‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ by Anthony Doerr: An Excerpt

“This is a book.”

He blows the fake dust off his cover and Zeno smiles in the front row.

“And this book,” says Rachel, “explains how one can be a man for eighty years, a donkey for one, a perch for another, and a crow for a third year?”

“Let’s find out.” Olivia opens the encyclopedia and puts it on a podium against the floor and Natalie and Christopher drop the satin and Rachel cleans the tombstones and Olivia cleans the sarcophagus and Alex Hess, four and a half feet tall, with a golden lion’s mane, carries a sheepdog and wears a beige robe over his gym shorts is in the center of the stage.

Zeno leans forward in his chair. His aching hip, the ringing in his left ear, the eighty-six years he’s lived on earth, the almost eternity of decisions that have brought him to this moment – they all fade away. Alex stands alone in the karaoke light and stares at the empty chairs as if looking not at the second story of a dilapidated public library in a small town in central Idaho, but at the green hills surrounding the ancient kingdom of Tire.

“I,” he said in his loud and gentle voice, “I am Aethon, a simple shepherd from Arcadian, and the story I have to tell is so ridiculous, so incredible that you won’t believe a word of it, it’s true. Because I am what they call a birdbrain and a fool -yes, me, the stupid sheep-headed, lame-brained Aethon-I once traveled to the edge of the world and beyond to the glittering gates of the Cloud Cuckoo Land, where nobody wanted anything and nobody wanted anything. A book with all the information—”

A sound very similar to the sound of a gun comes to Zeno from below. Rachel drops a tombstone; Olivia was startled; Christopher ducks.

Music plays, clouds curl in their threads, Natalie’s hand hovers over her laptop, a second explosion reverberates across the floor, and fear reaches across the room like a long, dark finger and touches Zeno’s seat.

In the spotlight, Alex bites his lower lip and looks at Zeno. A heartbeat. 2. Your grandmother in the audience can sneeze. Someone’s baby may cry. One of you may forget a line. Regardless, we’ll keep the story going.