Omar's Reply

“I’m not surprised they passed on it,” said Omar. “Anticipating their response I just finished a retort. Would you care to give it a read?”

“Sure.”

Dear Literary Agent, (insert name here)

Many thanks for your letter in response to my submission. As a matter of fact I have 60,000 specific succinct precise concise words floating around my small cabin here in a Zen bamboo forest. I will seduce them onto blank 20/lb. bond white sheets. Their text will be an artistic marvel of design.

I will wave my magic word wand over said words to rearrange them in a simple easy to follow linear form aligning nouns, verbs and direct objects with clear syntactical structure and so forth.

I love ironing. I share this passion with Haruki Murakami.

I will iron sheets of words with discipline, passion and persistence.

My egotistical profit driven anal editors will cull all unnecessary adjectives, adverbs and useless verbiage from the manuscript. An expert at practicing, I will write short fast and deadly.

My well-honed Berber knife and laughter’s Labrys axe will kill darlings with panache.

Deleted suspects will be stripped, blindfolded, water boarded and deprived of due process as part of my polishing action under the International Geneva Font Scribe Protection Act as described in The Book of Kells, Illuminated.

Subversives deemed unfit, dispensable, extraneous, and gratuitous for literary service will be executed by Executive Order #Zero123 with no emotional attachment. Next of kin will be notified in Braille. Fatalities will be a footnote in history where the sound of speech has no alphabet.

The epic will have the intellectual density of an essay, lyric cohesion of poetry and a structure resembling a documentary film incorporating cross-referenced evidence.

To write and to draw is the same Greek verb.

When Mr. Butcher and Mr. Barber, my insolvent intrepid illiterate editors finish cutting I’ll get back to you with a revised manuscript. A.S.A.P.

No publisher is going to drink champagne from my skull.

Sincerely yours, Omar the Blind

“I love it Omar. You’re the man with passion and wisdom.”

“Just doing my work. Few have read it. Fewer have understood it. Post it please?”

“With pleasure. See you later.”

“I’ll see you when I see you,” said Omar whirling his kaleidoscopic protean prism pen.

“Excellent. I imagine Rose, Faith and Tran will be joining us,” I said.

“Yes. They’re walking to Benaojan caves.”

“Delightful. Walking makes the road. We can share stories. I heard from Little Wing this morning.”

“Great. How is she?” said Omar.

“Excellent. She’s weaving threads in Grazalema.”

“Lovely. I look forward to seeing her new creation.”

“Let’s hope she didn’t destroy everything and begin again near the beginning,” I said.

“She realizes life’s tapestry contains flaws, missed stitches and rough edges. We’ll see her clear intentions,” said Omar.

“We will. Her weaving contains frayed edges and severed threads. Like our stories.”

“Yes,” said Omar. “Seeing the front gives one a feeling of totality with holistic harmony and perfection. An organic pattern appears from random elements like a lotus growing from mud.”

“See the beauty and cruelty without hope or fear.”

“No memory means no guilt, no guilt means no fear,” said Omar.

“It’s the Middle Way with detachment and discernment.”

“You sleep with the tiger,” said Omar.

“It’s process with passion. We act and let go. Adios amigo.”

“Adios.”

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

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Mandalay, Burma