Manna and the Millennium

"Storytelling is about conflict. A guy doesn't say, I wanna million dollars, and then get a million dollars. What kind of story is that?" Thus spoke David Patch, my high school drama teacher. But what if a guy did ask and get a million dollars? What if the story's conflict lay elsewhere? What kind of story is that, indeed? In college I found out. Studying Chinese language and literature under Professor Moss Roberts, we read "A Wizard's Tale," an ancient fable translated by Prof. Roberts himself. In that story a wizard meets a poor man and gives him a huge amount of silver - three times. The story is not about generosity, however. It is about a quest for enlightenment. I adapted this fable to a late 20th century setting in New York to see what would happen. I let the adaptation take me where it would. It took me several years to work it out, but writing it has been exciting. Scooter thrice receives manna from heaven. But the gifts mean more than money. As the millennium winds down, these gifts enable his training, learning self-control, detachment, in preparation for the ordeal that is to come in the final four chapters (chaps. 9-12). The ordeal will find him struggling against a violent ocean, under fire in both the jungle and the desert, and face to face with torture, the terror of 9-11 and nuclear holocaust. And that is just chapter 9, before things kick into high gear. In the final three chapters, the ordeal takes him through the process of rebirth and giving birth and into a world of detached silence through which he must pass the ultimate test. Can he pass?