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Omphaloskepsis
The great guru Smakapannalus sat on his hill, as he did most of the time.
And the people that tended to come and visit him came and visited him.
Some of them left money with Smakapannalus' wife, Bridget, a Hollywood film starlet who came to visit his hill sometime back in the 80s in an attempt to get away from rampant commercialism and camped out on the hill for so long she became his common law wife, even though they hadn't spoken more than three words her entire time on the hill. This wasn't uncommon, as he spoke to his visitors only when he felt the urge, and rarely felt the urge.
The only time he spoke when he didn't have the urge is when his French visitors outnumbered all other nationalities -- he began to feel then that they were only there because they thought he was a mime. In fact, for a little while he subsisted on the money mimes-in-training left at the foot of his hill (the money the kids from the neighboring village didn't come and steal, anyway).
He reasoned that it was all in the name of furthering his self-development and potential/eventual enlightenment.
Not that he considered enlightenment a sure thing. No, he'd been through enough snow and sleeting rain and almost slipped down the damn hill in one torrential downpour to know that enlightenment was not guaranteed.
But then again, he'd spent so much time on the stupid hill that there was no way he could possibly not get enlightenment. Well, that and the book he'd published a few years ago, through Random House or someone along those lines.
The book was titled Smakapannalus and the Great Badger of Grief, Envy, Enlightenment, in which he told the story of how he achieved enlightenment during one stretch four or five years ago by meditating on a chocolate rabbit he received from a visitor one Easter or so. He set off on his meditation and the sun was shining and the grass was green and fresh with dew. Sometime later he awoke to find the rabbit gone, the grass wet with the dew of a new morning and the sun shining. His mystical year long meditation went straight to number one on the bestseller list for both hard cover and paperback. Of course, the title was re-worked to be Tomato Broth for the Soul Sitting on a Hill, and the Great Badger was dropped, though "Enlightenment" did make it into the subtitle.
It was also heavily edited by the same guy who edited Roy Keane's autobiography, and for a while Smakapannalus looked to be brought to court for the sensationalistic kicking he purportedly gave to a rival hermit.
This was all in the past, and he felt calmer for it. He also got a great deal more chocolate rabbits to replace the one he lost during his trip to enlightenment. This, some may have argued, was enlightenment, after all.
When no one was looking he cleaned out the fluff in his belly button that he'd been contemplating the whole time.
disclaimer:
So how are all of you doing out there?
Finished your holiday shopping and all that good stuff yet?
Still no sign of the Head Editor. The staff'll be running on a bit of a skeleton crew for the next few weeks as I jet back to Worcester, but, in this glorious digital age of ours, where the office can be anywhere, I get to edit and post issues and all that good stuff from the comforts of my own home.
Enjoy your holiday breaks.
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