Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Publisher Help Writer

Earlier this month I posted parodies of famous authors, Tom Clancy and then Raymond Chandler, writing Help for Publisher and asked what other authors you'd like to see writing Help. KarinH suggested Hemingway, Marquez, and Sedaris. Here's my version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez writing Help.

The Colonel cursed at the printer, sweat running under his shirt and down the furrow of his spine. It was his granddaughter's birthday and all of Macando would be coming to his hacienda under the cool summer trees along the river outside of town for the celebration. La Matareria, his formidable housekeeper of four decades, told him to have the posters and banner printed by the time she returned with the caterers on the steamboat from town, but the Colonel had never been good with machines that did not inflict pain and so he cursed the printer.

It was spring when the Colonel first saw the banners. His father took him to see the parade; mustachioed men in white uniforms rode white horses shining in the bright new sun under signs proclaiming the counter-revolution as the priest blessed them with holy water and incense. A storm of butterflies startled the gleaming horses, toppling the uniformed men slowly into the mud of the street.

He shook himself from his reverie and shouted for Ruiz.

"Ruiz! The printer is broken! It printed the banner, and it prints the poster, but does not fill the poster board, it looks ridiculous!" He could hear his youngest son's quick footsteps through the dining room. Ruiz stopped at the door of the Colonel's study, waiting. "Well come in and make yourself of use!"

"Si, Papa. You are making the posters?"

"Of course I'm making the posters! Now make the machine print."

Ruiz quickly took in the scene while the Colonel took in his son. He could still clearly see his wife in Ruiz's intelligent eyes and sharp cheeks. It was in the autumn of La Violencia when she was killed, the Colonel too late to save her, ash and leaves falling slowly in the fading light as he and his men ran through the town with torches, burning the towns of Matoro for the counter-revolution and for his wife.

"Ah, Papa, you forgot about creating the bleed."

He wondered what Ruiz knew of blood and bleeding.

"Here, in the Page Setup dialog box, under Page, we make the page bigger than the sheet of paper. The poster paper is 17 inches by 22 inches, so we set the page to 17.5 by 22.5, instead of the 15 by 18 inches you have now. Now I click Print and let the printer do its work!"

The printer hummed, the pens moved fluidly across the paper, and the paper flew out, turning to butterflies that landed on the walls, their wings winking in the dappled light as the Colonel heard the first faint chuffing of the steamboat's engine.

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-- Bob deLaubenfels