Dylan in Elysium

According to Dylan Thomas' fans – I know a few – Shakespeare and Dryden were on the welcoming committee when Dylan entered Elysium, and when they saw the new arrival, they say, Shakespeare did slap Dryden on his back with glee.

Elysium is a rather odd place where everybody must sit out the expiry period of anything written by his hand. For most of us a mere matter of centuries at most, before humidity, insects and the effects of war make an end of the mostly handwritten records – tax registers and doomsday books are the real holdup here, don’t even think of signing your last will yourself, let the registrar do it on your behalf – although lately the administration up high, I’ve heard, has begun to worry about our electronic media and started an extensive construction program to accommodate uncounted masses. Should you be foolish enough to put something in print, and be it merely a column in your school’s yearbook, afterlife can become a long stretch, yet not even nearly as long as for the professional publicist, and virtually an eternity if you are recognized as a genius. It is advisable to disconnect your printer. Only after the last trace of his work has disappeared, including the odd line, quoted here and there, even Shakespeare will be permitted to enter the ivory-portal to oblivion. His case is just hopeless. For common mortals, like you and me, whatever time is left, will be sat out in makeshift barracks, a bit like the concentration camps, without the barbed wire and the guards. The food is much better than in Birkenau, the portions are generous, people receive weekly allowances; even afterlife cannot do without some kind of token money. On every corner of the camp’s grid there is a news agent, there are sports arenas, racing courses, cinemas and ballrooms. Clubbing is not encouraged and the pubs are rather shabby. There are however a few exquisite bars for the discerning gentlemen with no jukebox to pollute the silence and the bartender quietly serving drinks to people conversing in a low voice.

Known geniuses – a committee of non-geniuses decides who is falling under this category – are spared the endless queues at the celestial customs office, and a train is waiting for them. We lesser mortals receive a pair of sneakers and two overalls if we don’t like to go naked, which is no problem in the balsamic climate of Elysium, the geniuses get the full VIP treatment, and before boarding choose their first set of clothing from a boutique at the train station. Their train is already waiting; I must admit, it is a cute looking train, with a choo choo engine in front, bravely puffing steam into the air.

After hours of untouched forest flying by the windows the train comes to a halt at a single ramp with horse drawn carriages waiting and a cozy cottage-like station house by the tracks. The arrivals see the lace curtains move and the station master come out putting on a tall cap. Some recognize the face: “Is that not Thomas Wolfe?” After another half hour of clip-clopping through the country we finally approach a medieval town; very authentic, without electricity and plumbing.

Everywhere timber frames and steep shingle roofs greet the visitor and there is a restaurant with a view. The market place at the medieval water-well and the wisteria covered wall with the memorial plaque are favorite photo-ops on Sunday. The plaque reads: "In honor of the great Caliph Omar, who had ordered to stoke the heating in the public baths with the books of Alexandria's Great Library." The otherwise unassuming memorial is at the junction of countless lanes, narrow but picturesque, extending into ivy and roses. Many take on a job, just to kill time: Shakespeare owns the town's haberdashery and oversees the mint (Newton, who was offered the job refused and rather passes his days as a cobbler); Jane Austen is taking care of the ladies lingerie, she is a firm believer in ‘the flimsier the better,’ and rumor has it that her models have a second job in an escort service run by the Greek poetess Sappho. She had high hopes when Savonarola burned the last surviving manuscript of her works, but since then the busybodies have begun to unwrap Egyptian mummies from the imperial period and restore texts from the waste-papyrus. The stern Dante is running a poultry farm. The Italian swears on a fully mechanized battery system. Andrew Marvell is the man with the connections and the mayor's right hand and secretary. The mayor himself is a bald headed figure with sunken eyes and a sweet expression. His name is unpronounceable. Before the flood he had composed a very popular cuneiform poem on clay tablets, often copied in those days. Now the last of these copies was about to safely crumble to compost. He handed over the town's keys to his successor and went on his way to the ivory portal, where his friends were waiting to wave him farewell. The transition is always an occasion, with balloons and firework. In the last moment, not a second too early, Charles Dickens – the town-crier – caught up and informed the poor soul that some blithering busybody of an archeologist just had filled the clay tablet’s impressions in the mud with a plaster cast and was in the process of publishing an annotated translation. Our man had tears in his eyes.

A mere matter of bad timing, but the celestial administration, too, is not beyond genuine cock-ups now and then. Every evening the hunched figure of Neanderthal man is frequenting James Joyce’s tavern and drinking himself into a stupor.

He is a man of few words and has no idea why he should be here at all – Neanderthal man was never in the habit of publishing or even say anything – but somehow the administration got the study by the famous pathologist and physician Virchow in the wrong tray. Dr. Virchow had referred to the skeleton as if it was a real patient and correctly diagnosed the individual’s rachitic deformities; who says Neanderthals couldn’t get ill? Apparently this confused the immortal administrator, especially since Dr. Virchow’s study was followed up by a snowstorm of academic papers. It shouldn’t have. After all, Neanderthal men went extinct long before Homo Sapiens invented writing. Yet as it so happens, our friend is not only “writing a slow hand,” he is just slow. Period. At his death, the angelic traffic warden assigned to him never showed. He was too busy with chasing the women of a new species, still very much alive (Gen. 6:1-5). So, when Dr. Virchow published his paper, Neanderthal man and an entire menagerie of extinct animals were still waiting for what should have been a simple procedure of marching them two by two through the ivory arches. They still are waiting, lions and sheep, panting side by side, on the lookout for nasty Jurassic raptors, which, of course, is causing further delays for people ready to take their long awaited turn. The committee of non-geniuses could have set the matter straight, yet saw an opportunity for mischief, and Neanderthal man was in for it. The administration, I am told, is trying to get the poor sot out of the bureaucratic tangle – “we are just, but cruel we are not,” says the inscription over the entrance to the legislative – but so far no joy; too many triplicates and quadruplicates are missing. So they transferred him to Elysium, the least they could do, and Neanderthal man has taken to the bottle. Sometimes Berganza, a walking carpet of a golden retriever is keeping him company. The dog rests his mighty head on his companion’s hairy knee, worshipping him with his brown eyes. Now and then he drums the floorboard with a heavy wag of his tail. Berganza’s chances are not very good either. Two authors have picked up on his story, and although their popularity is in decline, they both are still in the academic editions, providing topics for countless essays in school.

So far everybody has avoided telling Neanderthal man about Dr. Virchow. The good doctor has opened a little jewelry shop, turning tooth fillings into pretty rings and bracelets. He refuses to write prescriptions, so people get their daily fix of crack and other goodies at De Quincy’s pharmacy across the road. The Austrian poet Georg Trakl is doing the house deliveries. Bad luck for people at the bottom of his delivery list, “heavy user” does not nearly describe Trakl’s habit. Because of the frequent complaints, De Quincy now mixes up the order of names on the delivery list, like lottery tickets.

The newcomer discovers very soon, that there is a sexlife after death, but once you've screwed out your brains, what else is there left to do? Among the ladies in town a whisper goes around that even the indestructible Casanova is about to getting bored. “He left her having to finish manually? That’s unheard of!” The adventurous types leave town to explore the surrounding forest. Usually they are back after a couple of weeks. Except for James Fennimore Cooper. On February 2nd, 1852, he went for a stroll into the woods; he said he would be back by supper, but nobody has seen him ever since. Apparently he didn’t appreciate what he was missing. The food is real good, much better than in the camps of us lesser mortals. Every day Marcel Proust is handing out leaflets with the day's menu. He and Oscar Wilde are the joined proprietors of the only Restaurant in town, and believe me, it is a gold mine. Chefs like the great Auguste Escoffier line up for a position as a humble commis under the legendary Francois Vatel, the coveted chef of Louis XIV’s field marshal, the Great Condé. Vatel had never been a man of many words, but when still among the living, a former employee with literary ambition and no talent for cooking had made widely public Vatel’s bon mot: “Harmony and contrast, all beauty comes from those two things,” and the celebrated chef was done for it. He will be cooking here for a very long time to come. His sous-chef, by the way, is none other than Alexander Dumas père, who seems to enjoy every bit of tasting before serving.

There is also a jail. It’s not for the geniuses. Instead they bring in, in sealed boxcars, people from the publishing business. A filthy four by four cell with barely enough space to lay down on the cement floor is awaiting them. There are no bunks or mattresses. The warden, Thomas Jefferson, I am told, has completely reformed his opinions. If a published genius feels like getting even, he can ask Warden Jefferson for the key, and to his heart's delight beat up his own publisher, not because the man had refused publishing him, but on the contrary, for not having rejected him. Or worse even, the son of a bitch had never paid the author a dime and drew huge profits from expired copyrights. Poor bastard. For him it is going to be eternal life in a full body plaster cast. Well almost. Of course the genius must be physically up to the task. A publisher with half his life spent in the gym and walking on steroids can be a formidable opponent, and all that Jefferson is willing to do is giving you the key, but he takes no responsibility for the consequences. There is no first aid kit. You better bring a sap with you and sock your man good and proper; don’t worry about murder charges. Whatever the outcome, Dr. Galen’s little field hospital is a busy place. They keep it in a little glen out of sight from the town. Of course, if the publisher is a "she," things can get a bit complicated. Usually Warden Jefferson allows only female authors access to female publishers, but there is no rule set in stone. What happens in the cell is strictly between the two and nobody else’s business. Publishers with a proven record of many rejections, on the other hand, are allowed certain privileges. They can petition for a transfer to the commoner’s barracks – although it will be a long, long stretch – and they are allowed to take leave for a little stroll into the surrounding woods; the town itself is off limits. Alas, not many choose to do so, which is giving Mr. Jefferson a headache.

For decades he keeps petitioning the administration to release funds for a bigger prison. How could it have become such a problem? Part of the answer lies in the fact that since February 1852, no publisher on leave has ever returned. A search expedition found their badly mangled bodies. Probably the work of a bear or something. There is no decomposition and the bones are still possessed with some sort of spooky life. They will be in this condition for ever if on the appointed day nobody is coming to collect the remains and bring them to the portal of oblivion.

© – 2/14/2009 – by michael sympson, 2,225 words, all rights reserved