Brains, Sex or Money?


One evening a grad student working on her Master's degree was studying alone in the library, nodding off over an impenetrable tome of postmodernist literary theory, probably something by Butler, when he heard a tiny voice cry out. Startled, he jerked awake. A very soft, high-pitched voice wailed, "Help me! Help me!"

He searched the stacks with increasing alarm as the tiny plea grew more desperate, then sputtered into a scream of pain.

At last he saw it...a big, ugly rat, dragging a little pixie girl by the ankle. The rat was as fat as the hardcover edition of Of Grammatology by Derrida, and the fairy as slender as a No. #2 pencil. No matter how she fluttered her translucent wings, she could not yank her leg free.

The grad student, quick of wit, grabbed  Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach off the shelf and knocked the Derrida rat smack between the eyes. The villainous varmint thus vanquished, the grad student lifted the fairy up and set her on the shelf between The Golden Bough and The Annotated Hobbit.

"Thank you, thank you!" she cried. She fluttered in the air and alighted upon The Judgment of Paris. "You have saved me and therefore I will grant you a most precious magick. I have the power to make you either the wisest man on earth, the sexiest man on earth or the richest man on earth."

The grad student thought long and hard. He was pretty tempted to go for sexy. But he was, after all, an academic.

"Please make me the wisest man on Earth," he asked the fairy.

She aimed her magic wand. Light burst everywhere and he had to close his eyes.

When he opened them, all which had been obscure to him before, he now saw clearly, without illusion and without bias.

"Damn," he said. "So I should I have gone for the money."

* * *

:)


Oh, and keep yours eyes peeled, because very, very soon, I am going to do a Cover Reveal for The Unfinished Song: Wing (Book 5)! Yay! I think it's really pretty. I hope you'll agree!


Comments

Rayne Hall said…
This story has always been one of my favourites. :-)
Tara Maya said…
Thanks. One of these days I'll add the other one I like, about Socrates and Plato.
Misha Gerrick said…
Congratulations!

It's super exciting to know you succeeded at something so difficult. :-)
prairie poet said…
I discovered your unfininshed song books by accident but sense I first picked it up I have read like one possessed and have read the 4 books in a little over 2 days I fear I shall not be able to sleep till I know how it ends so I wish you luck on the next release. May your words take life on paper faster than the speed of thought.
Sincerely a fellow wrighter yet unsure of where her fate may send her!