“Sir Otis Von Beauregard Wiggle Bottom: Born for Joy”
— The Holy Fool
The night Denise finished painting him, Sir Otis waited until the house was quiet, adjusted his spectacles, straightened his gold buttons, and walked directly off the canvas into the living room.
He ate three cookies off the counter, sat in Denise’s favorite chair, and was back on the canvas by morning looking absolutely immaculate and completely innocent.
Nobody can prove anything.
He has strong opinions about the placement of the fresh flowers.
He has never shared these opinions verbally but twice now Denise has woken up to find a vase inexplicably moved eighteen inches to the left.
Both times it looked better.
She has said nothing.
He has said nothing.
They have an understanding.
At parties, guests notice their drinks are mysteriously fuller than they remember.
Conversations become inexplicably funnier.
Someone who arrived anxious leaves having laughed until they cried and can’t quite explain why.
They tell their friends about “this painting” and struggle to describe it adequately and eventually just say “you have to see it in person” which was Sir Otis’s plan all along.
Once a very serious man stood before the portrait with his hands clasped behind his back, studying it with great intellectual intensity, preparing to say something profound about form and composition and the nature of portraiture.
Sir Otis waited.
The man’s left cheek twitched.
Then the right.
Then he snorted so violently he startled himself, dissolved into helpless giggling, and had to be handed a napkin.
Sir Otis filed this under “Tuesday.”
He has now made 247 serious people laugh against their will.
He is going for 300 by the end of the year.
He does not discuss his methods.
Theologians argue about whether Sir Otis represents divine grace or divine mischief.
Sir Otis would like them to know that he considers this a false choice.
He is not here to be understood.
He is not here to be admired, though he absolutely will be.
He is here because joy needed an ambassador, nobody else was qualified, and the cookies weren’t going to eat themselves.