Thursday, May 6, 2004

A while back I mentioned that the Professor, along with all his fictional cohorts, might make a grand return. I’ve been thinking about how best to exhume the characters gracefully, especially since I’d made it pretty clear that the story was dead.

Perhaps there really is no way to do this gracefully, come to think of it. A couple of months have passed, gentle reader, and because of the elapsed time we’re way past the “premature burial” stage. It’s like tossing your Aunt Mildred into the grave while she was napping and then returning to find her, almost half a year later, after backpacking across Europe and spending a drunken evening at a Bavarian hostel. And I’m speaking from experience here.

I’ve thought about collecting suggestions from the few souls who actually want to see these characters return, but that would require a massive undertaking. I could also wander into a convenient patch of forest and seclude myself, waiting for inspiration–or a big brown bear–to strike. Let’s be honest, though: it’s not like there’s a Pulitzer committee member eagerly awaiting the next chapter, eyes glued to the screen and fingers stained bright orange by Cheetos. I’ll just do this the old fashioned way, I suppose, which is to say I’ll forget about it until I collide head-on into a lamppost.