I woke late this morning. The day was overcast, blinds were drawn, room was dim.
On the wall to my right, I saw a thing.
It was a brown, elongated thing, about four inches from on end to the other, two-thirds of the way up the wall, behind the cedar chest, pointing toward the ceiling.
I couldn’t remember any light switches or thermostats in the vicinity. I sat up, squinted. Squinted some more.
Got up, tiptoed—why?—to lamp on left side of the room, turned it on, advanced a half-step toward the unidentified object.
Saw little horns sticking out of the end at the top.
Called for David. “Now!”
He came. “A slug!”
He picked up a shoe.
“Noooooooo.”
He ran for a paper towel.
The camera was in the living room. “Should we take a picture first?” I stepped toward the door.
“It might get away.” Paper towel in hand, David pounced, then ran.
There went my chance for authentic photo on my blog post.
He returned. “I relocated it.”
And all was well.
But questions remain:
Where did he come from? How did he get in? Where had he been hiding?
How long did it take him to crawl up that wall? I mean, he’s a slug. Sluggish. Did he cover all that territory while I slumbered only inches away?
What if he had turned toward the bed instead of away from it? Would I have opened my eyes and found myself nose to nose with him?
And, more to the point—
Was he alone? Or did he have company? Are there more? His spouse? His children? His sisters and his cousins and his aunts?
His sisters and his cousins, Whom he reckons up by dozens, And his aunts!
Jack Cowherd (NOT Cow-erd) has just been elected Governor of Texas when he learns that Texas is no longer part of the United States—it happened fast, and not the way you think—and he’s actually President of the brand new Second Republic of Texas. After a ceremony at the State Capitol, Jack, his wife Nadine (well endowed, but not with brains), his chief of staff Tasha Longoria (overqualified in both brains and common sense), newly dug-up chauffeur Rusty. and “fuzzy-cheeked” aide Shane arrive Austin’s Camp Mabry to inspect the Texas Freedom Militia. When you don’t have an official military, you go with what you’ve got.
*
They arrived at Camp Mabry, once home to the Texas National Guard; now occupied by the Texas Freedom Militia. Rusty slowed the Lincoln and turned into the main entry drive. Two camo-clad militia members immediately stepped out of a small booth in front of the gate. One held up his hand. Rusty braked to a stop.
The militiaman with his hand up ambled over to the driver’s window. Rusty lowered it and stuck his head out. “We’re here for the inspection,” he said.
The militiaman said, “May I see your papers, please?”
“We don’t have any papers,” said Rusty. “We’re not with the militia.”
“I know that, sir. That’s why I need to see some identification.”
Rusty smiled. “Oh, why didn’t you say so?” He handed over a card from his wallet.
The militiaman scrutinized the plastic card. “This is your Costco membership, sir. I need your driver’s license.”
“Uh, the thing is, I don’t have it on me.”
“What?” said Tasha. “You’re the driver and you don’t have a license?”
“I have a license. I just don’t have it here, is all.”
“Well, where is it?”
Rusty furrowed his brow. “You know, I think I left it at the bowling alley last night when I rented these shoes.” He pulled a foot onto the seat to show Shane. “See, I’m still wearing them.”
Shane said, “He’s right, ma’am. Those are bowling shoes.”
The militiaman leaned in toward Rusty. “I can’t let you in wearing bowling shoes, sir.”
“What difference does it make what shoes I’m wearing?”
“What I mean is, you can’t come in without identification.”
Tasha opened her door and stepped out of the car. The second militiaman jumped back, whipped out a Glock pistol, and pointed it at her. “Get back in the car right now!”
Tasha glared at him. “Or what, you’ll shoot the president’s chief of staff?”
The militiaman lowered the gun in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Look in the back seat. That’s Jack Cowherd, president of the Republic of Texas.”
The man peered into the car. “Shit, Lonnie, she’s right. They could have told us.”
“Well I’ll be goddamned,” said the man called Lonnie. “What brings you to Camp Mabry, sir?”
Jack got out of the car. “General Cummings invited me to inspect the troops You boys don’t want to keep him waiting, do you?”
“No, sir!” said Lonnie, saluting. “Nate, put that gun away.”
Nate quickly holstered the pistol. “Sorry, sir . . . ma’am. Just trying to be safe, you know. Just last week they caught a Muslim terrorist over in Copperas Cove.”
“That wasn’t no terrorist,” said Lonnie. “That was a Mexican woman at the swimming pool with a towel on her head.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t know that until they pulled it off and she yelled something in Spanish.”
Tasha said, “I’ll bet it was ‘Give me my towel back, you idiot.”
“No, I think it had more cuss words.”
“Excuse me, boys,” said Jack, “y’all are doing a fine job but I wonder if we could go meet the general now.”
“Yes, sir!” the militiamen shouted in unison. They stepped away from the car and raised the gate.
Jack and Tasha got back in the Lincoln. As the car rolled trough the gate Tasha noticed both guards snapping iPhone pictures of the vehicle. Rusty said, “Damn, I’ll sleep better tonight knowing they caught that Isis woman in Copperas Cove.”
Says the author, “The Republic of Jack is a whimsical imagining of a world in which modern Texas secessionists get their way, only to learn that Aesop was right so many years when he wrote, ‘Be careful what you wish for.'”
Lobbing china at the hearth might be therapetic, as Barney Fife used to say, but it also ends with a lot of sweeping and mopping, and, if the S&M aren’t done properly, the tweezing of tiny participles* out of the soles of one’s feet.
I’m more of a venter than a lobber. The disadvantage of venting is that ventees think I’m either (a) complaining (not so, just saying how it is), or (b) wanting them to fix it (not so, just saying how it is).
But today venting seemed appropriate, so I engineered a venting fit. First, I cooled down. Active anger results in tangled thoughts and words. So I centered.
Then I emailed two of my elected representatives, stated my concern, and asked what they think about the issue. Next, I told them what I think and, in measured but no uncertain terms, advised them they’d better agree with me and act accordingly.
I do not expect them to agree or to act accordingly.
I do expect to receive, via email, replies so patronizingly and condescendingly irritating that I’ll be tempted to lob hand-painted periwinkles at the hearth.
But I shall not lob. I shall engineer another venting fit.
I do not expect to set everything right—after all, if Hamlet, who was a lot savvier than I, was unsuccessful at rooting out corruption in government, I doubt my paltry efforts would have much effect.
But I will use my time wisely. I will exercise my Constitutional right of Freedom of Speech.
I will email the Powers That Be.
And if the PTB find those emails patronizing, condescending, and irritating, I’ll have done what I set out to do.
A Facebook friend asks what we’ve accomplished during this week of sheltering in place.
On Sunday, I wore matching socks.
Things have gone downhill since.
Sleep deprivation takes its toll. Reasons are varied and fixes limited. And unpleasant. I don’t mind meditating, but I do mind turning off screens an hour before bedtime so my “overly sensitive” pineal glad isn’t exposed to too much blue light.
I also mind not being able to write at night, which is my most creative time.
I’ll do what I’m supposed to, but I won’t like it.
Last night, dead tired after three wakeful nights, I fell into bed, certain I would immediately pass out. Instead, before Morpheus overtook me, I thought about Donny. He’s a fifteen-year-old boy, lives on a South Texas ranch, and has raised a Brahman bull from an orphan calf. He’s having trouble letting go of his friend, and more trouble avoiding a no-account ranch hand who’s taken a dislike to them both.
Donny is a sweet boy. I’ve known him since I created him four years ago. Our relationship was difficult at times until I backed off and let him figure out how to solve his own problems. But he’s done well. Now it’s my turn.
Consequently, he’s been on my mind a lot lately, and last night when the thought of him floated through, my brain switched on, and the revising began: In the first scene, Donny says this—should he say that instead? Or should he say nothing at all?
And so it went, and so it goes.
Again, night has fallen, and after a day of feeling ratty from lack of sleep, I’ve suddenly revived. I want to write.
I’ve yielded to temptation: The laptop should have been turned off three hours ago, but I’m still writing. I feel better now than I did when I began this post, right after dinner. Chances are when I get to bed, I’ll still be thinking about Donny.
This has to stop. When I don’t get enough sleep at night, I can’t work during the day. I must write.
From William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Act I, scene iv
MERCUTIO: O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon spokes made of long spinners’ legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider web;
Her collars, of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams;
Her whip, of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometimes she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail
Tickling a parson’s nose as ‘a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Sometimes she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This is she!
I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything. ~ Steven Wright
My random brain, which seems to be in the ascendency where the A to Z is concerned, thought first of the dictionaryagain today. The first word that jumped out was
pachmann, who turned out to be a Russian pianist, not a computer game
followed by, among others,
pachyblepharon – a thickening of the tarsal border of the eyelid
which sounds like something I might have ended up with when I disinfected my eye
and
pachycephalosaurus – A large herbivorous dinosaur of the genus Pachycephalosaurus of the late Cretaceous Period. It grew to about 7.6 m (25 ft) long and had a domed skull up to 25.4 cm (10 inches) thick that was lined with small bumps and spikes. The thick skull may have been used for head-butting during mating displays
pachychromatic – having coarse chromatin threads [not thick musical scales]
pachydactyly – abnormal enlargement of fingers and toes
I figured out pachycephalosaurus and pachydactyly before looking them up, I’m pleased to say, since it means I haven’t forgotten all my Greek roots.
I then thought about random thought, and so googled “random brain,” and found an article (Cosmos, May 18 2017) describing a study in which
Neuroscientists at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (CCU) in Lisbon, Portugal, reveal the unexpected finding in a report that aims to unpack how humans and other animals decide how and when to act.
Neuroscientists have long accepted that even in strictly controlled laboratory conditions, the exact moment when a subject will decide to act is impossible to predict.
In short, the scientists found that “‘[t]he brain’s prefrontal cortex – the seat of decision-making – has no input into the timing of random actions,'” but that
“‘[t]he medial prefrontal cortex appears to keep track of the ideal waiting time based on experience. The secondary motor cortex also keeps track of the ideal timing but in addition shows variability that renders individual decisions unpredictable.'”
The researchers were surprised at discovering the “‘not-well-appreciated “separation of powers” within the brain.'”
Personal observation underscores the finding: It’s four p.m., and William and Ernest are lying in the kitchen, watching David prepare their dinner and insulin injections. Several times a day they watch David go to the kitchen but at four o’clock they follow him. Their actions must be based on experience; hence the medial prefrontal cortex determines their action, and David’s as well. Human experience shows that if dinnertime is random, cats chew the carpet, a consummation devoutly not to be wished.
In the course of my mental ramblings, I thought of other things: Miss Petunia, an old neighbor well worth two or three posts, and more appropriate to the day, but better left to my putative novel.
Then there was my misuse of since in the paragraph following pachydactyly, because since means because, which I just used properly.
I also thought of stories about Mr. F., Mr. J., and Miss Fl., also not the best post material. To get them out of my system, I just put them in an email to a friend who has long suffered random thoughts I can’t make post-public.
I thought about changing the appearance of my blog, because I’m tired of looking at it, but how would I display my photographs so prominently?
Again I am reduced to browsing through the Os in the dictionary to come up with a topic. Maybe it’s isolation, maybe it’s inactivity, maybe it’s too much original Law & Order, maybe it’s general cussedness, but whatever it is—I will not dignify it by calling it writer’s block—I’m grateful to Dr. Samuel Johnson and his literary descendants for aiding in the A to Z endeavor.
Disclaimer: Anything in this post that sounds like science only scratches the surface. Don’t believe it.
The first thing that jumps out on the O page is names:
The second thing that jumps out is that although the lexicographer included the name of a Supreme Court justice, an artist, a playwright, and a fictional character, he didn’t include Peter O’Toole. That’s a great failing. Surely Peter O’Toole deserves as much attention as Scarlett O’Hara.
The phrase has been stuck in my brain since 1976, when I took a summer course in microbiology. I’d gotten my degree three years before but thought spending several hours a day in lecture and lab, growing and observing little dots under a microscope for five weeks, would be fun. That says something about my concept of fun.
Obligate parasite stands out because of the professor’s indignation over the misuse of the word mildew—in TV commercials, for example, advertising detergent to wash mildew out of clothing.
“It’s not mildew,” he said. “It’s mold. Mildew is an obligate parasite!” He said it several times during the semester.
Since 1976, every time I’ve come across the word mildew, I’ve thought obligate parasite.
Wandering around the ‘net, I came across claims that mildew can grow on some natural fabrics, such as cotton. I’m not qualified to speak to that. I’ll stick with what I learned in the micro course, most of which wasn’t about mold and mildew. I also noticed authors often use mildew and mold interchangeably.
I’ve always wondered, though, about the phrase obligate parasite. It sounds redundant. Doesn’t the word parasite mean that it’s obligated to a host?
With the world at my fingertips, I googled and discovered that there’s also a facultative parasite.
Obligate parasites can survive only with the presence of a host. Facultative parasites can pass important stages of their lives without a host.
A virus is an obligate parasite.
Which brings us back to where we’d rather not go but can’t get away from.
Oh, well.
I looked at pictures of parasites but decided to post one of Peter O’Toole instead.
***
The microbiology course was fun.
***
Image of Peter O’Toole via Wikipedia. Public domain.
I got mixed up and posted on Sunday, April 12, which was supposed to be my day of rest. But I didn’t realize I was off schedule until after I posted yesterday’s Day N, on what was really Day M.
I could pretend I’m in an advanced time zone, but that would be dishonest.
So I’m taking today off. Tomorrow, I’ll post my Day O post on Day O.
And if I’ve got this wrong, too, don’t bother telling me. It won’t do a bit of good.
Ernest wanted a share of the chili I had for dinner. I was not into sharing.
He’s never had people food and thus has no concept of tummy ache. He also has no concept of, “It would burn your mouth.” Or, “You wouldn’t eat it. After you get one sniff, you’ll walk away.”
Or, “I don’t eat your food, so you’re not going to eat mine.”
Truth to tell, I wasn’t crazy about it myself. It came from a can. Thinking canned chili appropriate for sheltering in place, which I assumed would be like spending several years in an underground bomb shelter, I bought two cans. After a month inside I gave in and opened one.
When I say I wasn’t crazy about it, I mean it it’s okay, but it doesn’t measure up to my mother’s. Well, what does?
She didn’t use as much chili powder as the factory does. She sautéd onions, browned ground meat, and added Chili Quick. She might have used a little chili powder, but not much. Chili Quick did the job. No catsup, no tomatoes, no jalapeños. Sometimes we spooned chili over rice, but the two were never combined at the stove. Like rice, pinto beans were served on the side.
She usually delighted my father by making it for the first cold snap.
“Oh, I can’t cook,” she often said. When I disputed that, she said she didn’t cook exotic or complicated dishes. I told her she was a plain cook. For the most part, she made what my father liked, which meant she cooked what his grandmother had (for example, fried chicken unencumbered with layers of crust, homemade peach ice cream, meringue pies). There was one exception: She served only one kind of meat dish per meal. The Waller women put three meats on the table (for example, roast beef, ham, fried steak); his aunts apologized if they served only two.
My father ate everything my mom cooked, even fried liver, which he hated, but he never complained. When he wasn’t home, she cooked creamed chicken on toast. Home from World War II, he had banned creamed everything, Irish potatoes, and Spam. He got over the Irish potato phobia but not the other. My first week in second grade at a new school, I reported that the cafeteria offered a choice of ham or something else that was flat and sort of pinkish. I’d never heard of Spam.
I understand I’m not the only Baby Boomer unfamiliar with that delicacy.
Having been stationed for several months in Scotland and England, my dad also banned mutton. For a while after the war, mutton was the only meat my mom could get. She pretended it was beef.
Casseroles were not a favorite so we didn’t often have them. Once, when I was in high school—a good twenty years after D-Day—my mom came home from work with a new recipe for tuna casserole and said she liked it and was going to make it, so there. It was terrible. We ate peanut butter sandwiches and gave the casserole Desiree, our Collie. Desiree looked at it and walked away. Randy, the enormous yellow dog who lived next door, came over and finished it off. How he managed to gobble up every scrap, even soupy white sauce, and leave the asparagus I don’t know. I guess it’s a dog thing.
Back to Ernest. He was interested in the chili but ignored the green beans. Also canned. I sympathized. I love fresh green beans. The green pintos that came from my great-uncle’s Maurice’s garden on the farm were delicious. So were the mature pintos.
I’ve picked rows and rows of those, then sat at home in the air conditioning, shelling same. Most went into the freezer, as did black-eyed peas. Cream peas, rarely planted, we’re exquisite.
Uncle Maurice was generous with his produce, but gathering it could be hazardous. Once when a group of women were picking beans and peas for a Methodist Church dinner, one of them came upon a rattlesnake. The story goes that she ran but her shoes stayed put.
One year, Dick Ward, of nickel ice cream fame, stopped my father outside the ice cream parlor, then went back inside and brought out a paper sack of dried cream peas and asked my dad to plant them on his farm, where Dick had once lived. At the end of the season, my dad delivered to Dick the entire crop—one pea. The seeds were either old or passive aggressive.
Ernest, wondering where the chili went
Back to Ernest again. As I said, he wouldn’t have eaten the chili. But he would have snuffled it, and eating chili that’s been cat snuffled is almost as bad as eating chili that’s been cat licked. I’ve caught him licking cream cheese off English muffins I’ve carelessly set on the table beside my recliner and walked away from. I can’t be sure he won’t branch out, and that would be a certain recipe for tummy ache.
And, most important of all, I’m Ernest’s mother. I should do as well by him as mine did by me.
Yesterday I loved Nancy Drew. Today I love washing machines.
The latest model is a year old, and it’s still a minor miracle. It balances the load, pours in about a teacup of water, goes swish . . . swish . . . swish . . . and, when it’s finished, plays Schubert’s “The Trout.”
Delightful.
I intended to write more about washing machines, but I’ve decided instead to address a misconception related to my novel in progress: the use of the title Miss.
One of my characters, Miss Emma, is what used to be called a little old lady. She’s a widow with a forty-year-old son.
Two editors who’ve critiqued the early chapters have the character should be called Mrs. Emma, because Miss is reserved for unmarried women.
No.
Miss is an all-purpose title. I understand the issue can be confusing, but I know whereof I speak:
Miss Ethel, Miss Edna, Miss Pearl, Miss Beulah, Miss Louise, and Miss Bessie were spinsters.
Miss Blanche, Miss Gladys, Miss Minnie, Miss Mamie, and Miss Cora were widows.
Miss Jessie, Miss Bettie, Miss Katie Maude, Miss Sammie, Miss Polly, Miss Carmen, Miss Essie, Miss Janie, Miss Lily, and Miss Sallie were married.
I did not sleep last night—I mean, I did not sleep at all—and no sleep means no post. Not the post I’d planned anyway.
Here’s the thing: I didn’t sleep last night because I’d been writing the Day H post. I was engaged. I was focused—hyperfocused. My brain buzzed. I was on. I was up. I was wired.
That is my process: I’m most creative at night. And once my brain starts buzzing, it doesn’t stop.
I completed the post, clicked Publish, went to bed. . . .
. . . breathed deeply, emptied my mind, mentally repeated Ommmmmmmmmmmmm, breathed deeply, emptied my mind . . . thrashed around . . .
Three hours later, I got up, read for a while. Drank two cups of chamomile tea, which proved neither soporific nor tasty.
And here I am, nearly midnight, still awake. But not for long.
I’m writing, true. But hyperfocusing? Buzzing? On? Up? Wired?
Day H. I’ve worked my way from “Herman” (a kitchen monster) through “Here’s the latest from SIP” (bo-ring) to “Husband,” which I should have thought of in the first place.
Here’s the low-down.
After careers focusing on criminal codes and tax codes, David Davis creates. His Alien Resortcartoon has appeared in newspapers in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia.
A little background on that: Coy crash landed his spaceship on a Pacific island and has since been joined by other ETs—Plucky, Deadpan, and Lmao—who help him write comics. A group of earthlings, the Beacons of Night and their leader, Rash Lambert, oppose the efforts of Coy and his friends (“We stand for a united earth. If you were born here, you’re one of us. When Alien Resort makes comics, they’re stealing our jobs.”)
Before becoming a cartoonist, David Davis produced, directed, wrote, and sometimes acted in sci-fi videos. His work has appeared at the 2017 Fort Worth Indie Film Showcase; the 2017 Dallas Medianale; the 2012 Boomtown Film and Music Festival in Beaumont, Texas, and the 2012 CosmiCon and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Roswell, New Mexico, as well as other venues.
Last Saturday, his first animated video, Blood Bank, was screened at the Dallas Alt Fiction film festival—online, of course, in the comfort of everyone’s living room.
He’s recently completed a second animated short-short: Time Capsule.
In all his creative endeavors, David is self-taught. He also excels at producing award-winners on a shoestring. Where some directors spend millions, David reaches into a drawer, pulls out a vegetable steamer, applies a few special effects, and—voila! a spaceship rises from the ground and makes for Venus. Or somewhere in the vicinity.
Aha! face mask! So obvious! So timely. A post about Sheltering in Place Day 18, when you realized you would be going to the doctor on Day 21 sans mask, and you decided you had to have one, so you would buckle down and make one.
But then you think back over the experience, the tea towels, the patterns, the videos, the having to ask David for needle and thread because, manual dexterity not being your number one attribute, you gave up on that kind of thing years ago, and he’s a better seamstress than you ever were anyway.
You remember how fast you gave up on mask-making, and just as fast, you give up on writing about giving up on making them.
I then promised to finish Day B on Day D. Day D would have been titled D is for Dog.
Unfortunately, this afternoon, I sprayed a solution of Clorox and water in the wrong direction and disinfected my eyes. And thus Dog turned into Disinfect. And Darn.
Seven hours later, my left eye isn’t in the best of shape—it sees but doesn’t feel like seeing. According to the reflection in my hand mirror, it doesn’t feel like being seen, either.
Furthermore, applying a cold compress to the left eye precludes typing with the left hand.
I hate to do this, but Day B, Part 2 will post on Day E.
In my A post I mentioned the mistake I made in signing up for the A to Z Challenge: I registered my blog as “Author/Writer (craft of writing, stories, memoir),” instead of “Other and Miscellaneous.”
It really doesn’t matter. I mean, there are mistakes, and there are mistakes.
For letter B, I’m writing about another of my mistakes. It’s more of a mistake. But I can’t go right to the heart of the matter. There’s backstory to be dealt with. If you’ll be patient for just a little while, I’ll get there.
Set in 17th century England, the poem tells the story of Bessie, a young woman whose lover, Basil Underwood, has been imprisoned by the Puritans and sentenced to die that night at the sound of the curfew bell. Oliver Cromwell is expected to arrive that night, but after the bell has rung. Bessie begs the sexton not to ring the bell; he says he’s never failed to ring curfew and that he won’t fail to ring it tonight. But Bessie is determined to save her lover. The next lines describe her heroic actions.
Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow, As within her secret bosom, Bessie made a solemn vow. She had listened while the judges read, without a tear or sigh, ‘At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die.’ And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright; One low murmur, faintly spoken. ‘Curfew must not ring tonight!’
She with quick step bounded forward, sprang within the oldchurch-door, Left the old man coming slowly, paths he’d trod so oft before. Not one moment paused the maiden, But with eye and cheek aglow, Staggered up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro; As she climbed the slimy ladder, on which fell no ray of light, Upward still, her pale lips saying, ‘Curfew shall not ring tonight!’
She has reached the topmost ladder, o’er her hangs the great dark bell; Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell. See! the ponderous tongue is swinging; ’tis the hour of curfew now, And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow. Shall she let it ring? No, never! Her eyes flash with sudden light, As she springs, and grasps it firmly: ‘Curfew shall not ring tonight!’
Out she swung – far out. The city seemed a speck of light below ― There twixt heaven and earth suspended, as the bell swung to and fro. And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell, Sadly thought that twilight curfew rang young Basil’s funeral knell. Still the maiden, clinging firmly, quivering lip and fair face white, Stilled her frightened heart’s wild throbbing: ‘Curfew shall not ring tonight!’
It was o’er, the bell ceased swaying; and the maiden stepped once more Firmly on the damp old ladder, where, for hundred years before, Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done Should be told long ages after. As the rays of setting sun Light the sky with golden beauty, aged sires, with heads of white, Tell the children why the curfew did not ring that one sad night.
When Cromwell arrives, she tells him her story, and, touched by her heroism, he lets Basil live. Basil emerges from the prison expecting to die but instead finds Bessie holding his pardon. And—
In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and white, Whispered, ‘Darling, you have saved me, curfew will not ring tonight.’
For years, “Curfew” was exceedingly popular: A favorite of Queen Victoria, it provided inspiration for a play and and for three silent movies. It was recited by one of the characters in Anne of Green Gables. It also serves as the basis for chamber music composed by Richard Cohn for the Music & Magic Lantern Slides project. View a performance on Youtube.
Now. I know I haven’t gotten to Bowser and Bleh yet, but the hour is late, and I am tired, so I’m off to bed.
I woke late this morning. The day was overcast, blinds were drawn, room was dim.
Called for David. “Now!”
Kathy Waller 