According to Ibid

“According to Ibid,” one student wrote, dutifully acknowledging his frequent, reliable source whose name suggested an old, Roman Empire philosopher so prolific he must have been busy twenty-four/seven. Good Lord, this fellow Ibid must have scratched out a hundred books by the looks of it, the books everywhere, and so varied, what his mother pronounced a Renaissance man, all those long hours in libraries building reputation until a myriad of pronouncements could be safely attributed to him.

When he had time, he’d Google Ibid, but there must be a million hits for someone he’d cited in English and history, in sociology and art, Ibid so wise he fortified every thesis. What’s more, he’d learned that even Ibid had second thoughts, research rushing over him like floodwater until he constructed a safe, new raft of evidence so huge that whole papers could be a paraphrase of Ibid, so famous now he was known by only one name, like Bono and Sting, Madonna and Prince, or any of those Brazilian soccer players who have been reverently cited as if their shirts were emblazoned with the signatures of gods.