Sunday, November the 2nd, 2008

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A Display Of Heroics

You've got to search for the hero inside yourself, particularly if you are the sort of weedy milksop who gets sand kicked into your face by musclebound beach bullies of pronounced homoerotic tendencies. The search for the hero must be addressed with rigour, and you must not allow yourself to be distracted. That is why you should immediately head off towards the dunes and find a secluded nook where you can cogitate uninterrupted. Take your towel with you, and your picnic basket, and the piccolo you brought to the beach with you to practise upon and which was the cause of much cruel merriment to the bronzed hulks who kicked sand in your face. But do not play your piccolo in the nook, for your mellifluous if inexpert piping will betray your location, and it is imperative that you remain quite alone during your search.

It is, of course, a wholly cerebral search, one in which you must marshal all your mental powers to find within yourself the heroic instinct. Shut your eyes and imagine you are a microscopic being on an Isaac Asimov-style fantastic voyage through your body, beginning at the top of your head and working your way slowly down to your tiptoes. Somewhere between the two you will hope to find the hero. If you get all the way to your tiptoes without running it to ground, work your way back upwards, making sure you examine every little cranny and hideyhole, particularly any that might be lurking in the vicinity of your liver or your kidneys.

If, even after the most tremendous searching, you have still not found the hero inside yourself, you must accept that you are indeed a weed and a milksop. The best thing to do is to slink away from the dunes, and thus from the beach, and to continue your piccolo practice elsewhere, for example in a cupboard or on a deserted sea-girt atoll.

On the other hand, if you do find the hero inside yourself, open your eyes, pick up your towel and your picnic basket and your piccolo, and prance back to the beach to confront the bare-chested bullies. Rap each of them on the nose with your piccolo, and then spit in their eyes and stamp upon their toes. Make sure you have a helicopter standing by to whisk you away as soon as you are done, and as you fly off into the sunset, laugh your head off, and thumb your nose at your tormentors, who will rapidly appear tinier and tinier as the chopper ascends, until they are no bigger than ants, and just as easily squashed.