds like a place that must have been built unwisely on sand.”

“That is true,” sez the wizard, nodding solemnly, “that is true.”

“So what happened next,” I ask.

“I approached the door behind which the man had disappeared,” sez the wizard, “and I rapped with my wand. ‘Who’s there?’ said a voice from within. — I engaged this voice in a Socratic dialogue and got it to admit that since every desert-mansion belongs to its king, and since I’m the king of kings, I deserve to be welcomed home: for I am the owner of the owner. Then I confronted this man who was dressed so similar to me:

“‘Who are you?’ I said.

“‘John the Dipper’ he replied.

“‘Oh, you think you’re going to baptize me in that swimming pool?’ I said, pointing to the pool that was to our left. (Kings’ residences often contain indoor amenities.) ‘Well, that’s unnecessary, as I was born without sin. Just ask my friend Paul’s resurrected Albatross Jesus, whom I invented a Burning Tyger to be the savior of’.”

At this point, I gasp: “You know about that?”

The wizard shakes his head in annoyance: “I authored the conspiracy.”

Feigning contriteness while still chewing, I say: “Please continue.”

“Alright, so this Baptizer named John — not John from Hopkins but the other one: the Dipper — he tries to hard-sell me on the idea that he’s a prophet,” sez Bryan the authorial wizard, “and I’m ve-e-ery skeptical. So he loses his patience and tries to dunk me under the water, to cleanse my iniquities. But, like I said, I was born sin-free, as it is written:

. . . I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from, 
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, 
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

“So, this Baptizer, having grabbed me, settles his head athwart my hips; but I violently turn’d him over upon me and parted the shirt from his bosom-bone, plunged my head into his tunic, and bit his chest. As I sucked the nourishing life-blood thru my fangs, he reach’d down and grabbed my beard, and flipped me head-over-feet, and I performed a summersault. Swiftly then I arose and plunged his wooly white head into the depths of the pool, whose water was actually quite shallow but still enough to drown any breather. Thus I baptized the Baptist: John’s body lay floating on the surface.”

“You dipped the Dipper?” I stare in disbelief, totally lost in the story and opened-jawed, while a little bit of hotdog drops from my Tyger-mouth. “Did he die?”

The wizard Bryan smirks knowingly and continues: “Now, now: remember what I quoted from ‘Song of Myself’, section five, by Walt Whitman, just a nanosecond ago — ‘I make holy whatever I touch . . .’ See? I’m like the worst type of King Midas: I try to vanquish my foeman and he only grows stronger and reanimates; for I can’t help but spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the arguments on earth. In other words: No, I did not manage to assassinate John the Dipper. Only Jehovah has ever, in the history of authorship, been able to lure an antagonist to asphyxiate during baptism, when he slam-dunkt Pharaoh in the Red Sea. I’m not at that level yet. So John arose, like Lazarus after him. And then all the saints before Christ; and then Christ himself, the firstfruits, after all these pre-firstfruits:

When he had cried again with a loud voice, Jesus yielded up the ghost: And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and crept out of their graves; and they lurked into the holy city and frightened many.

(Gospel of Matthew 27:50-53)

“So, yeah, the same thing happened to me. I tried to get rid of John the prophet who preceded me here in the desert, at this very station — the sand whereon we are standing this very moment — but he came back alive and forced me to share all the fame, glory and honor with him and his followers.”

“But where are they now,” I ask, gulping the last of my hotdogs into my Tyger-belly, which is like Hell because it digests useless things and makes them useful again, “I don’t see anyone anywhere — what did you do with them?”

“Yeah,” sez Myala, “if John the Baptist resurrected after you dipped him, by siphoning super-strength from your own surging reservoirs, so that he and his followers proved equal to you yourself; then where are all of those re-murdered victims now? Are they buried beneath our feet? Is the desert still guzzling their lifeblood?”

Bryan the wizard waves his right hand very gracefully, thus managing to razzle-dazzle his audience away from the desire to continue this present inquiry:

“Next question,” sez the wiz.