I burrowed my head deeper into the book I was reading and pretended not
to hear.
“Are you listening? I’m resuming my writing career,” C.W. said.
“What writing career?”
“The one you keep discouraging with your lack of the action of giving
someone support, confidence, or hope.”
“My lack of encouragement is for your own good,” I said. For the
first time, I looked up. There sat Edgar Allen Poe, or at least how the
historical biographies picture him. Oh no. Halloween is approaching. I braced
for the worst. “You should consider new careers,” I said. “What happened to
your plan to become a country parson?”
“Nevermore,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I tried it.”
“And?”
“I quit after preaching goodness, love, respect for one another,
forgiveness, understanding, and all that for months.”
“What happened?”
“Darkness there and nothing more." He stopped, looked around, and said, "The sons of bitches wouldn’t pay me.”
“I see. So now you are going to write?”
“Evermore.”
“About what?”
“Gothic horror. Creating dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”
“I see. Do you have a plot in mind?”
“A dreadfully frightening one it seems, just in time for Halloween.”
I quickly returned to my book.
“I’d love to share it with you,” he said, as if I had requested it.
“Oh that might be bad luck,” I said.
“A true modern gothic villain,” he said. “He will become as feared
among children as Montresor in The Cask
of Amontillado, a truly terrifying creature.”
“Good,” I said, “now why don’t you go and work on it and leave me in
peace.”
“I’d be glad to,” he said. “It goes like this.”
I laid the book across my stomach.
“There is this children’s entertainer, puppets, music, and such, who
goes from village to village making children happy—only a child himself. His
name is Parabello.” He stopped and looked to make sure I was listening.
I nodded, giving in. “Go ahead.”
“So he does this for years.”
"Okay."
“And no one seems to realize that he is getting older. He keeps
applying makeup, more and more makeup, to make it appear that he doesn’t age.”
I nodded.
He continued. “So he becomes more and more famous and wealthy
entertaining the children. He takes some of his money and builds a vast park
where he takes selected and fortunate children to entertain them on special
outings. He calls it Fairyland, and creates a wondrous experience for the
children”
“You might want to think on that name a bit,” I said.
He ignored me. “Then one day, years after he has been entertaining
children there for days on end, a mother stops him.”
I began to doze. He continued. “She asks him how old he is. He says, ‘Beat
it.’ She says ‘I want to know how old you are.’ He says, ‘Leave me alone.’ She
says, are you listening to me?” This time he screamed.
I woke up.
He yelled, “I said are you listening to me?”
“Of course,” I said. “I just nodded, nearly napping. What happens next?”
“The mother unlocks the fact that Parabello is not a child but a man
nearly 50 years old.”
“Oh my. And he has been having bunking parties with his little fans?”
“His claim is this, that they only played games and frolicked, nothing
farther then he uttered.”
“Does it work?”
“Hardly. The people send him away saying he will remain nameless here
for evermore.”
“So his memory becomes a thing of terror?”
“What else? I mean, imagine a forty-something year-old man dressing up in
heavy makeup and pretending to be a child as he frolics around with real
children. How else could his image be recalled? An icon? Someone to be
emulated? A man who never left his childhood state, merely this and nothing
more?”
 |
| My poor idol only made money on one thing he wrote. It was a scientific work on spiders. Me? I intend to get rich despite Big Dope's lack of help. - C;W; |
I sat stupefied.
“So what do you think?”
“I think you and I need to have a long talk about my species.’
“I have another,” he said. “It starts many a year ago, in a kingdom by
the sea.”
“Please beam one of us up,” I said. “Please.” Then I swear I heard this
voice boom down from somewhere up above.
“Nevermore.”
