The Ash-tree

Once upon a time, a time not so very long ago, a plague of doubt spread across a large portion of Europe as well as the New World. The subject of the plague was of the greatest concern: the state of the human soul.  But the operations conducted against that plague have become eternal examples of fear-mongering and paranoia. We speak, of course, of the second half of the seventeenth century, when a number of purported evildoers were scorched or asked to pass impossible tests that damned their body one way or their soul another. What do we mean by doing evil? Perhaps very generally not doing good or, as was likely the situation at many trials, relying on pagan rituals to enhance terrestrial life. Reviewing the seventeenth century's misadventures has made many modern minds scoff at the notion of true witches; admittedly, some of the evidence looks so contrived as to resemble the trim and tidy criminal proceedings found to this day within totalitarian borders. Yet some not as much. Countenancing the havoc wreaked by Church and State may seem appalling to the person who cannot believe in abstract entities unless they are identified by a numerical formula, that is, by the counting drums of man; but to avouch there was absolutely nothing afoot is to ignore the fact that there is always something afoot, something wicked and unwholesome and very real. The believer knows we live not only in a world of fossils, but amidst shadows, some of darker tint than others. And what do these shades contain? All the vilest hues of human imagination, which could explain the events in this exquisite tale.

Our time is 1690, and our first and most unfortunate protagonist is a certain Sir Matthew Fell, deputy sheriff in Suffolk and resident of this site's fine, Italian-porticoed country-house, Castringham Hall. We are informed that in this same dreadful year a number of impossible tests were inflicted upon some of the district's inhabitants. Tests, mind you, that were meant to terminate anyone's curiosity as to the inhabitants' intentions as well as the inhabitants themselves:

Whether the persons accused of this offence really did imagine that they were possessed of unusual powers of any kind; or whether they had the will at least, if not the power, of doing mischief to their neighbours; or whether all the confessions, of which there are so many, were extorted by the mere cruelty of the witch-finders, these are questions which are not, I fancy, yet solved.  

Sir Matthew contributes to this onslaught by fingering a denizen who "clad only in her shift" had sauntered up an ash tree near Sir Matthew's bedroom window and was proceeding to truncate small twigs "with a peculiarly curved knife," and, what is more, talking to herself as she did so. This strange woman was known only as Mrs. Mothersole and "mainly on this evidence" was united in infamy with a host of other strange women whose behavior did not meet with approval by her co-villagers. If this description sounds a wee cavalier, consider how little it took at that time to engender suspicion; also consider that any genuine worshipper of baleful forces would likely be at pains to exclude herself from incendiary gossip and act as normal as possible. This little conundrum woefully unaddressed, Mrs. Mothersole was hauled off to the gallows; but unlike "the other victims [who] were apathetic or broken down with misery," our alleged hag had nothing of fear or apprehension in her. Instead, according to one contemporary account, "she presented the living aspect of a mad devil," and was heard to say "the seemingly meaningless words, 'there will be guests at the Hall.'" After the suspects were dispatched, as we would like to believe, to the hell they so adored, Sir Matthew returned to his house and its guardian ash tree only to espy, from a distance, something "run[ning] up and down the stem of the ash." The next morning, Sir Matthew Fell having exceeded his customary waking time by over two hours, his servants entered his locked room and "found their master dead and black." Of course, more bad things occur (so many livestock are affected by random attacks as to oblige farmers to speak of "The Castringham sickness"), albeit sparing one generation, that of Sir Matthew's son, also Sir Matthew, who had the sterling idea of sporting his father's room forever. It is then the latter's grandson, Sir Richard, a "pestilent innovator," who shall rediscover the ash tree that most everyone agrees needs no rediscovery.  

If you have some knowledge of this tongue you may know that the word for ash tree is derived from the word for "spear"; you would also know, if you are familiar with Norse mythology (as James most certainly was), that the first man was sprung from such a plant. James's works are the composite of Germanic philology, Gothic atmosphere, and a love for old Britain and its devilish ways, all filtered through one of the most fastidious and delightful styles in the English language. Even in its foray into seventeenth-century usage (the contemporary eyewitness account of Mrs. Mothersole's fate, composed by a Vicar Crome, resorts in the end to the Scriptures and bibliomancy) has its charm and authenticity, and experienced readers of James know that the professor could hardly ever resist the inclusion of this or that dialect because the simple voice is often the truest. Sir Richard, alas, cannot be counted among the simple. And so it follows that his grand designs intrude upon the awkward truce established, not quite willingly, by his ancestor:

It was in his time that the great family pew was built out on the north side of the parish church. So large were the Squire's ideas that several of the graves on that unhallowed side of the building had to be disturbed to satisfy his requirements. Among them was that of Mrs. Mothersole, the position of which was accurately known, thanks to a note on a plan of the church and yard, both made by Mr. Crome. A certain amount of interest was excited in the village when it was known that the famous witch, who was still remembered by a few, was to be exhumed. And the feeling of surprise, and indeed disquiet, was very strong when it was found that, though her coffin was fairly sound and unbroken, there was no trace whatever inside it of body, bones, or dust. Indeed, it is a curious phenomenon, for at the time of her burying no such things were dreamt of as resurrection-men, and it is difficult to conceive any rational motive for stealing a body otherwise than for the uses of the dissecting-room. 

The incident revived for a time all the stories of witch-trials and of the exploits of the witches, dormant for forty years, and Sir Richard's orders that the coffin should be burnt were thought by a good many to be rather foolhardy, though they were duly carried out.

Mr. Crome would be naturally the same vicar who charted the wiles of Mrs. Mothersole and concluded that, as it were, some things are better kept unknown to man and his sensitive thoughts. Is this why the three auspices he drew spoke of a tree, a place that should never again be inhabited, and an animal whose young ones do certain things just like their mother? Certain things, that is, only a particular type of mother would ever want her children to do.

At the Mountains of Madness

Imagination could conceive almost anything in connexion with this place.

                                                                                                            Professor William Dyer

It spoils almost nothing to mention that this classic tale of horror has been declaimed by some abler-minded cineastes as the glorious forerunner to this recent film. I have not seen Prometheus, nor do I anticipate doing so; but if its online summaries are remotely accurate, the comparison may not be specious. There would appear to be, however, at least one very important difference: regardless of the science fiction component of both works, for which I care little, the motif of At the Mountains of Madness does not involve knowledge or the discovery of the origins of mankind. Its anthem is a sheer, relentless dread at the demonic roots of our realm, at hundreds of millions of years of ignorance that dwarf those worthless atheist claims of two thousand years of deception. No, only those who admit that the ineluctable modality of the visible cannot be our only reality are not deceived by it. Which brings us to the baleful travelogue of Professor William Dyer.

Dyer introduces himself as a survivor and geologist, "forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow [his] advice." His advice, as we soon shall see, will consist of henceforth avoiding anything to do with the ice continent of Antarctica. His reason? Something which will be fleshed out in agonizing slowness over the course of our narrative, and which can only be suggested here:

The sheer appalling antiquity and lethal desolation of the place were enough to overwhelm almost any sensitive person, but added to these elements were the recent unexplained horror at the camp, and the revelations all too soon effected by the terrible mural sculptures around us. The moment we came upon a perfect section of carving, where no ambiguity of interpretation could exist, it took only a brief study to give us the hideous truth – a truth which it would be naive to claim Danforth and I had not independently suspected before, though we had carefully refrained from even hinting it to each other. There could now be no merciful doubt about the nature of the beings which had built and inhabited this monstrous dead city millions of years ago, when man's ancestors were primitive archaic mammals, and vast dinosaurs roamed the tropical steppes of Europe and Asia.

This passage leaps forward a few steps, but it typifies Dyer's attempts to caption the unearthliness he has witnessed (one quickly loses count of how often "nameless," "decadent," "horrible," "terrible," and "monstrous" recur throughout the whole story). Given that our journey is an antarctic expedition, the "recent unexplained horror at the camp" can only mean a blizzard, cannibalism, or an inhuman phenomenon. What does occur there is never really described perhaps because it is never really understood by Dyer and his much younger colleague Danforth. When, very late in our tale, two missing members of the party turn up unexpectedly, we gain more information as to the details of the rest of the party's demise, at which point, of course, it is far too late for salvation.

Why have I omitted such a wealth of detail? What city could be millions of years old if we homines sapientes were merely "primitive archaic mammals" at the time? Danforth and Dyer do "a good deal of indecisive whispering" as they wander about the South Pole in search of – and here is where our doubts accumulate.  That a group of scholars and crewmen intended on "securing deep-level specimens of rock and soil from various parts of the antarctic continent" might seem plausible if oddly ambitious; that such an expedition was sponsored by Miskatonic University, the hub of abnormal behavior in the world of this author, will explain what actually transpires, especially the enthusiasm on the part of a biology professor by the name of Lake. Lake's curiosity ("the lure of the unplumbed is stronger in certain persons than most suspect") is transmitted over radio, in what we know will be a doomed broadcast, to many of his colleagues as his party stumbles upon what can only be termed the greatest scientific discovery in the history of mankind. Lake vanishes from the airwaves soon thereafter and, just as predictably, it is his camp and allies who fall victim to the "recent unexplained horror." Dyer and Danforth seek out their fellow explorers with solemn hope; this is, after all, the deadest patch of the globe, and Lake was indeed elbow-deep in – well, we don't really know, but "existing biology would have to be wholly revised." The creature or creatures in question possess attributes that promote a human fear that should not, and thankfully is not, ever fully verbalized, and about biology and its revisions we should now be silent.

Lovecraft has engendered a mass following owing to the slime-and-scare aspects of his fictional creations, but his foremost contribution remains his inimitable and gorgeous style. For perhaps precisely these reasons, At the Mountains of Madness, while clearly a work of genius, is ultimately less satisfying than his pieces on individual characters and their dark pacts. Too many turns of phrase echo prior sentiments; too many of those sentiments entail pseudoscientific reports on subjects well beyond science's scope; and too many times are we told that our author doesn't want to tell us anything at all, but is simply compelled to do so to avert further adventure in the region ("It would be tragic if any were to be allured to that realm of death and horror by the very warning meant to discourage them"). Yet our tale has been consistently included among his masterpieces adapted into various media including a much-ballyhooed screen version that, allegedly because of the release of Prometheus, has been scrapped indefinitely. The text is itself an overlapping labyrinth of ineffable shocks and wonders that results in one rather repulsive conclusion regarding those very mountains in the title. The same mountains, mind you, whose height we have been chary of discussing because much like the "specimens" that Lake uncovers, the mountains and their configurations make no sense at all. At least not to homines sapientes.

The Admiralty Spire

Once upon a time a now-forgotten Italian art critic called this city "Russia's window to Europe," a platitude not meant wholly as a compliment. Through the turmoil of the last couple of centuries and Moscow's usurping of its place as the governmental capital, the term "window to Europe" has appended itself to St. Petersburg's many titles. These inevitably include "the northern capital," "Leningrad," its name for sixty-seven inglorious years, "Russia's capital of culture," and "The Venice of the North" (a name also bestowed upon both this German city and this Scandinavian capital), among a few more local variants. Whatever the name chosen, the point remains: Petersburg is an imitation. Yet if you have ever been to Petersburg, one of the most magnificent metropolises on this planet, you may well disagree. There are elements that can be hastily categorized as Italian-influenced – after all, Italians did design the city in the form it assumed three hundred and twelve years ago – but these have been transformed by time and empire to reflect a very different understanding of human nature. Some more cynical minds may sneer at the sleaze and corruption that have always composed the foreigner's guidebook to Soviet and post-Soviet territory; others may claim that Russia's enduring struggle to gain religious autonomy makes their pseudo-Roman architecture a particularly lurid form of blasphemy. But we will leave behind these negative hordes to their misbegotten agendas and proceed to a tale of mild salacity and great nostalgia.

The story purports to be a letter by an unnamed Russian émigré residing in Berlin to a Soviet writer called Serge Solntsev, which etymologically suggests "a vassal to the sun." Yet for the entirety of the story apart from the very last line, our writer will address Solntsev as "madam," a conceit that devolves into his identification of the writer's novel, The Admiralty Spire, with the narrator's love affair with Katya, his first love in a Russia that seems lost forever ("since the day of our last meeting there has been a lapse of sixteen years – the age of a bride, an old dog, or the Soviet Republic"). Hence is derived a litany of small everyday objects that can only gain significance in the memory of an exile. We see resurrected, inter alia, a porcelain ballerina with lifted leg, hautbois berries, a breast-pocket handkerchief, the part in his hair right down the middle, and beautiful scenes of young love:

And when night finally fell, and the house was asleep, Katya and I would look at the dark house from the park where we kept huddled on a hard, cold, invisible bench until our bones ached, and it all seemed to us like something that had already once happened long ago: the outline of the house against the pale-green sky, the sleepy movements of the foliage, our prolonged, blind kisses.

The narrator's initial accusation is one of theft: the novelist, like so many predatory hacks, is alleged to have met Katya at some point in the not-so-distant past and become enraptured with her tale of first love, ecstatic and radiant as it must have been, and so much brighter than her own mishandled and lowly affairs. Well, at least that last part is implied. Over the course of the narrator's rantings the events and shades of meaning begin, however, to take a different turn. Our Soviet novelist has been transformed again into the very source of this love affair which doesn't really resemble the storyline one bit. It is here that we sense the narrator is reading one story and imagining another:

In your elegant description, with profuse dots, of that summer, you naturally do not forget for a minute – as we used to forget – that since February of that year the nation was "under the rule of the Provisional government," and you oblige Katya and me to follow revolutionary events with keen concern, that is, to conduct (for dozens of pages) political and mystical conversations that – I assure you – we never had. In the first place, I would have been embarrassed to speak, with the righteous pathos you lend me, of Russia's destiny, and in the second place, Katya and I were too absorbed in each other to pay attention to the Revolution.

Thereupon follows a Petersburg anecdote about a cat, a "truck packed with jolly rioters" (a dead giveaway in any tale by Nabokov), a fateful swerve, and then the repetition of the same sequence in Spain, which deprives the event of any "deep occult meaning." It also hints at another type of story, the very core of which the narrator ingresses as his memories float further and further away from unfriendly and rather parochial shores.

As for the eponymous spire: this sits atop a naval building and is one of the most renowned members of the Petersburg skyline. There are countless references to it in Russian literature, and some critics have even adopted the rather faddish interpretation of its presence to denote the architectonic and structural acme towards which all poets strive (perhaps not all poets; critics often tend to gaze upon poets like sheep). Yet there is a more plausible spin provided near the beginning of Nabokov's tale that relates to the introduction of this famous poem by Pushkin, a monumental work literally and figuratively, in which "admiralty spire" is given, in Russian at least, a line of its own:

I love thee, City Peter built,                                 
I love thy harsh and horrid gaze;
The mighty flow of Neva silt
The shoreline granite by thy haze;
Thy filigreed wall iron-cast,                                      
Тhy lucid dusk and moonless shine
Of pensive days that ever last,
While I, room-bound, my thoughts untwine;
And read and write bereft of lamp, 
As clear and sleeping masses ramp
Up empty streets beneath the fire
Of thy taut admiralty spire. 
Without the gloaming to corrupt
The gilded clouds that linger long,
Til hasty dawn shall interrupt
Brief night's half-hour twilit song.

Should night bring us our notions of mortality and dread, endless day might inspire us to overcome our fears and hope for a fairer destiny. Nabokov's political leanings were always quite evident in his works, with his bitterness towards two loud and brutal regimes peaking for a solid decade between 1937 and 1947 (thankfully, one at least was extinguished). Not that one needs the political background to enjoy what is said; only the most unimaginative reader requires history and dogma to frame his fiction. But those of us who have the opportunity now can look back and smile at the prescience of his insight, given that he never supposed he would see his hometown again, and if he did, only ravaged and naked in nightmares without sense or end. Windows, we recall, often let us look in as well as out.

Counterparts

Most of us are comfortable with the notion of failure (epitomized perhaps by the maxim "Fail better" from this Irishman); the only matter left to define is failure itself. We accept failure at a certain age because our body signals that it can no longer improve, that actions once easy and insouciant have now become concerning and treacherous. The lightness of youth seems long gone. In its place come for the privileged among us more cerebral tasks and, indeed, more responsibilities. The mind develops, strengthens, maybe even never ceases to peak, but the body descends into simpler routines, longer rest and more fervent adherence to medical advice. Failure can also be perceived as relative, an unfortunate byproduct of a world in which we constantly wonder about the other side and its emerald hills. Which brings us to this nasty, brutish, and short tale.  

Our protagonist acts anonymously most of the story, but is eventually revealed as a Dubliner by the name of Farrington. Farrington is a large and violent man in frame and temperament. The aspirations of his youth, while unabandoned, seem distant although their aspirer is not old. His elbows twitch atop a desk he detests beneath the office of a man he hates even more, and all that he seeks in his mind has as little to do with his reality as we are permitted to imagine it. Since this is a tale of petty failure the details of the story are appropriately frivolous, yet a few deserve mention. As in this famous story Farrington labors as a scrivener, spending his time copying out the words and ideas of others without the slightest possible amendment of his own other than proper spelling. Such work may be vapid, but it also suggests living in the shadows of those who have succeeded. They have succeeded because their words mean action; and action signifies movement in life, change, improvement, the approbation of others, their consent and, finally, authority over them and power. It would hardly be exaggeration to claim that all these qualities are lacking in Farrington's professional life. What we learn, however, is that this effeteness extends into all aspects of his ineluctable modality.

As we begin our brief glimpse into what must be a daily plight, we find Farrington summoned to the office by Mr. Alleyne, his boss. Alleyne is a typical boss in the sense that he offers little to support his statements other than his mandarin authority. He is slight, bald, and redolent of something distinct yet unpleasant. Alleyne has nothing nice to say to our man: according to Alleyne, Farrington lunches too long, copies poorly, shirks the menial tasks he accrues, resorts to that most despicable habit of quoting others as sources of information (a great way to offend your boss), and in general evinces little interest in his work or the well-being of the firm that so graciously hired him. Upon hearing this tirade, Farrington's thoughts are opened to our inspection:

Mr. Alleyne bent his head again upon his pile of papers. The man stared fixedly at the polished skull which directed the affairs of Crosbie & Alleyne, gauging its fragility. A spasm of rage gripped his throat for a few moments and then passed, leaving after it a sharp sensation of thirst. The man recognised the sensation and felt that he must have a good night's drinking. The middle of the month was passed and, if he could get the copy done in time, Mr. Alleyne might give him an order on the cashier. He stood still, gazing fixedly at the head upon the pile of papers. Suddenly Mr. Alleyne began to upset all the papers, searching for something. Then, as if he had been unaware of the man's presence till that moment, he shot up his head again, saying: 'Eh? Are you going to stand there all day? Upon my word, Farrington, you take things easy!' 'I was waiting to see...' 'Very good, you needn't wait to see. Go downstairs and do your work.' The man walked heavily towards the door and, as he went out of the room, he heard Mr. Alleyne cry after him that if the contract was not copied by evening Mr. Crosbie would hear of the matter.

A paterfamilias – Farrington is the resentful father of five – should not, in a logic-fitted world, yearn to go boozing with the boys; nor should he, in that same world, pawn off a watch chain to afford such debauchery. Were the author himself not Irish, he might be accused of cheap stereotyping (there is no expensive variant). But Joyce knows the kind he describes because Farrington contains a lot of him, and even more of more common men. That is to say, perhaps it is indeed natural for a man burdened by insatiable accountability to want to return to lighter days, evenings that lasted as long as one's thirst, dreams that extended those evenings down rich and glorious paths. But what Farrington undertakes later that evening with a bacchanalian crew, and then at home with his children, makes us lose all hope for his redemption.

Had the story been entitled "Farrington," "The Family Father," or "The Long Night after the Long Day," we might have concluded our analysis at the aforementioned points; failure, after all, has been one of literature's most enduring topics because, over time, tragedy and failure slip into synonymity. Yet "Counterparts" is as curious a headline as Farrington's actions are almost egregiously predictable. It has been proposed that the foil to our surly scribe is none other than his young son, who has little of his father so far, trapped in some narrow, infantile bliss that permits many to survive their childhoods. One might just as rationally argue for the ostensible pleasures gained by Alleyne as he hosts a female guest in his office, and then Farrington when he encounters a woman from London during his pub crawl. Another duo, however, can be taken into consideration, one of whom is certainly Farrington and the other of whom may well have been Farrington in an idealized future whose energy comes purely from the past. The only question is to what degree they have decided to co-exist in this plain and awful present.   

The Journey to the Dead

There are many things to admire about this prolific author, not the least of which are his attempts to embellish what has already been written by writing it again, this time with more perspective. Readers familiar with his massive oeuvre of novels, short stories, poetry, and reviews would probably concur that for all his cosmopolitan education, Updike was very repetitive and very American. And what, pray tell, might "very American" mean? Americans are an interesting breed in that they do not share a common history, nor for that matter a common faith, package of interests, or definition of nation or patriotism. Unfortunately such a lack of commonalities often leads them and those who vaunt their culture to glorify the baser aspects of existence, the easy bourgeois pleasures of money, material wealth, and commercial success. Some would even go so far as to aver that typical American culture begins and ends on the sets and director's chairs of Hollywood. A fair claim, but incomplete. However much one wishes to and should criticize their subsequent treatment of the natives, the first American settlers came for political and religious reasons, mostly as a consequence of this movement. Their goals were isolation, revitalizing their community in these new surroundings, and basking in the sunshine of a world that still had fresh and untampered pockets in which the persecuted could roam. There is something artistically reclusive about such an approach: the return to nature, the inculcation of basic human values, the emphasis on self-reliance and propriety, the softness of familial bliss. Of course, not of all these things happened as planned (never mind the relations with said natives), and the conservative factions that obtained in many places were quite the antithesis of artistic liberty. Still, the austerity of their basic ideals lives on in many of their descendents, which might be one of the more typically American topoi from which Updike drew his inspiration. And one topos that can never be exhausted because it can never be understood is the subject of a fine story in this collection.

Martin Fredericks has recently divorced after spending half his life unmarried and the other half with a wife to whom he rarely speaks. He is past the midpoint of life's career and unpleasant thoughts jactitate within him, not really regrets but rather hints of disorder, infirmity, and confusion. The slow march of death he sees embodied in a friend of his wife's, a woman he knew from college called Arlene Quint. For the totality of the story, Arlene will be his portal to another angle of why we are alive and what happens to us when our spirit leaves, but she will not do it out of magnanimity. No, Arlene's main preoccupation is life itself – making the most of it, ignoring her age and past (she has "a certain air of benign defiance"), and pretending that it is all still in front of her like a grassy lea atop a distant hillock:

Her happiness glowed through her not quite healthy skin and her legs kept kicking friskily – the drumstick-shaped calves, the little round-toed Capezio flats. Those shoes dated her; Fredericks's former wife, too, had worn ballerina shoes in all weathers, in rain or snow, as if life at any moment might become a dance.

The two of them, both divorced although Martin already has another, unnamed partner, meet after many years and begin to explore their past through the common medium of Martin's wife Harriet. In time, Martin learns that Arlene is sick; she has had many valiant battles with cancer and seems to have gained some dominion over the disease. But as this is a story about death we expect and are quickly confronted with a relapse (indeed, the very first paragraph has Harriet asking Martin to drive her to the hospital).

Martin then mulls what death has meant to him in his fifty-odd years of sentience: he thinks of another friend who passed away a few years ago and held a farewell party of sorts; of the depictions of the moribund in two great classical works that remind him of his college days; of what he himself would be like as he lay dying. He deposits Arlene at the hospital where "from behind, she seemed, with her little suitcase and bulky coat, an immigrant, just arrived," and spends the rest of the story calling her and paying occasional visits to her artsy loft apartment. Arlene may have been attractive at one point in the not-so-distant past; but her condition, the weird infidelity of cavorting with an old friend of his wife's, and the overall necessity of moving on collectively prevent Martin from performing what might be done in other, lesser works. Yet they seem to have a good time together, perhaps mostly out of mutual solitude:

The sun of youth dappled their reminiscences, as Arlene stiffly adjusted her legs on the sofa from time to time and Fredericks sank lower into the chair and into alcoholic benignity, and the sky with its traveling clouds sank into evening blue.

Little by little, Martin learns about some of his wife's indiscretions as a much younger woman and is puzzled not by their occurrence but why they seem to mean nothing to him, why his memories are constantly warped to meet the needs of his current state of mind. He continues to chatter on with Arlene despite the vacillations in her health until one day, particularly worn out, she informs him that, "I just can't do Harriet for you today" – at which point our story takes a drastic turn.

Connoisseurs of Updike's works will have seen, heard, and touched the details of this story many times before –though never quite in this morbid combination that, upon closer scrutiny, offers us quietude and redemption. Martin may have been oblivious to much of life before befriending someone whose hours were numbered, yet such is the slow progression of the scythe. Throughout a lifetime esoteric elements of our consciousness dive and surface often at random, and when we come to the end, to a summary of what has passed and a glimpse of what might come, we will dwell on the small discoveries that made us realize how many layers of truth this reality possesses. Perhaps we are nothing more than evolved amoebae; but before the bourdons wail we need to close our minds to certain tasks that will never be completed, certain people we will surely never see again, and certain accomplishments that will be mummified with us as darkness gains. Some people, even heroes, however, will just close their eyes and hope that they wake up.