What has happened thus far: two curmudgeons, heretofore referred to as the Wizard and the demi-god, met a Scribe while they travelled through a dense forest. He sat at a huge desk with two massive ledgers.

The Scribe’s sole lot in life was to transfer events, as they happened, from the Book of Everything that Will Ever Be to the Book of Everything that Has Ever Been.

As it turns out, the “Big Bang” was NOT the beginning of all things. Several things happened long before — basic building blocks of life, such as Thought, Consciousness and Soup.

“How long have you been doing this,” asked the demi-god.

“And why are you doing it,” asked his cohort, the Wizard.

“I’ve been doing this since It all began,” explained the Scribe. “My first recollections were of me sitting at this massive mahogany desk, with these two big books, and this well-sharpened #2 pencil. The first book was filled with a list of events, of which I had no knowledge or understanding. The second book was blank except for the very first entry.”

“What did it say?” the two travelers asked in unison.

“The Scribe showed up for work on time,” answered the Scribe. “My fate, alone, was predetermined. I came into existence looking just like this, I have always been this old and have never aged beyond — and this pencil has never dulled or grown short.”

He said the last part with a derisive snort.

“I don’t even get to take a break long enough to sharpen a pencil. I do nothing all day but wait for an event, a paradigm shift, a course altering occurrence, to happen. Whenever that happens, my job is to ‘swipe right’ and place that event in the Been-There-Done-That book.”

“So you knew about Hitler and all of his evil,” asked the Wizard. “Couldn’t you have done something about it? Couldn’t you have told someone?”

“It has never worked that way,” sighed the Scribe. “The book only lists events. The events are predestined — it’s the ‘Who’ part that is up for grabs. Hitler could have done better in art school and become a mediocre portrait painter, instead of a vicious psychopath. Then someone else would have had to come along to fulfill that destiny at a different time and place.”

“How do you know when an event has happened,” asked the demi-god.

“That’s the hard part about this gig,” lamented the Scribe. “The events are listed in very vague terms. Sometimes it’s fairly easy to figure out, sometimes it takes a little head scratching because several things can fall under the same even.

“When the demise of the dinosaurs came along, I placed ‘Dinosaurs Kaput’ in the Book of Everything that Has Ever Been — that one was easy.  Liquor and cannabis prohibition are sub-listings under the event ‘Tell Them They Can’t and They Will, Anyway,’ along with the advent of self-help books focusing on dubious parenting techniques.”

“How much of an event has to happen before you know you can move it from one book to another,” asked the Wizard.

“All of it,” said the Scribe, as he exhaled slowly. “Usually, I don’t know what the event even means until it is completed. I didn’t move ‘Correlation Between Comic-Con and Stupidity’ until Hellboy came out — then, it became pretty obvious.

“I must ask,” began the demi-god slowly. “Are there are any events that might be coming up – anything that you are seeing as the beginning of a change?”

The demi-god was secretly considering a little insider trading action.

“There was one listing that just didn’t make any sense — of course, none of them make any sense until they happen. Then, I thought I was starting to understand, and I got ready to move it to the other book. Now, I just don’t know.”

“What was that,” they both asked in excited harmony.

“Drain the Swamp.”

Larry Wilson is a mostly lifelong resident of Niles. His optimistic “glass full to overflowing” view of life shapes his writing. His essays stem from experiences, compilations and recollections from friends and family. Wilson touts himself as “a dubiously licensed teller of tall tales, sworn to uphold the precept of ‘It’s my story; that’s the way I’m telling it.’” He can be reached at wflw@hotmail.com.