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ceslatoil · 8 years ago

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Fiddleford in Fairyland, Part One

My first entry this week for @fiddleford-appreciation-month is a story about an expedition Parallel Fiddleford takes into an alternate dimension called Faerie. More under the cut!

Fiddleford had read plenty of stories about folks finding themselves in magical, faraway lands as a kid. He’d read each of the Narnia books over and over again, and had even kept an old, battered omnibus of the Oz books in his current private library, though in truth, he’d been more interested in all the strange, mechanical people like Tik Tok and the Tin Man than Dorothy’s silly adventures.

All the same, when the International Institute of Oddology had managed to discover an interdimensional access point to a place just as odd as Narnia and Oz right in the Oregon woods outside town, Fiddleford surprised everyone by volunteering to head the expedition. There were, of course, some doubts about this; though Fiddleford was a brilliant scientist and an integral part of the Institution, he was still a very anxious person, and his last journey, which had ended with an entire dimension disappearing all together, had left him shaken.

But, to his own shock, he insisted on going. He had grown used to the strange anomalies since he’d arrived in Gravity Falls some thirty years ago, even if most of the monsters and creatures that were drawn to this town were quite frightening. Magical creatures always seemed so charming, with the possible exception of Unicorns, who were just plain jerks. How scary could this magic dimension be?

So, after saying goodbye to Stanford that morning (a rather hug filled, warm affair that made Fiddleford second guess leaving), Fidds took a group of security officers and a few researchers and headed to the site that lay deep in the woods. It was a large, stone doorway in one of the deepest parts of the forest; strange ruins in a language none of the scientists had been able to identify were carved all over it, and an image of a sun and moon in eclipse loomed at the very top. Staring at this carving for too long sent a shiver down Fiddleford’s spine, which was not helped by the fact that nothing could be seen on the other side of the door.

Gulping, he reluctantly lead his team into the darkness, and for what seemed like hours they marched through the gloomy corridor, until they came across a bright light twinkling in the distance.

“Finally,” mumbled one of the security officers. “My feet are killing me.”

“I dunno,” whispered one of the younger officers, Cadet Corduroy, “You ever heard of looking out for oncoming trains when you see lights at the end of tunnels?”

It wasn’t exactly encouraging.

When they stepped out into the light, however, they were greeted by a lovely field of poppies that lay just by a river; beyond that was a large swath of farmland, and beyond that, a massive, dark forest.

“Golly, this is just beautiful,” said Fiddleford softly; the research team at once began to snap photos for documentation. “Just fantastical! Though I cain’t see where the reports of it being a magic dimension came from—”

Barreling from the woods came a monster, one that looked like a giant man with terrible, misshapen muscles and a lumpy, pale face with one eyelid drooping. It took one look at the tiny research team and let out a terrible, creepy cry that sounded like laughter before it lunged at them. Several of the researchers cowered and lost their heads entirely out of pure fear, but the security officers were made of tougher stuff, and took aim at the beast with their laser guns. Though they made several incredible shots that would have taken down a lesser foe, the terrible giant was completely unaffected by their attack.

“Fvb’yl qbza h spaasl jopjrlu, Jollw, jollw, jollw, jollw,” the beast snarled down at the security officers. The giant reached out one of its muscular arms and snatched Fiddleford up within the iron grip of his hands.

“Help!”

The beast leered down at Fiddleford with a dangerous look in its eyes. Or, maybe it was just sleepy. It was hard to make out facial expressions, as the giant looked like it had eaten a hive of bees and washed them all down with cold medicine: the result was a pale, lumpy faced giant who was even more terrifying up close than he was at a distance.

“Vo ohp Thyr! Ovd'z fvby zle spml,” the beast roared at Fiddleford, and just as the poor scientist thought he had reached his doom, a large rock slammed against the giant’s face.

“Kvu'a avbjo tl tvaolymbjrly,” the beast growled down to the ground. From what Fiddleford could see, a small girl in a yellow dress was flying at the monster, raising her arms and making boulders ten times her size fly at the giant’s face.

“What in tarnation,” Fidds cried, the girl continued to attack and scream profanities at the giant while the beast still kept its grip around him. Soon, other strange, flying girls began to attack the giant; a girl with wild, magenta colored curls was throwing large cherries that exploded when they made contact against the giant’s face, and another, her dress as black as her skin and hair was a ghostly, inhuman white, lobbed arrows into the giant’s eye. The giant laughed creepily once more, the arrows were about as effective as the lasers had been.

“Unhand this man at once,” commanded a powerful voice near Fiddleford’s right, he couldn’t turn his head to see who was speaking.

“Fvb svvr zv zlef Ahufh!” The giant offered the speaker an eerie, wooden smile that chilled Fiddleford to the core.

“I don’t care; you will leave these visitors to our land in piece, now let him go,” the voice snapped at the giant.

“FVB HYL ALHYPUN TL HWHYA, AHUFH!”

Enraged, the beast suddenly released his tight fisted grip on Fiddleford, and the man felt a terrible lurch as he began to hurtle towards the ground, which was roughly sixty feet in the air. Before he gained too much momentum, however, something else snatched him up around his armpits and held him aloft. He hadn’t even been able to register the thought of who or what had caught him when a sensation like being sucked into a vacuum began to consume his whole body, and he found himself being laid down upon the ground.

“Boss!”

Cadet Corduroy knelt down next to Fiddleford, who was shaking and pale, his knees bouncing together uncontrollably, but otherwise seemed perfectly unharmed. Fiddleford looked up to see a winged creature in white and gold armor looking down on him as well as the young cadet.

Good lord, what am I even looking at right now, he thought dizzily.

“Keep him safe while I get rid of the giant,” the armored creature told the Cadet, who nodded. Cadet Corduroy gently sat up the older scientist; Fiddleford looked up to see a flash of brilliant, sparkling light, one last scream from the Giant, and it was at this he lost consciousness at last.

* * *

When he woke about five minutes later, a tiny green creature that looked like a humanoid moth was flicking his nose with a stick.

“D’you think he died?” squeaked the creature to another, the pale, slender archer from before.

“I ain’t dead, get off my nose,” grumbled Fiddleford, who shooed away the green girl with a wave of his hand. Fiddleford still felt dizzy and disoriented, so he laid still while the others around him continued to talk.

“He has terrible grammar,” sniffed the white haired girl, who narrowed her black eyes at him disapprovingly. “Are you sure he’s really supposed to be a brilliant scientist?”

She had directed this question to Corduroy, who was a little disturbed by this strange creature, in no small part because she looked a bit like the ghost in the Japanese Horror franchise The Creepy Woman and Her Cat-Son Who Yelled at American Tourists Until They Went Crazy.

“He is brilliant,” Wendy managed to choke out tersely, “He just gets a little freaked out by some of the larger monsters. He had a bad experience with one of the cryptids he and Dr. Pines encountered when they were younger; something called a Gremoblin tried to kidnap him, it shook him up a bit.”

“Yikes. Say no more,” said the girl in the yellow dress, the one who had thrown rocks at the giant’s head. Her entire body was made of different shades of orange and yellow, from her sunset colored skin with bright yellow freckles to her lava-red hair, which she wore in several small braids across her head. “I’ve dealt with my fair share of Gremoblins in the past and I’ll say one word: Daddy. Issues.”

“Those are two words, Mustardseed.”

“Can it, Cobweb!”

“Both of you move,” said the woman in white armor sternly. The three strange girls hovering over Fiddleford dispersed as the woman knelt down next to him. She removed her helmet; the woman had a lovely, dark complexion and curly hair the color of pink champagne that she kept bound up in a bun.

“Wow,” whispered Corduroy, “She’s pretty cute.”

“That’s Queen Titania,” hissed Mustardseed, “You can’t call the Queen cute!”

“Wow, ain’t you just the cutest thing,” Fiddleford loudly told the Queen. She laughed, a warm, friendly sound, thought Fiddleford, as she helped him to his feet.

“Well, it sounds like you’re not any worse for wear,” said the Queen, looking the old man over, “Let me know if you’re feeling any pain so we can get you medical treatment. Not everyone who faces the Gurrero Street Beast gets off so easy.”

“Well golly, I sure am grateful ya saved me ladies,” said Fiddleford, addressing the six women with good cheer.

“Sorry your first trip to Faerie had an overly exciting beginning,” said Titania, shaking Fiddleford’s hand. Midway through, however, she paused as she examined his face; suddenly, her eyes went wide and she shot her hand to her chest, as if she had seen a ghost.

“Oh my stars,” she whispered; turning to the other fairies, she cried, “I don’t believe it—it’s McGucket!”

Fiddleford and Corduroy shared a bemused look. How did the Queen of the Fairies know Fiddleford’s name?

“What? Come on Tanya, this guy looks nothing like McGucket,” said Mustardseed dismissively.

“My lady, the fight with the Gurrero Street Beast was exhausting,” chimed the girl with magenta hair, whose name was Peaseblossom. “Perhaps you’re just confused.”

Titania shot her servants a glare. Without a word, she pulled a wand from a scabbard at her side, and, after giving it a flick, she made a long, white beard and a floppy hat appear on Fiddleford’s face and head.

At this point, Fiddleford couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “Why does my beard have a bandage on it? Weird.”

The other four fairies screamed.

“Face stealer!” cried the green one, Moth, who began to kick Fiddleford in the shins.

“Ouch! Now you stop that,” chided Fiddleford, lifting the tiny winged girl into his hands. “Yer actin’ like a conswalloping hogwash salesman on the fourth of july!”

“… Yup, it’s him,” Titania nodded her head in triumph. She made the beard and hat vanish by waving the silver wand carefully, returning Fiddleford to his normal state.

“I don’t understand… how can this man still be McGucket,” said Peaseblossom, scrutinizing the older scientist with narrowed eyes.

“I told you, he’s a face stealer, Duh,” squeaked Moth, still waving her fists wildly at Fiddleford.

“Well, my name is Fiddleford McGucket,” he admitted, “and my team and I are from an institution that studies the oddities of the universe—in fact, we came all the way from our world to study yours! I think we’re the only version of our dimension that can travel to different worlds, but it’s entirely possible that you ran across a version of me from an alternate dimension?”

“We did recently open up a permanent portal to Earth,” said Titania slowly, “It’s entirely possible that the portal is available to all the different possible earths as well?”

“It’s a shaky theory, but the only one we have to work with in the present,” nodded Fiddleford. He frowned, however, when he realized that at any moment, an alternate version of himself could come waltzing into Faerie and possibly destroy the entire dimension should they accidentally run into each other.

“We should probably leave,” Fiddleford turned to Corduroy, “The risk of dimensional collapse is too high if an alternate me is on the loose—I couldn’t bare to repay my rescuers by accidentally destroying their home!”

“Nonsense,” said Titania, clapping her hand on Fiddleford’s shoulder. “McGucket rarely visits this dimension, and surely we can find a way to send a warning about the possible danger. I’ll have my servants send a letter explaining the whole thing. In the meanwhile, why don’t you and your team stay at my old family home? You’d be able to set up base and have access to our library if you needed to gather some research on Faerie’s history and culture.”

“You’d really do all that for us?” Fiddleford asked excitedly, hardly believing the institute’s good fortune.

“Anything for a good, old friend,” said Titania warmly. “Who, now that I think about it, is actually a new friend? A new old friend, perhaps we should say? Oh, who cares, everybody back to Eclipse Manor for a feast!”

* * * Eclipse Manor, a country chateau just outside of a small village in the woods, was quite beautiful with a quiet, comfortable elegance. The research team immediately began snapping photos and writing down descriptions of the comfortable, elegant mansion, and didn’t stop taking notes until Fiddleford chided them into putting those things aside when the Queen called them all to dinner.

It was a wonderful feast of roasted chicken, baked sweet potatoes, buttery dinner rolls and a spinach salad—it reminded Fiddleford of Sunday dinners with his family when he was a child. There was, however, a slight incident when one of the security officers refused to take a bit.

“Would you like something else,” asked the Queen, offering security officer Ramirez a concerned look, “I’d hate for any of my guests to go hungry.”

“Um…” Ramirez looked highly uncomfortable, Fiddleford could see beads of flop sweat beginning to drip down his forehead as the table turned his attention to him.

“What, do you think our food sucks or something,” said Mustardseed aggressively. Titania shot Mustardseed a nasty look as Ramirez recoiled at her accusation.

“No! Um, no I really like food, little fairy dood,” said Ramirez nervously.

“Then eat up, Ramirez,” Fiddleford said, raising his glass of wine with good cheer, “I wasn’t raised to let anyone waste food at the dinner table.”

“Yeah but—oh man, what if the food turns out to be enchanted and we get stuck here forever like in all the fantasy books! This place is nice but I’d miss my grandma!”

Fiddleford grimaced, he thought for sure the Queen would have been offended, but she merely laughed again.

“Oh, you poor thing,” said Titania, patting a now mortified Ramirez’s arm kindly. “I assure you, food chain spells have long since been made illegal in this land, but if you would like, I can get somebody to run back to your dimension and get you something else.”

Relieved that the Queen wasn’t mad at him and that dinner wasn’t cursed, Ramirez assured her that he’d eat what was put out in front of him, and soon everyone was tucking in.

In addition to the fine food, the research team’s hosts were all lively conversationalists: Mustardseed and Corduroy were arm wrestling each other once the dishes had been cleared away, Moth kept daring Ramirez to try different kinds of food, a challenge he approached with unwavering bravery no matter how odd the dish was, and the researchers hung onto every word of Peaseblossom’s stories about the history of Faerie, which kept getting interrupted by Cobweb, who would add bawdy, off-color comments about the story much to her embarrassment.

Meanwhile, as all this was happening, Titania and Fiddleford were quickly becoming the best of friends; she asked him quite a few questions about the Institute and listened intently.

“Fascinating—so you run the robotics department? Whatever made you decide to lead an expedition,” asked Titania, who was trying to urge her small son, Daya, into finishing his sweet potatoes as she spoke to him.

“Well,” said Fiddleford, taking a swig from his wine glass once more, “I guess you could say I was curious—we used to read fairy stories all the time at my house when I was a kid, and I guess I just wanted to see what it was really like.” He smiled at Daya, who was scowling at his sweet potatoes with unmingled dislike.

”Well I certainly count myself lucky to meet you today,” said Titania, who’s smile faded to a frown when Daya rudely stuck his tongue out at the hated sweet potatoes. “Come on baby, eat!”

“No!”

“I’m glad to have met you too,” said Fiddleford earnestly, “I probably would have been eaten up by that giant, completely unlike how this little fella ain’t eating his taters.”

“Tatoes are yucky,” screeched Daya.

“Well, if you don’t want ‘em, I’ll steal ‘em for ya,” said Fiddleford, reaching his fork over to Daya’s plate.

Daya’s eyes grew wide, and without any warning, he began to shove handfuls of potato into his mouth to keep Fiddleford from grabbing any.

“My taters!”

“Well, darn, guess I’ll go without,” said Fiddleford with mock disappointment as he winked at Titania.

“I should invite you over more often,” said Titania, impressed. “Maybe then Daya would eat his vegetables more often.”

“Comes with lots of practice—the institute offers a childcare program to any wayward interdimensional refugees that come across our part of the universe,” said Fiddleford brightly. “I’ve had to coax my fair share of kids into eating their veggies than I can count!”

“Perhaps I’ll give you a call when Daya’s old enough to start school then,” said Titania warmly.

“We’d be happy to have him,” said Fiddleford, just as kindly.

“Now, would you mind joining me in the library? I want to show you the place where you can keep your research handy while you’re staying here,” said Titania, standing up from the table.

“Sure shootin’, lead the way,” said Fiddleford, and the two, along with Daya, who had sweet potatoes smeared all across his face, left the rest of the researchers alone in the great hall.

* * *

The library was a magnificent place, filled with large, mahogany bookshelves that towered over Fiddleford and the Queen as they walked through its aisles, the sweet, comforting scent of old books filling the air like gentle incense. At the end of the room by a roaring fireplace was where the reading area had been arranged—polished wooden tables and comfortable, chintz chairs lay out before them, and the two took a seat opposite one another on the chairs.

“Care for a chocolate?” asked Titania, indicating a box of chocolates on a nearby coffee table. “And by that I mean please eat them so I won’t. I have enough trouble getting my kid to eat vegetables as it is, what will he think when he sees that I’m constantly eating chocolate.”

For his part, Daya was slowly starting to doze off as he cuddled close against his mother’s side.

“Well, I guess I got room for more,” said Fiddleford, reaching over to open the box. He spied a photograph that was kept on the table next to the chocolates, and gasped. He recognized quite a few people present—Ramirez and Corduroy for one, along with Ford, who looked much grayer and rugged than his own Ford back at home, two kids that looked like Ford’s own little niece and nephew from Piedmont, and another man, who, though a bit thicker around the middle and with a more mischievous glint in the eyes, could have been Ford’s double. Titania and her girls were also in the picture, each smiling and laughing over something just off camera.

“I’ll be,” whispered Fiddleford, “It’s Ford’s family!”

“Yes,” nodded Titania, a slightly worried tone tinting her voice as she spoke, “Your… partner, correct?”

“A little bit more than that,” said Fiddleford proudly, indicating the ring on his left hand with a smile. He pursed his lips as he gazed at the photo, pausing at the two twin brothers before saying, “I take it the Ford you know is on better terms with his twin than mine is?”

“Oh? Are your Pines twins not getting along,” said Titania with a frown.

“Well,” said Fiddleford sadly, “I tried getting Ford to talk to Stan for years, or at the very least, invite him to our wedding, but we haven’t been able to find him. It’s like he fell off the face of the earth.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Titania, who hugged her son tightly at this confession, “I know how difficult it is when a family member to go missing. I hope you’ll be able to reunite with him.”

“Me too, at least for Ford’s sake—he wasn’t on the best terms with him, but I think he’d take it hard if he never got to speak with his brother again,” said Fiddleford quietly. He then smiled and held up the photo as he said, “but this proves that it’s possible, don’t ya think? That they could work everything out.”

“Of course it is,” said Titania, who at last gave into temptation and grabbed a piece of chocolate from the box. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a family I’ve liked more than the Pines in a long time. I’m sure your version could be just as happy in time. By the way, if you ever do meet Stan again, don’t tell him I said that. I have a reputation to maintain as the best head of our respective found families, and I can’t have him strutting around knowing I said he was better at something, I wouldn’t bear it.”

“It sounds like you’re awful fond of him to me,” said Fiddleford, wagging his eyebrows knowingly at the Queen. She playfully tossed the piece of chocolate she was holding at him, but he quickly caught it in his mouth.

“While we’re on the subject,” said Fiddleford, his mouth full of chocolate caramel as he spoke, “Do you mind if I ask about my alternate self? I’ve been meaning to gather information about alternate timelines and how different dimensions compare and contrast, but it’s too dangerous of a risk to meet up with an alternate me! We know of one fella who was able to jerryrig up a whosmajig to keep himself from dissolving along with alternate versions of himself, but he ain’t saying anything to the institute—he has some sort of silly gentleman scientists feud with Stanford for some damn fool reason. So, if’n you don’t mind me asking, your majesty… what am I like?”

The Queen’s smile faltered, and she grew quite pensive until she finally spoke.

“You’re a bit balder… and with quite a few less teeth,” she said, looking away for a moment.

“Oh,” said Fiddleford, frowning. He figured that at least a few different versions of himself wouldn’t age quite as well as he had, and besides, his habit of tearing out his hair when he was anxious probably hadn’t done him any favors. But why did the Queen look so sad?

“Is something the matter,” asked Fiddleford.

“Well… I don’t know if I’m the best person to tell you this,” said Titania, who began to stroke her son’s hair nervously, “after all, I only know a little piece about what happened from the version of Stanford I met. There was an incident when you were younger where you fell through a portal; some kind of accident that left you traumatized. You… made a gun that erased memories.”

There was a trickling, icy sensation that shot down Fiddleford’s back. He had remembered the fight with the Gremoblin, the horrible things he had seen—he had wanted it all to go away so badly, and he thought the gun would be the perfect solution. At Ford’s constant insistence about the possible, dangerous side effects, however, he allowed Ford to destroy his invention.

“What happened,” said Fiddleford, gulping.

“It took a severe toll that affected your mental health for decades,” said Titania, her voice soft and full of sorrow. “It took ages for you to recover. You were living on the street.”

Fiddleford couldn’t describe what he was feeling in that moment exactly—just a sort of lingering shock that a person who narrowly missed being hit by a car would have felt, the dreadful horror of what could have been.

“… How am I now?” asked Fiddleford slowly after a long time.

“Well… the Fiddleford I know is now living in a mansion after earning a fortune in inventing patents,” said Titania, who took Fiddleford’s hand and gently squeezed it as she spoke, “He has lots of close friends, and I’m fortunate enough to consider myself one of those friends. Furthermore, just about a week ago, he finally got engaged to his version of Stanford.”

“He waited that long? Figures he’d take near about forever to get around to it,” said Fiddleford, and for a moment, the mood was light again, and he and the Queen shared a good laugh.

“It’s getting late,” said Titania, eying the clock on the fireplace mantle. “I need to get my son to bed, and I’m sure you and your team need the rest. I’ll show you to your rooms, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call on any of my girls.”

* * *

The bed was soft, and his stomach was full, and though his mind was still churning from what the Queen had told him about his double, Fiddleford McGucket easily found himself in a deep, comfortable sleep in his first night in Fairyland.

#Fiddleford appreciation month #fiddauthor #PF #Week One #ceslatoil's fic fix #some enchanted evening AU

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rilenerocks · 5 years ago

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I’ve never been able to find the off button. Several years into our relationship, Michael told me he’d figured out the worst thing about living with me. He said he knew that as long as there was somebody, somewhere, who might be having a problem, I’d be upset about it. Decades later that’s still pretty much the truth. These days there’s certainly plenty to be upset about, from my little microcosm up and through the big picture. Small things first.

In my eagerness to scramble outside and get my garden going, I looked at a week-long forecast, felt good about it, hightailed it over to the plant nursery, bought two flats of annuals and hurled them into pots and raised beds. All was glorious until winter decided to make another pass through town, bringing blustery winds and below freezing temperatures. I should have known how arbitrary spring can be – I’ve been around long enough to have had my naïveté crushed by capricious April many times in the past. But I let it happen anyway, wanting so much to fill my surroundings, isolated though they may be, with nature’s brilliant colors. I’ve been battling the elements for days. My once fiery lantana is pathetic.

The poor thing has shriveled up and now sits on my dining room table where I’m attempting coax it into staying alive with warm water, gentle touches and quiet murmurs of encouragement. The other guys are still battling the elements. Every early evening, I go outside to cover them all, hoping they can limp through a few more nights of frigid air, that they’ll perk up and revive when warmth returns. I’ll be lucky if I lose only about a third of the plants I bought. Money down the drain and old lessons relearned.

The daily wondering about the life-altering changes perpetrated by Covid19 has me in a constant state of evaluation. I worry about my aging dog. I got Violet from a shelter just a few months after Michael died, in the summer of 2017. I wasn’t intending to get a big dog, much less one that was already eight and a half years old. But when I saw her, I knew she wasn’t likely to be adopted any time soon. She was strikingly beautiful but she had a sad story. A show dog, from a long line of show dogs, she’d lived her life as a “thing,” rather than a pet. She had lots of blue ribbons, but she’d been debarked, a cruel procedure done to stifle her naturally vocal instincts. She’d lived most of her life in a crate, easy to deduce when I realized she would only eat from a lying-down position. She made no eye contact, looking only at your hand which was the way she interpreted what was required of her. And she didn’t lick. Not once then, when I took her, or since, even after I dipped my entire hand into a peanut butter jar and held it to her nose. Such abnormal dog behavior. I was compelled to adopt her. I was wounded from Michael’s death while she was wounded from her life. It took me a couple of weeks to convince her to eat anything but a bit of kibble from my hand. Now, over time, she’s learned her new name, to make eye contact with me and others, and to enjoy being free to run in the yard. Just now, she went gamboling through the garden, chasing squirrels and trumpeting her whispery remnant of a bark.

But she’s getting old. The other day, she started dragging her left rear leg. She just couldn’t keep it underneath her. She was weaving a bit and seemed disoriented. Some of her actions have always been weird, but I really couldn’t tell if she was just stiff from lying down for too long or if I was witnessing a neurological event. I called my vet who’s running a limited practice during this time and was told to just keep an eye on her. So far, she seems to have returned to as normal a state as she’s ever in, but who knows? I’m doing my best to keep her alive, but you never know. Life can be extinguished in no time.

I’m even worried about my two nameless fish. I’ve always loved tropical fish and have gone through phases of keeping them in different sized tanks during my adult life. I have a 10 gallon tank in my bedroom. I started out with six fish, four of whom eventually died. These guys are the survivors who despite my modest attention are going into their third year of life. Watching them swim around is relaxing for me. But three years is old for a tropical fish. How long can they keep going? It occurs to me that a portion of every one of my days is given over to trying to keep things alive. Plants, fish, the dog and the birds I’ve coaxed into my yard with feeders, birdhouses and plenty of hiding places.

But of course, those tales are about the microcosm of my little life. What’s more overwhelming is the macrocosm, the big picture of what’s happening in my country and around the world. Figuring out how to assimilate the barrage of information, the scary uncertainties coupled with the daily tragedies, and the enraging political behavior of the leadership all up in our faces every day, is quite a load to carry. The self that I bring to these reality-altering issues was shaped by the events of my life, just like everyone else. I’ve experienced my share of deaths, up close and personal. I was at the bedsides of both my parents and my darling Michael. I was able to minister to them all as they slipped away across the fragile border between breath and stillness. Those were grievous, painful experiences. But they were also kind and respectful, comforting and filled with love. If someone has to die, the deaths should be like those.

So many of these Covid19 patients are hustled away from their loved ones, dying alone unless they’re lucky enough to have medical staff near them to say goodbye. Of course there are always deaths like this, accidents, sudden heart attacks or strokes and of course, those lives lost in the countless wars of history, people felled far from home. I’m sure that every pandemic, the Black Death and the Spanish Flu that each killed millions, created a numbing horror that dwarfs what is happening today. At least so far. But contemplating the frightening possibilities as this virus moves around the globe, and knowing so much in real time because of technology, the information can feel like a daily tidal wave. In the past several days, a few stories have emerged that are horrifying in their detail. One is from a New Jersey nursing home, where police were called because the number of deaths was beyond the staff’s control. Seventeen bodies were found in a small holding space with room for two. What an ignominious end for those people and their families. The other is the photos of the unclaimed bodies being buried in trenches in the Potter’s Field on Hart Island near New York City. These are the unknown victims of the virus, at least for now. There they lay with countless others who wound up buried there for widely diverging reasons. It seems impossible that this can be happening in real time, in this very surreal health crisis which is unveiling deeper societal problems in this culture. Problems that many would prefer to ignore. Several years ago, I read This Republic of Suffering. During the four years of the American Civil War, approximately 620,000 people died. That was about 2% of the population of the United States at the time of the 1860 census. This was a staggering number and indeed, as the war dragged on, the sheer volume of bodies overwhelmed both the practical realities of burials and funerals, along with deeply wounding the psyche of the country’s citizens. History has these moments in time, the points from which there is a perceptible change in the collective consciousness. Although what we are experiencing is not yet as extreme as those dreadful figures, I can’t help but wonder what the collateral emotional damage will be for those who are paying attention, who are aware of the gravity of this pandemic. For myself, it feels like anything resembling the pre-virus life will be a long time coming back in its previous form, if it ever does. Every day there are new bits of information which change what is known about this organism. With all the variables still emerging, the only way to feel certain about anything seems to me to be the privilege of those who either aren’t paying attention, or who deliberately refuse to understand. Social distancing feels like the way things will need to stay for a lot longer than these artificial “re-opening of the country” dates. This isn’t exactly an amusement park’s grand entrance into the world after a full make-over. I fear the cost in human life as the urge to reclaim normalcy clamor gets louder.

Between the gardening and the animals and of course, my family and loved ones, I’m cogitating daily on this big picture. I hear that familiar voice of Michael’s in my head saying, “ lighten up before you drive yourself crazy, not to mention me!” Well, he’s not here. But I am, still looking for “the off button.”

The Off Button I've never been able to find the off button. Several years into our relationship, Michael told me he'd figured out the worst thing about living with me.

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