The Ishmael Gradsdovic Papers, part thirty-three


In part thirty-three of the Ishmael Gradsdovic papers, a parable about his life is revealed.


14 September 1994

One day Ishmael awoke at about a quarter after seven and he looked at the clock and went back to sleep again and didn't wake up until eight. That's okay, he thought, it'll be a mellow day at work today, most people are away at the trade show. He got up to take a shower and noticed a spider crawling around his industrial-strength Shampoo In A Drum. "Run away," he said, and started the water.

But the spider was having a hard time getting away, owing to a lack of a broad general picture of where the water was coming from, and difficulty in negotiating the slick and curved sides of the tub. So Ishmael reached down with one finger and let the spider crawl on his finger and then flung the spider out into the bathroom.

As he shampooed his hair, Ishmael wondered idly why he had bothered. Spiders die all the time. It's nothing to get upset about. They hardly have enough grey matter to coordinate their legs, much less than enough to suffer about mortality. Probably an imprint from repeated readings of "Charlotte's Web" as a child. I don't really believe all that karma stuff and people being reborn as animals and stuff. Maybe it was just reflex. Maybe I was actually just feeling sorry for the spider, go figure.

When he stepped out of the shower, Ishmael found that the spider had transformed into a beautiful, six-armed princess with unshaven armpits. The princess thanked Ishmael for saving her life and offered to fulfill any wish he desired, with a few disclaimers that involved complex mathematical explanations invoking Godel's theorem and and the whole set of set of sets paradoxen, the Reader's Digest version of which is that the "wish for more wishes" thing was off limits. You could wish for certain mathematical or physical truths to be changed or voided, including Godel's theorem or the set of set of sets paradoxen, but who could predict the repercussions?

Yup, Ishmael had been raised on a steady diet of such preparatory literature as Twilight Zone and that Jewish writer with the funny name who wrote such awful parables ("I could wish his works out of existence," thought Ishmael). "Okay," he said carefully, "and this is not a wish, just a request. So there's no confusion. If I want to use the wish, I'm going to be absolutely clear about it. If I just say something like `I wish it would stop raining,' that's just rhetorical, not a real request. By the way, how long do I have to cash in?"

"As long as you wish."

"Okay. When I decide to make my wish I will precede it with these words," and he summoned up a magic phrase from the last anime movie he saw, "`Ventura Ventura Space People," okay?"

"Okay."

And Ishmael went out looking for a piece of paper and a pen so he could write down the magic words in several places to reduce the possibility that he might forget them. He returned to the six-armed beautiful princess with the unshaven pits and wondered just how much further her gratitude might extend. He thought he detected a little spark of something in her eyes. No, he thought, I might get carried away and wish for something at the height of passion.

Still, he thought, that gives me an idea for a wish. I could wish for a lover who would love me my whole life and I would love in return in a perfect relationship. Wait a minute. Are you sure that would be satisfying? You'd better think this over. You're familiar with the motif: you get your fondest wish but the shock wave makes you miserable -- King Midas turning his daughter to gold, etc.

Ishmael politely told the princess that it would take some serious thought before he could decide, and she told him that he could summon her any time by saying the magic words "Ventura Ventura Space People" and she turned back into a spider and crawled away into a corner.

And Ishmael thought and thought. Not ever having to worry about money ever again would be nice. Hard to go wrong there. Frequent ecstatic sex is hard to beat. Political power might be kind of fun. Might be nice to be the next Hemingway. I wonder if I could wish for enlightenment? She didn't mention that in the disclaimer.

Suppose I could do something tricky like wish in general terms like "I wish for the best possible thing I could wish for?" I'm not sure I'd feel safe in a crap shoot like that. How am I going to decide?

So Ishmael took a week off work and spent some time in the library, looking through books of folklore and myth for the wish motif. Just about every culture has some sort of play on a hapless mortal having a wish supernaturally fulfilled and the unforseen consequences. Ishmael read them all, even at one point corresponding with some of the authors and other experts in the field. He even met someone else who claimed to be in a similar predicament, but it turned out in the end that she was merely schizophrenic.

As the months went on, this obsession bore fruit, and Ishmael published a comparative analysis of the wish myths of several cultures in a journal of Jungian anthropology. There followed shortly after a scholarly book, and then a popular version which was carried for a time by the Book of the Month Club.

But if anything, all of this research had only made Ishmael more cautious than ever before about using the wish. The history of human folklore and philosophy was all he had to go on, and in every case the wish had been grandiose and the consequences brutal. The moral, if you choose to believe it, is that we already live in the best of all possible worlds.

What if I wished for all the money I needed, and then I'd spend my whole life spending money on stupid things? What if I got frequent ecstatic sex but was still lonely - how empty that would feel? And to be another Napoleon or Caesar; it didn't seem to make them all that fulfilled. And if I were the next Hemingway, it would just be playing with pretty words that I wouldn't even have to write, I could just think them and I'd die with pretty words all around me - so what? Enlightenment? The buddhas say that after being enlightened is just like before being enlightened, only about an inch off the ground. The mountains are just mountains again. Might not be so bad, but might be pretty anticlimactic. If I wished for the best possible thing to wish for, the next question is "best for whom?" then "why?" Nope, it's a tough one, that's for sure.

When Ishmael's grandparents died, he thought of wishing to bring them back to life, and then maybe for the power to bring anyone back to life. But who really wants that power? Where would you stop? Who would you let die? As the world becomes more and more crowded with people and you rush around from funeral to funeral accepting the heartfelt thanks of mourners. That's no way to do anyone any good.

Similarly when his parents died, when his first wife left him because he'd been spending too much time researching his peculiar obsession (she once thought it was cute), when war broke out, when his daughter came home with her first broken heart, when he broke his leg in a fall and had to be carried over bumpy roads in great pain to a medical station, when he looked in the mirror one day and said "I am an old man," when he finally faced up to the fact that his hearing was almost totally shot. Each time, and some other times besides, he thought of using his wish but decided against it.

Finally, in the hospital, feeling his life was almost at an end and no closer to a solution than ever, his daughter due to visit in a few hours, his last dose of pain medicine fading and at least an hour before the next dose, Ishmael said the magic words that he never did forget: "Ventura Ventura Space People." He said "Space People" with an Italish accent -- "Space-a Peapl" -- just like they did in the anime.

The beautiful six-armed princess appeared, having not aged a single year in all this time, but this time with her armpits shaved, and asked "have you decided on a wish?"

Ishmael thought it over one last time. He considered wishing that his worst enemy should be granted one wish. That would be what the Jewish writer with the funny name would do, damn him. He suddenly thought that maybe he should wish that the Jewish writer with the funny name should be granted one wish, but he was dead, and it probably wasn't worth the trouble. "I just want a modest wish. Could I have some of my health back and a few more years of life?"

"Is that your wish?"

"Yes."

"Say the magic words."

"Oh, hell. `Ventura Ventura Space People I wish for health and a few more years of life.'"

"Your wish has been granted. Thanks again about the shower."

"No problem."

Ishmael went on to be very good at canasta until he was hit by a car at the age of 91. His articles and books and slight eccentricities (and the fact that his daughter was a musician of reknown in some circles) warranted an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, without a picture, but still several column inches. Still, his funeral was modest, with his family and some old friends, and his canasta buddies showing up for a short service before his ashes were scattered at a small lake in his old home town.




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