Can’t scare me…

You can’t scare me. You said that in a tone of voice that told me you were laughing at me while denying my right to resist your arrogant dare. You’ve always thought you were better than me. You’re brave. Nothing frightens you.

That’s what you think, at least. I can’t scare you? Oh yes I can. I have receipts and I’m coming for you. I’ve been mentored by Edgar Allan Poe himself. The master. Don’t say I haven’t been under his wing because he’s long gone, because you have no idea of what our relationship is. He might not be one of the goriest writers, but he had a good handle on shock, terror, horrifying images, all those things. Maybe he wasn’t the first master of horror, but in his short, unhappy, unhealthy life he made literature that has lived (an ironic way to put it) forever. I am (living) proof of that.

Now you know volumes have been written about Poe and his writerly success. Some studies trace the authors who have been influenced by him. Even just naming them would take up a lot of pages. So Poe really understood what he was talking about. Was he the first purveyor of horror? Not really. Did his contemporaries understand what he was doing? That’s not really the point. Oh, and Poe was translated quickly into French, by Baudelaire of all people, so he went international really fast. That started in1847.

The literary researcher Nicholas Birns has said of Poe: “An anti-Aristotelian, he avoided the Greek philosopher’s stress on a text lengthy enough to have beginning, middle, and end...For Poe, an uncanny combination of precision and intensity replaced narrative bulk”. What he means, obviously, is that literature should get to the point, quickly. Make every word count. Poe strongly felt that nothing should be “extra”, and this demanded that the work have strong elements. This means complete focus - not easy to find nowadays - and precise description.

The idea of brevity is also noted by author Raymond Carver, who was very good at his craft, and he stated that the twists that need to happen in short stories for them to be successful. Carver calls them “the glimpse that is brought to life, turned into something that illuminates the moment…” In the short story, every word counts. Poe showed that each short story author should be able to use every element, such as characters, symbolism, ambiance, and tone for the goal of generating a strong reaction in the reader. For him, imagery was a key element.

The Philosophy of Composition is an essay written by Poe. His theory is based on "unity of effect". He also insists that "the death of a beautiful woman" is "unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world". I’m not sure about this last point. The same could be said about the death of a beautiful man, right?

We all have our own cask of Amontillado, I think. Something we are willing to die for. Or our own House of Usher, which we have participated in bringing down with a crash. We are guilty as sin even if unaware of the exact sins we’ve committed. We have a guide to help us walk through the house, just as I am serving as your guide through this story, which will now pay the required homage to Sir Edgar, as I quote from his work:

While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened — there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the ‘House of Usher.’

There is a new House of Usher, its name now House of Us. It’s all around us now, like a living, rotting organism. What used to be is no longer. What is here now is a nightmare of rubble. There is no loyalty, no creativity, no humanity, only competition, abuse, greed. All these things go hand in hand and if you eliminate one of them, they all start to fall away like rotting boards where a telltale heart could be stored. Although hearts, good ones, are hard to find nowadays. These are different times, more complex. That makes focus more challenging. Let’s give it a try…

Do you really trust your neighbor or even the other people who live in your house? Do you know, really know, who they are, what they think about you? Do you know they’d sell you out in a second? You can’t trust anyone, believe me. That’s why the house, if you will, is deteriorating and soon all will be in ruins. They, the ones who build things in their own image, are determined to reduce the rest of us to fragments of human beings. We will neither remember how to create music nor care. Yesterday they forbid us to speak languages other than English. They also decided on colors that were good and colors that are now illegal. Who gets taken is akin to Russian roulette. It can happen to anybody. Do not feel safe.

What we have now is not clearly defined, has no plan except to abuse us. We have PTSD from the treatment given us by those in charge. This is post-1984, yet it’s 1984. Some of us are dancing salsa in the streets, but some are doing huge Thriller flash mobs and those are the ones who have accepted that the future is past, we have lost everything pretty much.

Oh, we can still go for walks, although screens pull us toward them, away from anything real or living. You know we’re lost without them, and we only grow sleepier, under the effect of abuse, unfairness, prejudice and agents that go bump in the night. The courts have taken to meeting once a month for an hour, and they needn’t bother, since they have no power either.

Medicine has yet to be banned, but we know that’s coming and don’t really care, because we can’t afford it, like we can’t afford insurance nor rent. Everyone will ultimately be arrested and disappeared. If not, starvation will set in and we need to find a wall to prop ourselves up while the hungriest people try to feast on us. You know survival is impossible and nobody wants to survive if it means drowning in gold-sprayed grayness. No more films or concerts, museums or theater productions. It’s getting harder and harder to recall the days when people did things together.

You probably don’t need me to give you more evidence, and I certainly don’t want to frighten you, but you are not in need of information. Only resignation will keep you going at this point. If you want to keep going, that is.

Maybe none of this has scared you, but I tried and it should have. Rest in peace. You’ll be gone soon enough. That’s my point, and Poe would be happy that I stuck to my goal of ‘unified effect’. Like the House of Usher, the House of Us is on the verge of destruction. There may be a song about that, but nobody dares hum the tune any more.