Otis Escapes, parts 3983 - 3986

  3983. For the comrades in the troop, and in the audiences they entertained, his part was just an amazing happy accident, and they no more thought to give him any credit for his acting skills, than one would give credit to the way a tree complements a landscape. 

  3984. Like so often happens when one thinks with fondness about one’s past, after a while contradictory thoughts begin to intrude, and so it was with Otis. He began to think on the subject of the significance of  “play acting.” The questions he put to himself were similar to ones Aristotle posed to himself long ago.

  3985. Why is it, he wondered, that so often actors on a stage present a scene that is so much more compelling and exhilarating than anything anyone encounters in everyday life? He had observed certain poor people, who could hardly afford the admission for a simple one-act play, and yet they would come to the performance every night, and after a week they were just as engrossed in the production as at the first performance.

3986. Otis did not understand the audience’s obsession with his former troop’s theatrics, but one thing he was sure about, he wanted to recreate that past experience somehow. Having made his escape from the Fowler’s wagon, he made bold to return with the objective of setting the Rooster free. His intent was to convince the Rooster to join him in a journey to God knows where, with the preposterous objective of becoming stage performers yet again.