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by William Stewart MacGeorge (1861–1931)
Two Readings for All Souls Day
An eerie thought: year after year as we cycle through the months, we encounter the day that eventually will become the date of our death. We skim right over it, never giving it a thought. How could we? It would take morbid Thomas Hardy (or one of his characters) to think of that:
She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year . . . her own birthday; and every other day individualized by incidents in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? Why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation? . . . some time in the future those who had known her would say: 'It is the ——th, the day that poor Tess Durbeyfield died'; and there would be nothing singular to their minds in the statement. Of that day, doomed to be her terminus in time through all the ages, she did not know the place in month, week, season or year.
from Chapter 15
of Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman
by Thomas Hardy
Another overthinking pitfall is the dreaded insomnia rabbit hole. The moon rolls by, the hours roll by, memory after memory . . .
“Oh God, midnight’s not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two’s not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there’s hope, for dawn’s just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you’d slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that’s burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead – And wasn’t it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time . . .” (p 58)
from Something Wicked This Way Comes
by Ray Bradbury
Additional Autumnal Ray Bradbury:
The Halloween Tree ~ Moundshroud
The Pedestrian ~ from Dandelion Wine
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