Snakes in a Play

Word has it that Shakespeare wrote one of his greatest plays, King Lear, while he was sequestered from the plague. Not to be outdone, I wrote two plays while sequestering from COVID-19. One of them was actually performed. And while it may not have the depth, power, or significance of King Lear, it has two advantages over it: it’s about 300 pages shorter, and there are snakes.

A year ago I was working on an interactive mystery script for a teacher friend’s drama class, when she informed me that the school would have to remain closed. Would it be possible to adapt the script so the actors could perform it remotely, via the Internet?

"No problem," I replied.

But there was a problem. How do you stage a murder mystery when the actors are all in different locations? I came up with what, in my humble opinion, is a pretty neat solution. And if you haven't figured it out (hint: “there are snakes”), the answer will be revealed in scene two.

Murder at Wonder-Comic-Alooza-Con

A Socially-Distant Murder Mystery

Cast of Characters:

CHRIS CARSON: panel moderator

VIVIAN HARDWICK: red-haired creator of Lady Raid and Black Flag, ex-wife of Roger Hardwick and soon-to-be ex-wife of Arthur Laine.

ARTHUR LAINE: creator of Waste Manager and Trashy, soon-to-be ex-husband of Vivian Hardwick

TINA RANDOLPH: actor portraying Jane Johnson, aka “Lady Raid”

PENNY BRIGHT: actor portraying Jane’s younger sister Jill, aka “Black Flag”

ROGER HARDWICK: actor portraying Donald Debris, aka “Waste Manager,” also ex-husband of Vivian Hardwick

BUDDY GRAY: actor portraying Randy Refuse, aka “Trashy,” Waste Manager’s young sidekick

Setting:

The setting is a virtual comic book convention panel discussion during the pandemic. Roger, Buddy, Tina, and Penny are wearing superhero costumes. Tina’s and Penny’s costumes have black capes, Roger’s has a red cape, and Buddy’s costume has no cape.

Scene 1: Introductions

CHRIS: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the final event of Wonder-Comic-Alooza-Con 2021! I’m Chris Carson, your moderator for tonight’s panel. And let me tell you, it’s a dandy. First, we have Vivian Hardwick, creator of Lady Raid and Black Flag. Hello, Vivian!

VIVIAN: Hello, Chris.

CHRIS: Also with us tonight is Arthur Laine, the man responsible for creating the popular Waste Manager and Trashy series.

VIVIAN: Ha! Arthur Laine never “created” anything. He stole every character and plot from somebody else.

ARTHUR: Red, this is neither the time nor the place…

VIVIAN: Don’t call me that!

ARTHUR: What, “Red?” You never used to mind it.

VIVIAN: I never used to mind milk, either—until I discovered that it made me physically ill. Funny—I discovered I was lactose-intolerant about the same time I discovered I was Arthur-intolerant.

CHRIS: Ha-ha. Ladies and gentlemen, as I’m sure you all know, Vivian and Arthur are not only former business partners, but former domestic partners. And Vivian was also once married to another member of our panel—Roger Hardwick, star of Waste Manager and Trashy—so this is sure to be a lively discussion. Now, although none of these people really need introductions, allow me to introduce the rest of our panel.

(As each actor is introduced, they strike a pose and say their catchphrase.)

CHRIS: Tina Randolph as Jane Johnson, better known as “Lady Raid”…

TINA: “Lady Raid’s here!”

CHRIS: Penny Bright as her little sister and pesti-sidekick, Jill Johnson, also known as “Black Flag”…

PENNY: “Bad guys check in, but they don’t check out!”

CHRIS: Roger Hardwick as Donald Debris, aka “Waste Manager”… (No response.) Roger? Roger, can you hear me? Roger, turn on your audio.

(Roger turns on audio, but turns off his camera.)

ROGER: Hello?

CHRIS: Well now we can hear you, but we can’t see you.

ROGER: Hello?

CHRIS: Roger, you need to turn your camera on.

ROGER: How’s that?

CHRIS: It’s still off.

ROGER: Is that better?

CHRIS: Still off, Roger.

ROGER: (He turns his camera on, but we only see the top of his head.) How about now?

CHRIS: Okay, the camera is on, but we can only see the top of your head.

(Roger adjusts the camera, but we still only see part of his face.)

ROGER: How’s that?

CHRIS: Good enough.

ROGER: Hello, everyone!

(There’s an uncomfortable pause.)

CHRIS: Go ahead, Roger.

ROGER: Go ahead with what?

CHRIS: Your catchphrase?

ROGER: Oh, right. “It’s time to take out the trash!” How was that?

CHRIS: Great, Roger, great. Finally, we have Buddy Gray as Randy Refuse, or “Trashy.”

BUDDY: “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

CHRIS: Since we’ve broached the subject, now is as good a time as any to discuss the rise and fall of VivArt Comics. And who better to talk about the historic pairing of Vivian Hardwick and Arthur Laine than the person who introduced them to each other? Our final guest this evening is the award-winning artist who brought many of your favorite comic book characters to life, including Lady Raid, Black Flag, Waste Manager, and Trashy. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Frank Kirby!

(No response. He gives the cue again.)

CHRIS: Here he is, Frank Kirby!

(Still no response.)

CHRIS: Well, apparently Frank is having technical difficulties. Arthur, I was hoping to talk to you and Frank about the new project you’re working on together. Perhaps you can tell us a little bit about that?

ARTHUR: Well, I don’t want to give too much away, but we’re planning to add a new character to the Artistic universe, beginning with the next issue of Waste Manager and Trashy.

VIVIAN: And tell us, who did you steal this idea from, Arthur?

CHRIS: I should point out, for those of you who are unaware of the fact, that Vivian is not only suing Arthur for divorce, but for “Theft of Intellectual Property.” I don’t suppose your lawyers will allow either of you to comment on the lawsuit?

ARTHUR: That’s correct, Chris. No comment.

VIVIAN: Oh, I could give you plenty of comments. However, because this is a family event, I will restrain myself. However, perhaps no one would object if I quoted something from Shakespeare?

ARTHUR: Go ahead, Vivian. You always were a show-off.

VIVIAN: Me? I’m a show-off! This from the guy who thinks he has to imitate Darth Vader every time he puts on a mask. (putting her hand over her mouth) “Luke, I am your father.” It gets old, Arthur.

ARTHUR: As do you.

VIVIAN: Why you, you… “Thou subtle perjur’d, false, disloyal man!”

ARTHUR: Very good! Is that from Richard III?

VIVIAN: No, The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

ARTHUR: See what I mean? Why do English majors feel they have the right to bore everyone to death with Shakespeare?

VIVIAN: Oh, shut up, “You poor, base, rascally, cheating lack-linen mate!”

ARTHUR: Henry IV, if I’m not mistaken.

VIVIAN: Part two.

ARTHUR: Are you finished?

VIVIAN: Just one more, from King Lear: “Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle.”

ARTHUR: Ah, “the rule of three.” Well, here’s one for you, Red: “Thou art wasting thy breath, which be no great loss.”

VIVIAN: I don’t recognize that quote. Is it from one of the history plays?

ARTHUR: A comedy: Monkey Business.

VIVIAN: That’s not a Shakespeare play.

ARTHUR: No, it’s a Marx Brothers movie.

VIVIAN: Philistine!

ARTHUR: Snob!

CHRIS: Er, let’s get back to this new character. Anything else you can tell us, Arthur?

ARTHUR: Well, as I was saying, they will make their first appearance in the next issue. On television, they will be introduced in the next crossover episode, which will hopefully air next year. We plan to eventually spin them off into their own series, both in the comics and on television. Like I said, I don’t want to give too much away, but I can tell you that the character is complex—a bit of an anti-hero. “Ambiguous” would be a good word to describe them.

CHRIS: You’re being pretty ambiguous yourself, with your pronouns. You’re not even going to tell us if it’s a man or a woman?

ARTHUR: (smiling) No comment.

CHRIS: And what about the crossover episode. Can you tell us anything about that?

ARTHUR: Not really, no.

CHRIS: How about you, Vivian? Can you tell us anything?

VIVIAN: Nothing—other than the fact that, if it were up to me, there wouldn’t be another crossover. Ever.

CHRIS: Okay. Well, this might be a good time to take break, and I’ll see if I can find out what happened to our missing guest, Frank Kirby. Maybe he can tell us something about these exciting changes coming to the Artistic and Vivacious Universes.

ARTHUR: I wouldn’t count on it.

[Some comic-themed entertainment might be provided during what, under normal circumstances, would be the dinner break. Possibly guests could participate in a costume contest, with a small prize.]

Scene 2: Panel Discussion

CHRIS: Hello everyone, and welcome back to our panel discussion. I’m afraid I have to start things off with some bad news. Frank Kirby is dead.

PENNY: Jeepers!

CHRIS: This isn’t a comedy bit, Penny. Frank really is dead.

PENNY: Golly, Chris. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful.

TINA: Yeah, she always talks like that.

CHRIS: Really! I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never heard anyone use the word “jeepers” in real life. It sounds like something your character would say.

PENNY: There was no swearing allowed in our house when I was a kid. My parents had a list of G-rated words we would use instead. They came in handy when I auditioned for the part of Black Flag.

TINA: You should hear her when she’s really upset. It’s freakin’ hilarious.

PENNY: Tina, how many times have I told you not to use the ‘F’ word?

TINA: About the same number of times I’ve told you that “freakin’” is not the ‘F’ word.

PENNY: I don’t care. I find it offensive. The only ‘F’ word I find acceptable is “fun.”

TINA: Well, “fun” you, Penny.

CHRIS: As I was saying, Frank is dead. It looks like murder, which means all of you are suspects.

PENNY: Cheese and crackers! How did it happen?

CHRIS: The police haven’t determined the cause of death, but near the body they found an open box, a black cape, and a note reading: “Karma bites, doesn’t it?” The note was signed, “R.H.”

ROGER: Say, doesn’t Lady Raid wear a black cape?

TINA: So what? Just about everyone in this business wears a cape, including you.

ROGER: Not everyone wears a black cape. Mine is red, like Superman’s.

BUDDY: I’d like to point out that I don’t wear a cape.

TINA: Who cares, Garbage Boy?

BUDDY: It’s “Trashy,” and I just wanted to point out…

CHRIS: Okay. We’ve established that Trashy doesn’t wear a cape, and that Waste Manager wears a red one…

ROGER: Like Superman.

CHRIS: Like Superman.

VIVIAN: Roger, are you also “faster than a speeding bullet?” Because some of us here might like to test you on that.

CHRIS: …but the fact is that only two people on this panel wear black capes: Tina and Penny.

TINA: Yes, and we’re currently wearing them.

(Tina and Penny show their capes.)

ROGER: They probably have a spare, like I do. It’s usually at the cleaner’s.

BUDDY: I keep telling you not to eat in your costume.

(A chorus of dings signals that all of the actors have received a text.)

CHRIS: That’s weird. It sounds like we all got messages at the same time. Mine says… (looking at phone) “Now that you’ve heard the awful news, you could probably use some clues.” It’s from an unknown number, and it’s signed “R.H.”

VIVIAN: (looking at phone) Mine says, “Ask Arthur about Tina,” also signed “R.H.” What’s going on between you and Tina, Arthur? And what does “R.H.” stand for—“Rotten Husband?”

ARTHUR: I, er… We… That is, Tina and I…

TINA: Look, Vivian. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, but Arthur and I had an affair. I immediately regretted it, and now it’s over.

BUDDY: Well, I guess that explains my message that says, “Ask Tina about Arthur.”

VIVIAN: I knew there was someone, but I never dreamed it was you, Tina. I must say I’m surprised. I thought you had better taste. When was this?

TINA: Last spring, just before the lockdown.

ARTHUR: You remember, darling. It was about the same time I discovered you were having an affair with Frank. Like Frank’s note said, “Karma bites, doesn’t it?”

TINA: Ouch. And I guess that explains my message: “Ask Vivian about Frank.”

ROGER: Tina, I’m shocked. What about us?

TINA: What on earth are you talking about, Roger?

ROGER: Remember? That last crossover episode?

TINA: Roger, that was our characters. That wasn’t real life.

ROGER: Oh, right.

CHRIS: Penny, what does your message say?

PENNY: I’d rather not say.

TINA: Come on, Penny. Give.

PENNY: It says, “Ask Penny about her church.”

CHRIS: Tell us about your church, Penny.

PENNY: I’d rather not.

CHRIS: It might provide a clue to Frank’s murder.

PENNY: Well not that it’s anyone’s business, but as a matter of fact, I don’t attend a church.

TINA: It probably means the church you were raised in. She was a Pentecostal.

PENNY: Thanks a lot, Tina!

TINA: Sorry, Penny, but I figured everyone knew about it. It was in People magazine.

CHRIS: Pentecostal—isn’t that the one where you speak in tongues and handle snakes?

PENNY: Some do—not all. Anyway, I left the church years ago.

CHRIS: Roger, what does your text message say?

ROGER: What text message?

CHRIS: The one you received from R.H.?

ROGER: Oh. Let’s see. (looks at his phone) It says, “Don’t forget to pick up a loaf of bread.” Oh, wait. That’s from my wife. Here it is: “Ask Buddy what he saw in Arthur’s office. R.H.”

CHRIS: What did you see in Arthur’s office, Buddy?

BUDDY: Well, I’m guessing it refers to the time I walked into Arthur’s office when he was alone with Penny.

VIVIAN & TINA: What?!

PENNY: Shipoopi!

VIVIAN: They keep getting younger and younger, don’t they, Arthur?

TINA: Hey! I’m a year younger than Penny!

VIVIAN: Sorry, dear, but you do look older.

CHRIS: I think that just leaves Arthur. Arthur, what was your message?

ARTHUR: “Who inherits the businesses? R.H.”

CHRIS: I assume the businesses are Artistic and Vivacious. Care to answer the question?

ARTHUR: Well, Frank was a partner in both companies, so when he died, his shares went to Vivian and me. And since we’re technically still married, if anything happens to me, Vivian inherits Artistic.

VIVIAN: And if anything happens to me, Arthur gets Vivacious. I need to make a note to change that as soon as possible. I certainly don’t want him getting his grubby little hands on Lady Raid and Black Flag. Oh, wait—you already had your grubby little hands on them, didn’t you, Arthur?

CHRIS: Whoever this R.H. is, they seem to have a grudge against all of you. Can any of you think who it might be?

ROGER: Richard Harris?

CHRIS: The actor? He’s been dead for twenty years.

ROGER: Rex Harrison?

CHRIS: He’s been dead for thirty years.

ROGER: Rock Hudson?

CHRIS: Can anyone think of a living person with the initials R.H.?

ROGER: Sorry, I’m drawing a blank.

VIVIAN: Roger, darling?

ROGER: What?

VIVIAN: Your initials are R.H.

ROGER. Oh, right.

ARTHUR: Wait a minute… I think I know what “R.H.” stands for.

CHRIS: What?

ARTHUR: Red Heron.

BUDDY: I think you mean Red Herring, Arthur.

ARTHUR: No, Buddy, I mean Red Heron. We’ve had this discussion before.

BUDDY: But “Red Herring” is an expression. It means something.

ARTHUR: It’s a cliché, and it’s a fish. Whoever heard of a comic book character based on a fish?

ROGER: The Penguin?

ARTHUR: What?

ROGER: The Penguin from “Batman.”

ARTHUR: What about him?

ROGER: A character based on a fish.

ARTHUR: Roger, penguins are birds.

ROGER: Oh, right. They do eat fish, though, don’t they?

ARTHUR: Yes, they do.

ROGER: What about Aquaman?

ARTHUR: Again, not a fish.

VIVIAN: Ladies and gentlemen, my two exes. I sure can pick ‘em, can’t I?

CHRIS: I think we’d all like to hear more about this “Red Heron.”

BUDDY: Herring.

CHRIS: Or “Herring.” Arthur?

ARTHUR: It’s “Red Heron,” it’s the name of the new character we’re developing, and I think maybe Buddy and I have already said too much. Everyone at Artistic signed a strict non-disclosure agreement, including me. Isn’t that right, Buddy?

BUDDY: Yes.

CHRIS: Vivian, can you tell us anything?

VIVIAN: I’m afraid not. Everyone at Vivacious had to sign the same NDA when we signed the contract with Artistic. And believe me, if I could get out of that deal with the devil, I would.

CHRIS: Great. Listen, eventually you’re all going to have to talk to the police, and I’m pretty sure they don’t give a rat’s patootie about NDAs, so…

(A doorbell rings at Arthur’s house.)

ARTHUR: Excuse me. Someone’s at the door. I’m going to mute you for a moment.

(Arthur fiddles with his computer, then leaves. When he returns, he has a package. He begins talking, but since the sound is off, he can’t hear or be heard.)

CHRIS: What’s he saying? Arthur? Yo! Arthur! He must have turned off his sound instead of just muting us. (He puts his mouth up to the camera and enunciates each word, so that Arthur can read his lips.) Arthur. Turn. Your. Sound. On.

(Still speaking, Arthur begins to open the box.)

CHRIS: I have a bad feeling about this. (Again enunciating and speaking close to the camera.) Arthur. Do. Not. Open. The. Box.

(Arthur opens the box and removes a note. He reads it to us, but of course, we can’t hear him.)

CHRIS: Arthur! We! Can’t! Hear! You! Turn! On! Your! Sound!

VIVIAN: Oh, my. The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

(Vivian produces a bowl of popcorn and begins eating it, as if she were watching a movie. Arthur removes a black cape from the box.)

ROGER: That reminds me, my other cape should have been back from the cleaners’ by now. I’d better give them a call.

(A snake falls out of the cape. Arthur screams silently. Vivian continues to watch and eat popcorn. The others react with gasps and screams as Arthur wrestles with the snake. Penny lets loose a stream of G-rated profanity…)

PENNY: Oh sugar! Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! Cheese and crackers! Shatner! Oh fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!

(Arthur falls to the floor.)

VIVIAN: Well, now we know what happened to Frank.

CHRIS: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our panel discussion. We’re going to take a short break, and I guess I’ll be calling the police—again. You probably have questions for our panel; I know I do. Please submit them by [instructions on how to submit questions]. After the break, we’ll continue with the question and answer segment of the program.

[Break. Audience submits questions.]

Scene 3: Q&A

CHRIS: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the question and answer segment. Our panel—or what’s left of it—will now answer some of the questions you have submitted. But before we get to that, I have a question of my own. In light of recent events, I think it’s safe to say that we no longer need to worry about that non-disclosure agreement. Will one of you please enlighten us about this Red Heron character?

PENNY: Whew! Thank goodness I can tell you what that meeting with Arthur was about. We were not having an affair. Arthur called me to his office to tell me about this new character he and Frank had come up with. Originally, they planned for it to be a man, but they decided Waste Manager and Trashy needed a strong female character, and they wanted me to play her on television. That’s what the crossover episode was going to be about: Black Flag’s transformation into Red Heron.

CHRIS: I see. Did anyone else know about this?

VIVIAN: I knew, of course. I didn’t like the idea of losing Black Flag at first, but Arthur and Frank convinced me, and in the end I had to admit it was a great idea. Of course, that was before I found out that Arthur was cheating on me.

TINA: Are you kidding? Of course I knew about it. Penny couldn’t stop herself from bragging about getting her own show. Lucky bitch.

PENNY: Tina!

TINA: Oh, I’m sorry. Lucky “b-word”—not to mention “a-word” and “c-word.”

CHRIS: Roger? Buddy? Did you know?

BUDDY: Yeah, I heard enough of the conversation when I walked into Arthur’s office to figure it out.

ROGER: Nobody told me, but then nobody ever tells me anything.

CHRIS: Okay, let’s take a look at some questions from the audience.

(Chris reads questions from the audience. Hopefully, there will be some for each character.)

CHRIS: Well, I think I know who killed Frank and Arthur. Do you? Submit your solution—including who committed the murders, how they did it, and why—by [instructions on how to submit solution].

Scene 4: Conclusion

CHRIS: Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to solve this mystery. Who killed Frank Kirby and Arthur Laine?

TINA: I hate to say it, but it must have been Penny.

PENNY: Me? You’re the one who had an affair with Arthur—probably with Frank, too. You, you…you scarlet woman!

TINA: Maybe so, but I’m not the one who grew up playing with snakes!

CHRIS: Ladies, please! I don’t believe either one of you is the murderer. Tina, you didn’t have a motive for killing Frank and Arthur. And Penny had even less reason to want them dead. Without them, there is no Red Heron, and she’s stuck playing your pesti-sidekick.

PENNY: Yeah. Fun me.

ROGER: What about Vivian? I was married to her for two years, and I can tell you that she is capable of just about anything.

VIVIAN: (sweetly) Why, thank you, Roger. I consider that a compliment. You know, if this was like most mysteries, where it’s the person you’d least expect, you’d be the murderer. No one in their right mind would suspect an idiot like you.

ROGER: Why, thank you, Viv— Hey!

CHRIS: Vivian, you’re a writer. Would you explain the meaning of the phrase “red herring?”

VIVIAN: You mean “Red Heron?”

CHRIS: No, I mean “red herring.”

VIVIAN: Well, in a murder mystery, a “red herring” is a false clue that is intended to mislead, to distract from the actual killer.

CHRIS: Exactly. If we proceed with the assumption that “R.H.” stands for “Red Herring,” I think it’s safe to assume that every so-called clue R.H. provided us with is, in fact, a red herring. In which case, the only real clue to the murderer’s identity must be the clue that was not provided by R.H.—at least not voluntarily.

BUDDY: Which clue is that?

CHRIS: It’s the one you gave us, Buddy. When Arthur first mentioned “Red Heron,” you corrected him. You told him it should be “Red Herring,” because red herring “meant something.” What did you mean by that?

BUDDY: Just that I always thought the character should be called “Red Herring,” that’s all. “Red Heron” doesn’t make sense.

CHRIS: Didn’t you always think that because Red Herring was your idea? The idea you brought to Arthur, hoping you would be paid for it and get to play the character?

BUDDY: No—

CHRIS: Vivian gave us another clue when she told us that Arthur had a habit of stealing ideas from others. Didn’t he steal Red Herring from you, changing the character’s gender and name and claiming the idea was his?

BUDDY: No—

CHRIS: Didn’t you kill Arthur—and Frank—because they killed your chance of becoming rich and famous as the creator and star of your own television series?

BUDDY: All right! Yes! I did it! But that wasn’t the reason! It was because they were going to ruin my idea! Red Herring would have been brilliant—a troubled, misunderstood vigilante who deliberately leaves behind false clues. Whereas Red Heron was destined to be nothing but a stupid, long-legged bird! Well, guess what? It’s not over yet. I have plenty more fine fanged friends! (He ducks down to grab two rubber snakes, which he holds up to the camera one at a time.) Meet “Lady Fang-dango” and “Sir Bites-a-Lot!” (He laughs maniacally.) That’s right, you haven’t heard the last of Red Herring! (The snakes “bite” him, one at a time.) Ow. Ow. (He falls to the floor.)

CHRIS: Well, I guess we have heard the last of Red Herring. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our panel discussion—and our mystery.

 

Pandemic Party Pooper

I've been posting ghost stories every December for five years now, because Christmas has traditionally been a time for ghost stories since—well, since before Christmas. The Winter Solstice is the darkest, coldest, bleakest time of the year, so naturally it's the best time for people to think of ways to scare the bejesus out of each other.

The trouble is, this year I couldn't think of a story scary enough to compete with the horror of a deadly worldwide pandemic. I was about to give up and not post anything, when I remembered The Masque of the Red Death.

To be honest, it was never one of my favorite Edgar Allan Poe stories. His most frightening stories, such as The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher, are told in the first person—usually by a narrator who's as mad as Alice's Hatter and March Hare put together. In contrast, the detached third-person point of view Poe uses in The Masque of the Red Death makes the story seem cold and sterile—more allegory or fairy tale than horror story.

Well it's certainly horrifying now. It's also one of the few stories Poe wrote that qualifies as a ghost story. For who can the mysterious stranger be who appears at midnight, clad in "grave-cerements...untenanted by any tangible form," but a ghost?

Okay, so maybe it isn't a Christmas story. But then again, maybe it is. Who's to say Prospero's party isn't a Christmas party? It certainly sounds like one, what with the colored lights and that one party pooper everyone was hoping to avoid showing up at the last minute and spoiling everyone's good time. Sure, everyone's read it, but now's the perfect time to read it again—especially if you're considering attending a holiday party yourself.

Have a happy—and above all safe—holiday season. Stay home if possible, but if you must go out, be sure to masque up.

The Masque of the Red Death
by Edgar Allan Poe (1842)

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven — an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue — and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange — the fifth with white — the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet — a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm — much of what has been since seen in “Hernani.” There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these — the dreams — writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away — they have endured but an instant — and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture: for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appalls; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise — then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood — and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

“Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him — “who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him — that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!”

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly — for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple — through the purple to the green — through the green to the orange — through this again to the white — and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry — and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

1919 Illustration by Harry Clarke

A Grimm Horror Story

Can you believe it's October?

It's been four months since I retired. We had great things planned: travel, concerts, excursions to the beach or to wine country, Disneyland. Of course, all of that went out the window with COVID. Instead, I spend a good part of my day watching television programs from my long-ago childhood on MeTV.

Yesterday's programs all had a Halloween theme. I watched an episode of Perry Mason in which the killer disguised himself as a trick-or-treater, and an episode of Leave It to Beaver in which young Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver believed that the nice old lady who had just moved into the neighborhood was a witch. That reminded me of a short story I wrote about thirty years ago, when I was still pursuing my dream of becoming a published writer—a dream I gave up when the magazine that finally agreed to publish one of my stories went out of business immediately after I signed the contract.

I still write stories from time to time, but I no longer try to sell them. I've posted some of them here, where people can read them for nothing. That may be all this one is worth. Certainly nobody ever offered to buy it. And, as you will discover, the plot is hardly original. Still, when I found it, dusted it off, and read it again, it didn't seem half bad. I polished it a little and fixed a few things. (When I wrote it, there were no AMBER alerts, and hardly anyone owned a cell phone.) It's not terribly scary, but maybe it will briefly take your mind off the real-life horrors of current events.

Happy Halloween!

Mrs. Bean
by John R. Logue

"But Mo-om!" Gretchen Anderson whined, "Mrs. Bean is creepy, and she smells funny. And it's so boring at her house. She doesn't even have cable!"

"Now, Gretchen, we discussed this before. Grandma Kinsey's still in the hospital. Mrs. Bean is the only babysitter I could find."

"But why do we need a babysitter, Mom? I'm old enough to look after Andy. Honest!"

"Nine years old is not old enough to babysit."

"Mrs. Carpenter lets Amy, and she's younger than I am. I'm almost ten. Come on, Mom—please?"

"I don't care what Mrs. Carpenter does. With all of these children disappearing I won't leave you home alone. Now get your coats."

"But Mrs. Bean is horrible!"

"Gretchen! I will not allow you to talk that way! Mrs. Bean is a nice old lady. She's always saying how much she loves children. "

"She's an old witch!"

"Nonsense! Now, I don't have time for this. The PTA meeting starts in half an hour. Get your brother's and your coats this instant, or I'm calling your father."

"Come on, Andy," Gretchen sighed, heading for the hall closet. "We're going to Mrs. Bean's."

"Cookie!" Andy gurgled, happily. The prospect of Mrs. Bean didn't seem to bother him in the least.

"Yeah, I'm sure she'll have cookies," said Gretchen.

She didn't tell her mother what some of the kids said about Mrs. Bean. She knew that if she did, her mother would be furious.

---

A few blocks away, Mrs. Bean was saying goodbye to a visitor.

"Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Bean," said Detective Folger. "I'm sorry to have bothered you. I know how upsetting this is for you. You were very fond of the Ames boy weren't you?"

"Poor Franky! Such a sweet child!"

"Try to remember, Mrs. Bean. Did you see anyone on the street that day? Anybody who might have been waiting for Franky when he left your house?"

"I don't remember anyone."

"Well, if you do remember anything, give us a call."

"I certainly will, Detective Folger. You will find Franky, won't you?"

"I'm sure we will. We've issued an AMBER alert, of course, and we're looking for Franky's father. Nine out of ten of these cases, it turns out to be an estranged parent."

"If there's anything else I can do, you let me know."

"There is one thing—"

"Yes?"

"The recipe for that casserole."

"Now, Detective Folger. Like I told you, it's an old family secret."

"Just tell me, was it chicken?"

"I'm glad you liked it. You must come to dinner again some time, under more pleasant circumstances."

"Thank you; I'll do that. Goodbye, Mrs. Bean."

"Goodbye, Detective Folger."

---

Mrs. Bean was, as always, delighted to see Gretchen and Andy. "Such sweet children! Come give me a big kiss!"

Andy, never shy, rushed into her arms. Gretchen hated Mrs. Bean's wet, slobbery kisses. She hung back until her mother gave her a stern look and a push towards Mrs. Bean.

"Hello," Gretchen said flatly. She gave the old woman a quick peck on the cheek and tried to dodge her grasp, but Mrs. Bean was too quick for her.

"Do you call that a kiss?" she asked, holding Gretchen tightly. Her clothes smelled like moth balls and dead flowers, her breath like sour milk. Gretchen felt as though she would suffocate.

Mrs. Bean kissed Gretchen's mouth, then both cheeks. "There!" she said, laughing. "That's what I call a kiss!"

"You two behave yourselves," said Mrs. Anderson sternly, catching Gretchen's eye. "Mrs. Bean, you have my phone number, in case you need to reach me. The PTA meeting should be over by ten."

"Don't you worry about a thing, Mrs. Anderson. I'll take good care of them."

"Oh, I know you will. I've got to go, now. See you in a couple of hours."

"Goodbye," said Mrs. Bean.

"Bye-bye," said Andy, waving happily.

"Bye, Mom," said Gretchen, her throat tightening.

She wondered if she would never see her mother again.

---

At the school, Mr. Howard, the principal, introduced Mrs. Anderson to the guest speaker. "Detective Folger, this is our PTA president, Mrs. Anderson."

"It's a pleasure, Mrs. Anderson."

"Thank you so much for coming, Detective Folger. Do the police have any leads at all?"

"I'm afraid we're still pretty much in the dark."

"Well, perhaps you can give us some advice tonight as to how we can better protect our children."

"I'll try. The best advice is to never leave them alone, and only leave them with someone you can trust completely."

"Yes, of course," said Mrs. Anderson. "Thank goodness for people like Mrs. Bean."

"Mrs. Bean?"

"My babysitter. She's just wonderful with children."

"Oh, I know Mrs. Bean," said Detective Folger. "As a matter of fact, I had dinner with her this evening."

"You know what the children say about Mrs. Bean, don't you?" said Mr. Howard.

"What?" asked Mrs. Anderson.

"They say she eats children," said Mr. Howard, winking.

Everyone laughed.

---

As tempted as she was by the Anderson children, Mrs. Bean vowed to never again make the mistake she had made with Franky Ames. Her usual practice was to lure children to her house on their way home from school—the stragglers—plump, lonely children who were easily tempted by cookies and cakes. Franky could have used a little more fattening, and in any case she should have waited for a safer time. But the Johnson boy just hadn't lasted as long as she'd thought he would.

Now she was almost out of Franky. She wished she hadn't shared him with Detective Folger, but how she had enjoyed the joke! She got the idea from an old television show, where a murderer fed the detective the leg of lamb she'd used to brain her husband. She'd improved on the joke by feeding Folger the actual victim!

But now she had to be more careful. The Anderson boy was fattening up nicely. Too bad the girl was so skinny.

"Sure you won't have another piece of cake, Gretchen?" Mrs. Bean asked sweetly.

"No, thank you," replied Gretchen. "Mother doesn't like us to eat too many sweets."

"But your mother isn't here now, is she?"

Gretchen looked at the clock. "She'll be here soon."

She hoped it would be soon enough.

---

At ten o'clock, right on schedule, Mrs. Anderson arrived to pick up her children. Andy, who had fallen asleep in the middle of his third piece of chocolate cake, had to be carried to the car.

"Did Mrs. Bean beat you?" Gretchen's mother asked her in the car.

"No."

"Did she torture you?"

"No. She gave us cake."

"I'm going to have to talk to her about that. It's nice of her to give you all those sweets, but she doesn't have to pay the dentist bill."

"We won't have to go to Mrs. Bean's on Monday, will we, Mom? Grandma Kinsey will be back by then, won't she?"

"Gretchen! You're not still afraid of Mrs. Bean, are you?"

"No," Gretchen lied. "But I miss Grandma Kinsey."

"Well, she should be able to go home tomorrow."

"Good. Mom?"

"What, Dear?"

"Remember that story you used to read us about Hansel and Gretel?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"Would you read it to me again sometime?"

"You can read it yourself, now," Mrs. Anderson replied, laughing.

"I know, but it's better when you read it."

"All right, Dear," said Mrs. Anderson.

She supposed this was just another phase her daughter was going through.

---

On Monday, just before the final bell, Gretchen's teacher gave her a message from her mother to pick up Andy at the daycare.

Most days, Gretchen went straight from school to her grandmother's house, and her mother picked up Andy on her way home from work. But the daycare closed at six, so when Mrs. Anderson had to work late, Gretchen had to pick up Andy, then go to Grandma Kinsey's. The direct route from the daycare to Grandma Kinsey's led past Mrs. Bean's house. Gretchen considered taking a more roundabout way, but she had strict instructions to go straight to Grandma Kinsey's. And why should she be afraid in broad daylight?

Mrs. Bean was sitting on her front porch, rocking. "Gretchen! Andy!" she sang out, waving.

"Hi!" Andy shouted, veering towards her. The prospect of sugary baked goods drew him like a magnet.

"We've got to get to my grandmother's house," Gretchen said, tugging Andy's arm. She wished she was big enough to pick him up and run.

"Surely you have time to stop for a chocolate chip cookie?" Mrs. Bean asked, rising from her chair.

"Cookie!" Andy shouted, breaking free. Gretchen watched in horror as he ran to Mrs. Bean. The old woman swept him up in her arms, laughing.

"Come inside, Sweethearts!" she called, disappearing through the door.

Gretchen looked around her for help, but she saw no one. She considered running to her grandmother's, but what could Grandma Kinsey do? And what would Gretchen tell her? Who would believe that Andy had been taken by that nice old lady, Mrs. Bean? Besides, maybe she was wrong about Mrs. Bean. Maybe Andy was in there, at her kitchen table, happily gorging himself sick on chocolate chip cookies. In any case, she couldn't leave her brother. He was her responsibility. With her heart pounding in her ears, she followed them into the house.

It was dark inside, and quiet. She tiptoed to the back of the house. The kitchen and dining room were empty. She returned to the living room and was about to go upstairs, when she heard a strange noise coming from the cellar.

Gretchen knew Mrs. Bean had a cellar, but she had never seen it. It was the one part of the house that was always kept locked. Gretchen tried the knob. It wasn't locked now. She hesitated at the top of the stairs, afraid to go on, but even more afraid of what might be happening to Andy. What was that noise? She took a deep breath, and started down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs was another kitchen—a bigger one, with a big freezer, a big oven, and a big stove, on top of which sat a big iron pot. Mrs. Bean stood at the counter, her back to Gretchen, sharpening a big knife at a grinding stone, which explained the sound. Next to her, Andy sat on the counter, swinging his legs and eating a cookie.

Gretchen put her finger to her lips, signaling Andy to be quiet, but it was too late.

"Gresh!" he cried happily, waving his cookie.

"There you are, my dear," Mrs. Bean said without turning around. "I was beginning to worry about you."

"It's true, isn't it?" Gretchen whispered.

"What's true?" Mrs. Bean asked, turning to face Gretchen, the knife gleaming in her hand.

"You eat children."

"Oh, my dear!" Mrs. Bean laughed. "Where did you ever get such an idea? Now why don't you come over here and help Andy and me? We were just about to make a batch of cookies."

"Cookies, Gresh!" urged Andy. He couldn't understand why his sister didn't want to join in the fun.

The old woman took a step towards her, and Gretchen backed away.

"Now, now, my sweet," Mrs. Bean said softly, "There's nothing to be frightened of. You know I wouldn't hurt you. I love children."

Gretchen felt heat behind her; she had backed into the big stove. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the pot, which was filled with water, was beginning to boil.

"It's all right, my sweet," Mrs. Bean said in a voice like syrup. "This won't hurt a bit. I promise."

As the old woman came towards her, Gretchen stared at the knife, hypnotized. Mrs. Bean held it perfectly steadily, perfectly horizontally, precisely level with Gretchen's neck.

"She's going to cut my head off," Gretchen thought, with an eerie calm.

It was Andy who saved her. He finally sensed that something was wrong and burst into tears. Mrs. Bean turned, distracted, and Gretchen awoke from her stupor. She grabbed the only weapon wihin reach, the pot of boiling water on the stove. Wincing in pain as the hot metal seared her bare hands, she turned and hurled it. It hit Mrs. Bean in the face just as she turned back to Gretchen. She dropped the knife and fell to the floor, screaming.

Gretchen yanked her wailing brother off the counter, and half carried, half dragged him up the stairs and out of the house.

---

Mrs. Bean died without regaining consciousness, but enough of Franky Ames was found in her freezer to corroborate Gretchen's story. Gretchen's burns soon healed, and she became the neighborhood hero. Stories of her ordeal quickly spread, improved upon in various ways. According to one version, she had pushed the wicked old woman into an enormous pot of boiling water. Neighbors jokingly asked her for her recipe for "Bean soup."

And her mother decided that maybe—just maybe—nearly ten years old was old enough to babysit, after all.

Every Little Thing

This has been a difficult week. I lost both a favorite aunt and a favorite Supreme Court Justice. (No, I'm not RBG's nephew; I'm talking about two different people.)

I suppose I should be grateful. Grief made me momentarily forget that we are still in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, that the west coast of our country is on fire while the east coast is flooded, and that our president thinks he knows more than all the epidemiologists and climatologists in the world because he has a big "a-brain" that can retain five random words for more than ten minutes. (Big deal. Loretta and I do that all the time when we go to the grocery store. For more than five items, we might need a list.)

Our country—if not our planet—has become apocalyptic, and for me there is no better escape from an actual apocalypse than a fictional one. Some of my favorite works of apocalyptic fiction are: Stephen King's The Stand, Robert McCammon's Swan Song, Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore's The Walking Dead, and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend.

There have been three film versions of I Am Legend, and this week I watched two of them back-to-back: the 1971 version with Charlton Heston (Omega Man), and the 2007 version with Will Smith. Both were pretty good, but neither was as good as the book. I suppose I would give a slight edge to the 2007 version. It had better special effects, and a forty-year-old Will Smith makes a much better action hero than a fifty-year-old Charlton Heston. Also, it has Bob Marley.

When he isn't fighting off monsters or trying to cure them, Smith's character, Dr. Robert Neville, is listening to Bob Marley. As he tells another survivor:

He had this idea. It was kind of a virologist idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate—literally cure it—by injecting music and love into people's lives. When he was scheduled to perform at a peace rally, a gunman came to his house and shot him down. Two days later he walked out on that stage and sang. When they asked him why, he said, "The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness."

That quote stuck with me, and I've been listening to Bob Marley this morning. I like Get Up Stand Up, and I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have appreciated it, too:

Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights
Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights

However, I think my favorite is the song that is Neville's mantra in I Am Legend: Three Little Birds. I think my Aunt Sheila would have liked it, too:

Rise up this mornin'
Smiled with the risin' sun
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true
Sayin' (this is my message to you)

Singin' don't worry 'bout a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Singin' don't worry 'bout a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

 

President Goofy

How's everyone holding up?

I retired a couple of weeks ago, and now I have even more time on my hands than I had when I was working from home. A lot of that time has been spent watching the news, and it isn't pretty. COVID-19 numbers are spiking in many states, including ours. The experts continue to urge the standard precautions: hand-washing, social distancing, masks. Most of the people we've seen seem to be complying, but as of this writing there is one notable exception: our president. Recently, one of his Fox Friends urged him to set a good example by wearing a mask, which I thought was pretty funny, considering the fact that he has consistently set the worst example for every sort of human behavior. It's the one thing he's good at—why, he's almost as good as Goofy.

Allow me to explain.

These days, with students having to attend virtual classrooms, instructional videos are nothing special. Even before the pandemic, I'm sure lots of teachers used them. But when I was growing up back in the middle of the last century, it was a real treat to get to watch a movie at school, even if it came with a lesson. Instructional films taught us to be more polite, be more careful, eat healthier—usually with examples of what not to do. The best ones were the Goofy cartoons by Walt Disney, where the narrator told us what we should do while Goofy did the exact opposite, with hilarious results.

Goofy as a demented driver in Motor Mania

During the past three-and-a-half years, Donald Trump has proven himself to be, at best, incompetent, lazy, and a pathological liar. He has demonstrated just about everything a president should not do, and refusing to mask-up during the pandemic is the very least of it. He has insulted our allies, praised dictators and white supremacists, promoted violence, attacked the press, solicited interference in our elections, and blamed everyone else for his own mistakes.

In short, he is President Goofy.

Look, I understand why a lot of people voted for him. They didn't trust politicians. They wanted an outsider, someone who knew nothing about government. The trouble is, President Goofy is every bit as incompetent today as he was when he was inaugurated. He hasn't learned a thing in the three-and-a-half years he's been in office, and he hasn't shown any interest in doing so.

It's time for this experiment in kakistocracy to end. President Goofy has been a useful illustration of how not to be a president, but now it's time to elect someone who knows how to be a president. If you feel you can't vote for Joe Biden in the upcoming election, that's okay. I will understand. But please, whatever you do, do not vote for Donald Trump.

You'd do better to cast a write-in vote for Donald Duck.

The Night the Bat Got In

How's everyone holding up?

Last week I read an article about the pandemic giving people vivid dreams. Well, this morning I had a doozie.

I guess because today would normally be our weekly meeting day, I dreamed I was in a meeting with some of my co-workers. However, because of the pandemic, the meeting was being held at a co-worker's house, and for some reason it happened to be the same house where my family lived when I was in middle school (or, as we called it then, "junior high").

Before I go any further with the story, I need to tell you a little bit about the house and especially about my bedroom. It was a big two-story house, about a hundred years old, with four bedrooms, a front and back stairway, and a small enclosed foyer between the front door and the living room. My bedroom was at the back of the house. It was by no means the biggest bedroom, but it was definitely the coolest, because it had access to a small second-floor porch and to the attic. And mind you, this wasn't one of those cramped attics where you have to get to it by climbing a ladder, you can't stand up without hitting your head on a rafter, and you have to be careful where you walk or you'll fall through the ceiling. This was a big, old-fashioned attic, fully-floored and accessed by an actual stairway behind a door next to my bed.

In my dream, my co-worker had turned my bedroom and the adjoining attic into a spacious, tastefully-decorated office suite. It bore little resemblance to the room I once occupied, but being there reminded me of something that happened to me over fifty years ago. I told my co-workers the following story, which is absolutely true.

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One night when I was about thirteen, I was awakened by the sound of something flying around my bedroom, something much bigger than the usual fly or mosquito. I had seen bats flying around our neighborhood, so I immediately knew what had happened: somehow, either from the attic or the porch, one had gotten into my room.

My dream audience hung on every word as I described my dilemma: I couldn't stay in the room, but I was terrified to get out of bed. They laughed when I told them how I slowly slid out of my bed and onto the floor, then crawled to the door, reached up and opened it, then quickly exited, quietly shutting the door behind me. I told them how I spent the rest of the night dozing in my father's recliner, how I sneaked back into my room the next day and left the porch door ajar, hoping the bat would be gone by the time I went to bed.

However, the bat must have exited the room when I did, because the following evening it showed up in our living room.

My memory is a little vague about what followed; as I said, this was over fifty years ago. I seem to remember standing on the landing of the front stairs, wielding a broom. I seem to remember the bat flying straight at me. I seem to remember looking directly into its face—and it wasn't one of those cute bat faces; it was horrifying, with lots of teeth. I seem to remember someone screaming, and I'm pretty sure it was me.

I remember that somehow we were able to herd the bat into the foyer and close the inside door on it. Then all I had to do was go out the back door and around to the front of the house, open the front door, and let it fly away.

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Because my dream audience enjoyed the story so much, I woke up thinking I had to write it down. I also thought it would be nice to tie it to National Poetry Month, this being the last day—and didn't Emily Dickinson write a poem about bats?

Of course she did.

THE BAT is dun with wrinkled wings
Like fallow article,
And not a song pervades his lips,
Or none perceptible.

His small umbrella, quaintly halved,
Describing in the air
An arc alike inscrutable,—
Elate philosopher!

Deputed from what firmament
Of what astute abode,
Empowered with what malevolence
Auspiciously withheld.

To his adroit Creator
Ascribe no less the praise;
Beneficent, believe me,
His eccentricities.

Absolute Reality and Poetry

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality."―Shirley Jackson

How's everyone holding up?

I have to admit the "absolute reality" of our situation sank in this week, and I went a little stir-crazy. I don't think I'm the only one, judging by the number of neighbors I see wandering restlessly up and down our street.

I've had trouble sleeping at night and concentrating on my work during the day. I've been spending far too much time on the Internet, tracking local COVID-19 stats and reading grim tales of death ships, body bags, and mobile morgues.

April being National Poetry Month, I naturally tried to distract myself with poetry. But I kept coming up with poems about death and pestilence, like this one:

Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss;
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life's lustful joys;
Death proves them all but toys;
None from his darts can fly;
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Thomas Nashe, have mercy on us! His "A Litany in Time of Plague" goes on like that for five more stanzas, but I'll spare you the rest. Right now, we're all better off reading Wordsworth:

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
   That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
   A host of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
   And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
   Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
   Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:—
A Poet could not but be gay
   In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the shew to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie
   In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
   Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

Poetry can be very be soothing, when it's not about the plague. So can nature, as Wordsworth and his fellow romantics knew. Looking out my window, in addition to our restless neighbors, I can see flowers, trees, birds, lizards, butterflies—even the occasional rabbit. And when I see such things my heart, like Wordsworth's, "with pleasure fills, And dances with the Daffodils." (Or, to be more accurate, "dances with the California poppies." Our daffodils have come and gone.)

Look, I realize how lucky Loretta and I are. Not everyone can look out their windows right now and see the things we can see. (I'm so grateful we no longer live in a townhouse, where the view from our front window was the dumpster enclosure behind a supermarket.)

The point is, in this terrible time of absolute crap reality, I hope everyone can find something to fill their heart with pleasure and make it dance.