I love it!!!!
The fairy tale use of all the semicolons!
Now, she had never yet achieved the Pulitzer and did not know whether she ever would; but she knew that without her job, she certainly did not have a chance at such an award.
The fairy tale compression of time!
The months passed, as they will always do, and before she realized it, it was time for the Pulitzer winners to be announced.
The wonderful fairy tale style exposition, where the main character and her impossible task are introduced to us in a delightfully LnC-fairy-tale-y way:
Once upon a time, in a very alternate universe, the evil Chief Perry captured the fair damsel Lois and demanded that she spin a heap of unrelated facts into a golden article by deadline or else she would be fired.
And the fairy tale three guesses or three questions, which are here given the most wonderful LnC twist:
She took her first guess, "Is you name 'Herbert'?"
"Not even close."
Herbert, as in H.G. Wells!
"Then how about 'Swooperman'?"
"Nope. You only have one guess left."
Swooperman! How delightful! It is not obvious that a man who can fly should be called Superman, but a man who keeps swooping... surely he must be called Swooperman!!! (And what a take on "Superman"!!!)
"Then your name must surely be Kalelclarkkent."
Wow. Just wow. I'm afraid I don't know the fairy tale about Rumplestiltskin, but obviously that was the (impossible) name that the young protagonist of the story had to guess. You manage to make Clark Kent's name seem as impossible as Rumplestiltskin's!!!
And then they lived happily ever after - no, correction,
she lived happily ever after:
When the man realized that his name had truly been uttered, he flew into a rage and out of the building, never to be seen or heard from again. And Lois got to keep her Pulitzer and she lived happily ever after.
I note that in this alternative universe, H.G. Wells apparently had to protect Lois Lane from getting too close to Clark Kent!
I love this fairy tale!!!
Ann
