"'PATAPHYSICS: That which extends as far beyond metaphysics as metaphysics extends beyond physics."

"What does your science have to do with me?"

"Everything. Especially if you plan on making it out of this closet with your brain."

Walsh gripped his head.

"My brain?"

"Have you forgotten? That Scald Street Spectacle, that Wondrous Affair of Flying Hair: the disembraining machine!"

"Let us take as our physical basis a phrase or image described in a work of fiction. Something simple, unimpeachable of itself. 'The moon rose over the sea.' We label that statement physical. For though a literary work may be a lying little devil in the sum of its parts, we cannot deny that the words on the page say what they say, even if that statement is later cast in doubt."

"Continue."

"Metaphor, on the other hand, is a metaphysical device. 'The yellow eye rose over the sea.' Although the moon (physical) is still implicit in context, an eye now temporarily occupies its narrative space. But the moon remains the dominant element, the eye a precipitate of the physical, intended to embellish it. Still with me?"

"Yes."

"We will allow then, for the sake of our Mr. Walsh's education, the coinage of a simple term: the pataphor. What if our phrase were to read: 'The yellow eye rose over the sea: in time, a tear fell, beading along a whisker to fall into the blue porcelain dish.' Having taken the precipitate of our physical object seriously (the eye given form), we have delivered that precipitate into a new context wherein the precipitate becomes the physical. The moment of pataphor occurs when the metaphor has become so embellished it no longer relates to that which it was meant to embellish.

"Ergo:

"PATAPHOR: That which occurs when a lizard's tail grows so long it breaks off and grows a new lizard."

"Let's make some pataphors then."

"Very well. First we need a dramatic situation. Let us say, for the sake of pataphor, Tom and Alice and typical high school freshmen, who also happen to have crushes on one another. Now suppose I say: 'Tom and Alice stood side by side in the lunch line.'"

Walsh thought a moment, then said:

"Then I might say, metaphorically: 'Tom and Alice stood side by side in the lunch line, two pieces on a chessboard.'"

H-T-L nodded. "And I: 'Tom took a step closer to Alice and made a date for Friday night, checkmating. Rudy was furious at losing to Margaret so easily and dumped the board on the rose-colored quilt, stomping downstairs.'"

Walsh laughed.

H-T-L said: "You laugh, but it's a sad game we're playing. After all, Rudy and Margaret are but the stuff of pataphor. Everything about them (their wooden chessboard with the nicks on the pieces, Granny's faded quilt, the carpeted stairs of their suburban bungalow) bear no relation whatsoever to our date-makers at Green Candle High. Whether Tom and Alice fall in love or fall asleep, we will never know Rudy's last name and, indeed, have no reason to care."

Walsh thought a moment. "'The sweaters are hanging in the closet.'"

"'The sweaters are hanging in the closet, their profiles the silhouettes of elephants.'"

"'The sweaters are hanging in the closet, their profiles the silhouettes of elephants at the Municipal Zoo before Mr. Bigby's five o' clock show.'"

"Not bad," said H-T-L. "But I pity our poor Bigby, begat of shawls and sweaters."