A Wizard

"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. .. I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows..."

From "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe

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Dear Alex,

The glare of vacant eye-like windows mattered not to him. He followed me, shuffling on ivory linoleum, eyes searching.

The House held hearts in deep riddle, estranged from the rest of real world, enlivened with real folks, vanilla walls creamed with sunshine. Morning was lucid, hallways baffling, our minds ablaze.

He and I played wizards. Down and curving in arcs, we glided as larks through fluorescent space, the evanescence of a moment in our wingless torsos, tummies drooping, pendulous necks swinging, heads in flight stopped short of exit doors.

Lines must not be crossed, frayed yet fixed on this divide. He versus me, his reality is our illusion. The House of Madness is madly in love with dreams demystified, logic crammed in, fantasies tossed out.

In the psychiatric ward, there is scant tolerance for the weak. You are either going to swim or scream. You are a survivor. All the residents here during my first training week had been severely severed from reason. My follower was a young man in emergent need of high-dose care. My preceptor had left after conveying specific directives for my work assignment.

This was heaven in hell of mind and hell in heaven of spirit. His body was free, head freer. Boundlessly restrained within bounds, he was too beautiful to be seen beyond these vacant eye-like windows.

Poe has always fascinated me - and not because of his volatility transposed to volleys of erratic voyages in literature. You can’t pinpoint a fool, genius or wizard.

His unveiling of the mystique and clarity of thoughts in fog, his candor in dispelling our crazed entrapment in reality have invaded my bookshelves along with the reveries of youth and aging. His words are timeless, vacating sunny rooms to usher in taboos and misfits, the House of Usher busting its doors and windows to unstack a question for you:

What kind of a house of a window of an eye of a mind are you housed in?

Yours, Kate

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Dear Kate,

Am I right that you told me before that Edgar Allan Poe, the King of Macabre himself (sorry Stephen King), is your favorite novelist?  I shall leave this piece of bare fact to speak for itself and you being barely answerable to it :)

I remember how my kids used to read Poe for their Kumon.  I wonder how many parents, if they actually paid attention to what their kids were reading, would question the choice.  Who writes this way anyway--or, more like, who needs to write this way anyway, if one is not writing to become the next Stephen King?

It has to do with purpose, and purpose has to do with money, making it that is.  No one sends her kid to Kumon to learn to write fancy.  If we pay to learn to write we learn to write to get paid.

This is nothing new, even less so cynical.  Dickens wrote to get paid.  All writers need to eat (for the few who didn't and was actually any good we very quickly stopped hearing from them).  All truly great artists are romantic realists.

Did I say all?

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night
You took your life, as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you

So I misrepresented then.  I've missed my chance to present a faithful account of a writer's life; so I shall re-present only what is available to me to mishandle, the writing life of yours truly.

I am writing a novel.  This is not a public service announcement.  The novel might be a free handout at my private memorial service.  All I am saying is, don't miss my funeral.

Yours, Alex