Tales From The Krypt

I probably overdid the scare quotes but, otherwise, worth continuing? Well it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, I like it:

Antimetabole

The man was an echo. A verbal shadow of all the books he had ever read, whether on history, economics or love. Most would have called him a parrot, but I knew better. A parrot merely repeats words, while he was a reflection of them: a hollow man made entirely of long drawn out theses and “statistics” lazily pounded out on typewriters by crusty professors, neo “intellectuals,” and other pontificating self-styled “experts,” all of whom disagreed with each other. It was a wonder, then, that there could be found any consistency in his “opinion” at all. Not the least because none of the books he read were entirely consistent within themselves --much less one of his favorite “experts” be very consistent at all throughout his or her various books—but that, having no will of his own, he managed, as though instinctually compelled, to form a semi-coherent series of book quotations from hundreds of authors supporting his “beliefs.”

You are probably wondering who this lifeless shell of a man—propped up by hundreds of pounds of pulp, cardboard and ink—was. To put it simply, he was my master. I was a simple servant in the House of ?, one of the wealthiest families in the city.

“The first shall be last and the last shall be first in the Kingdom of Heaven.” That is how I got through the injustice of it all. Knowing fully that one day my reward would come. My master’s reward would be different. Quite different, I imagined. Not that I wished ill upon him. A man wishing ill upon his master could hardly expect a reward from his master in heaven.