The deadline loomed, and he had no idea what to write. There had to be something, some unexpected angle, some unexplored nook, some unexamined cranny. Something.
His latest idea had turned out to be done already in 1993. His initial thought was to do it anyway, in the hope that no one would notice, but it turned out that someone else already did that too in 2009, and by unspoken agreement this was too recent to politely ignore. It would have to be something else.
At this point, just about every possible take on Plato had been performed. Every surviving scrap of papyrus had a book (some in paperback) about it, and every one of those had an accompanying book detailing how it was problematic. A while back the daring proposition that Plato did not in fact exist had caused sufficient stir to fuel the fires of new publication for a decade or so, but it too could not last forever. Turned out that if Plato did not exist, history would have to invent him in order to make sense.
Hold up. There’s a thought.
And thus, he set to work writing a new lost Platonic dialogue, something to keep his profession alive for a few more years.
More longer friend see that sky? 