Pen of the Gryphon

Dunno if I put this up... but here it is again...

Wrote it forever ago for a creative writing exercise and figured I could post it...

10/29/07

It sits unobtrusively on the gray-smeared white board. "Fitz Crackers was here -> then Orpheus read..." It had been a standing joke between Demi and I, based on the book "Inkspell" by Cornelia Funke; the second in the "Inkheart" trilogy. In that book, the character Orpheus can read characters out of books and people in the real world into books. Demi and I were obsessing about Dustfinger, and so Demi wrote on the unused whiteboard in the computer lab "Dustfinger was here -> then Orpheus read..." We left it there for a long time, then one day came back to see that someone had written a continuing story, with arrows leading from one part to another part.

Dustfinger was here -> then Orpheus read -> then he ran away -> into a forest of wood nymphs -> they ate him -> but they didn't like him -> so they puked him back up -> The End...

We didn't know who had written it, but we thought it was funny. So we left it.

Then when it was finally erased, we wrote a new version of the joke, one that took up the entire board:

Dusfinger was here -> then Orpheus read
Mo was here -> then Orpheus read
Resa was here -> then Orpheus read
Mortila was here -> then Orpheus read
Basta was here -> then Orpheus read
Orpheus was here ----> then Meggie read

It was funny also, so we left it there for a while as well. Then today, as I sat in the computer lab, a dude walked in and sat in a chair near the whiteboard. We were talking as I absently typed at the computer. Then, when I looked up, there was new writing on the board.

Fitz Crackers was here -> then Orpheus read

My name at school is Fitz Crackers (Ritz Crackers, but with the R replaced with an F... hey, I didn't make it up, but I like it...). This kid had no idea what the joke was about it, but he had played along with the last story, and so was carrying it on in innocent naivety. I thought it was funny and so it will remain until we have come up with something better. There was also a story that went along with mine, but I erased it because it really made no sense, unlike the last one. But my name sits on the whiteboard, marking where I had been until that fateful moment when Orpheus started to read...