Shortly after departing this vale of tears, courtesy of a coronary thrombosis, Prof. Herb Tillman found himself at the entrance to Celestial University, to no great surprise. Nor, did the appearance of what could only be an angel—six-feet tall, with white shoulder-length hair and full beard and wings that exceeded his height by at least a foot—cause him the slightest consternation. It must be admitted, though, that he found the being’s nametag—“Hi, I’m Aristotle—the slightest bit disconcerting at first, but he got over it quickly enough. He was, after all, dead.
“Welcome to Heaven,” the angel said.
“Er, thanks,” Herb replied. “Say, are you really Aristotle? The Greek philosopher?” he asked.
“The one and only,” he replied. “And, call me ‘Ari’.
“Now, since it’s your first day in heaven, I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions. Newbies always do. So, here are the basics: First: yes, you’re in heaven. You made it through the elimination rounds, so eternal bliss is forever yours. Got that?
“Next, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll meet the Big Guy for at least a few millennia; He’s too busy running the myriad universes to do the meet-and-greet thing with every new arrival. That goes for The Kid, too, and Mom, and the Prophets, etc. etc. etc.
“Those are the nuts-and-bolts; you’ll pick up the rest as you go along. Now, before I turn you over to your First Sponsor, do you have anything that’s really pressing that you want you know about?”
No matter what else could have been said about Herb Tillman (at least while he was alive) nobody would have described him as timid or shy. Although a mediocre scholar, he had worked his diligent and arduous way up the academic food-chain until he had attained the office of Shakespeare Institute chair at one of New England’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning.
Thus, when Ari made his offer, Herb was ready. “Well, there is one thing I’ve wondered about all my life. It’s about the Bard: who was he really, who wrote Shakespeare’s plays? Was it Sir Francis Bacon? Was it the Earl of Oxford? Was it the Earl of Darby? I’ve always held out for Christopher Marlow.
“It’s been bugging me ever since I was an undergraduate. I’ve published reams of research papers, argued in dozens of journals. In fact, if I remember correctly I was debating the dean of English Lit. when I had my, hmmm, little accident. So, you might even say that it killed me.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?” Ari asked. “Oh, never mind. It’s not as if you’re the first academic to ‘need’ the answer to that question. About a third of you guys do. So, come with me. Just promise you won’t be too disappointed at the answer.”
Following his enigmatic statement, Ari waved his hands and the huge Celestial University doors opened wide. Herb had to rush to keep up with Ari’s six-foot strides; he was a little guy.
After walking through a hallway studded on both sides with innumerable identical doors (this was Heaven, after all), they came to one that was set off by itself. Ari put a finger to his lips, saying, “Shhh. This is the room where all of Shakespeare’s works are written. I’ll let you see who’s writing currently, but you’ll have to be quiet. We mustn’t disturb.”
“Do you mean Shakespeare’s still writing?”
Ari rolled his eyes. “No, you dunce. All the Shakespeare in your universe has already been written and published. This is for other universes.”
“It’s still the Bard, though, isn’t it? The same author?”
“Yes,” Ari replied. “The very same.”
“Then, I want to see. I have to know if I was right about Marlow, or if it really was Bacon or one of the others. I have to know for sure the identity of the genius who created Earth’s greatest body of literature.”
“And, you will now get your wish,” Ari said, as he swung open the door.
Prof. Tillman stood motionless, struck with awe as his lifelong wish was finally answered. He turned his head toward Aristotle as if to comment, but his words were drowned out by the cacophony of clack-clack-clacking that emerged from the room, like a tsunami of sound. Also, the intensity of the stench that accompanied the noise was made opening his mouth an unattractive option.
Tillman never would have guessed the true authorship of the plays, not in a million years. It wasn’t Marlow or Bacon or any of the other pretenders. Nor, was it even Shakespeare, himself. He found himself wishing he had paid more attention to his Statistics 101 professor.
As the enormity of his discovery swept over him, he recognized the absurdity of the quest to which he had devoted his life. He found satisfaction in knowing that he hadn’t been the only scholar to have sought the same answer. His lips curved upward as his attention was drawn to one of the (multiple) authors of Macbeth, Lear, Othello, and the Sonnets.
This particular author had ceased its endless pounding on one of the infinite number of typewriters in the room and was none-too-hygienically picking at a tiny insect burrowed deep within its fur. It examined the offending mite for a moment, then placed it in its mouth, and began chewing. Then, it returned to its typing.
As Prof. Tillman looked out over the vista, at the vast ocean of chimps diligently beating at an infinite number of typewriters, his grin burst forth into a peal of raucous self-mocking laughter that could be heard throughout every corner of Heaven, and which (and, truth be told) even brought a tiny smile to the Big Guy’s Face.
“Well, I’ll be dam . . . er, darned,” he thought (no sense taking chances at this stage of the game). “It was all infinite monkeys. Everything was written by infinite monkeys.”
