Although disorganised and hard to interpret at first, they quickly sorted themselves out into groups, and here and there made glorious sense. Something unique and imperishable was taking shape in my head, an ingenious structure of words and sentences that not only materialised there like a strangely beautiful, extraterrestrial creature but spoke to me in immaculate verse! It was a poem. Quite unconnected with my own thought processes, it consisted of ideas from space: a gift from the stars!’
Ovidios looked at me with sudden severity. He leant over and gripped my arm so hard that it hurt.
‘Believe me, Optimus, I’m not mad, nor am I one of those lazy-minded esotericists who believe in inexplicable phenomena, tea leaves, or the voice of their dead grandmother. I’m guided by a strictly scientific view of the world. I put all my faith in the measurability of Zamonian natural phenomena. I’m not a spiritualist. I believe in nothing that can only be grasped with the aid of blind faith. For
that
thing, the power we call the Orm, is more concrete than anything else in existence. It’s
real
, even though we can’t see it and few have experienced it.’
He let go of my arm and sat back. Then he adjusted his clothing and seemed to grow calmer.
‘But what am I saying?’ he added with a laugh. ‘No writer has ever been more thoroughly suffused with the Orm than you yourself!’
I slumped in my chair again. Fortunately, Ovidios went on at once.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘that was the cosmic prelude, the overture. Now comes the real story. I slowly recovered my senses. I now knew that if I succeeded in capturing and organising these fleeting symbols in my brain – if I wrote them down in the correct order – they would yield an Orm-inspired work. It was as simple as that. The problem was, I was still standing at the bottom of a muddy pit, soaked to the skin, and a catastrophic fire was raging outside. Night had fallen, and people were screaming and sobbing. Hardly ideal conditions in which to commit an important literary work to paper, were they?’
The gnome at the next table was now leaning so obtrusively in our direction, I feared he would fall off his chair at any moment. Ovidios produced a notebook and flourished it under my nose.
‘Paper!’ he cried. ‘I badly needed some paper. I found a pencil in my rags, but the paper in my pockets was completely sodden. I had to get out of that accursed pit, but the rain of recent days had rendered the steps leading down into it so soft that they gave way beneath my feet. It was like a nightmare! My brain was shaping a historic poem, a ballad about the Great Conflagration fit to endure for millennia, and the steps were giving way beneath my feet.’
Ovidios slammed his notebook down on the table and at that moment one of the gnomes really did fall off his chair. His companion rocked with unsympathetic laughter as he promptly scrambled to his feet.
‘Then, all at once, a rope was lowered into the pit,’ Ovidios went on, unmoved. ‘I grasped it at once with both paws and was hauled aloft. It was my friends and companions in misfortune, my neighbours in the
Graveyard of Forgotten Writers
! Submerged in their muddy holes, they had survived the conflagration like me. We fell into each other’s arms and exchanged mutual congratulations. But I hastened on. I had to find some paper! The poem, the great, immortal epic on the burning of Bookholm, was now clearly legible before my inner eye in twenty-four immaculate strophes suffused with the purest Orm! I had only to write them down. Paper, paper! I roamed the smoking ruins. Everything was burning and smouldering, and the ground was as hot as a hotplate. Having found paper in my pockets that was too wet to write on, all I found in the vicinity of the graveyard was some so charred or desiccated that it crumbled away between my claws. And the verses in my head were already beginning to fade. I was on the verge of despair. Of giving
Ovidios looked at me with sudden severity. He leant over and gripped my arm so hard that it hurt.
‘Believe me, Optimus, I’m not mad, nor am I one of those lazy-minded esotericists who believe in inexplicable phenomena, tea leaves, or the voice of their dead grandmother. I’m guided by a strictly scientific view of the world. I put all my faith in the measurability of Zamonian natural phenomena. I’m not a spiritualist. I believe in nothing that can only be grasped with the aid of blind faith. For
that
thing, the power we call the Orm, is more concrete than anything else in existence. It’s
real
, even though we can’t see it and few have experienced it.’
He let go of my arm and sat back. Then he adjusted his clothing and seemed to grow calmer.
‘But what am I saying?’ he added with a laugh. ‘No writer has ever been more thoroughly suffused with the Orm than you yourself!’
I slumped in my chair again. Fortunately, Ovidios went on at once.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘that was the cosmic prelude, the overture. Now comes the real story. I slowly recovered my senses. I now knew that if I succeeded in capturing and organising these fleeting symbols in my brain – if I wrote them down in the correct order – they would yield an Orm-inspired work. It was as simple as that. The problem was, I was still standing at the bottom of a muddy pit, soaked to the skin, and a catastrophic fire was raging outside. Night had fallen, and people were screaming and sobbing. Hardly ideal conditions in which to commit an important literary work to paper, were they?’
The gnome at the next table was now leaning so obtrusively in our direction, I feared he would fall off his chair at any moment. Ovidios produced a notebook and flourished it under my nose.
‘Paper!’ he cried. ‘I badly needed some paper. I found a pencil in my rags, but the paper in my pockets was completely sodden. I had to get out of that accursed pit, but the rain of recent days had rendered the steps leading down into it so soft that they gave way beneath my feet. It was like a nightmare! My brain was shaping a historic poem, a ballad about the Great Conflagration fit to endure for millennia, and the steps were giving way beneath my feet.’
Ovidios slammed his notebook down on the table and at that moment one of the gnomes really did fall off his chair. His companion rocked with unsympathetic laughter as he promptly scrambled to his feet.
‘Then, all at once, a rope was lowered into the pit,’ Ovidios went on, unmoved. ‘I grasped it at once with both paws and was hauled aloft. It was my friends and companions in misfortune, my neighbours in the
Graveyard of Forgotten Writers
! Submerged in their muddy holes, they had survived the conflagration like me. We fell into each other’s arms and exchanged mutual congratulations. But I hastened on. I had to find some paper! The poem, the great, immortal epic on the burning of Bookholm, was now clearly legible before my inner eye in twenty-four immaculate strophes suffused with the purest Orm! I had only to write them down. Paper, paper! I roamed the smoking ruins. Everything was burning and smouldering, and the ground was as hot as a hotplate. Having found paper in my pockets that was too wet to write on, all I found in the vicinity of the graveyard was some so charred or desiccated that it crumbled away between my claws. And the verses in my head were already beginning to fade. I was on the verge of despair. Of giving
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