The Canary Died

By Dana A. Mason

This entertaining, informative and imaginative adventure combines fiction with facts, jarring realities and unexpected environmental insights. Morgan and Elisabeth explore truth in their own communications as they unravel human disease mysteries, strange deaths, mutations and massive extinctions of land and sea animals.

The story begins in Boston:
Morgan, an environmentalist, picks up a hitchhiker, Elisabeth, an entomologist.

“...She looked at me again with the same sideways smile as she pushed back her hair, grabbing it like a ponytail and releasing, revealing a beaming, rosy glow to her face as if my words had landed on her cheeks.

“Yes.” Newly empowered by her readable blushing I ventured more, “I’m drawn to you. From right now I want to know you. Talk true from the start. ”I poured it out almost without control.
Elisabeth’s sarcasm was quick, “Oh come on now. What planet do you live on?”

They travel around India:
"Across from us on the other side of the road another bus had stopped. It was really a dilapidated motorized wagon with a cloth top. It was mobbed and still filling with passengers, bags and other containers. The vehicle was life itself. Its guts were a sweating pile of humanity bulging beyond its meager frame, its human skin holding on, swaying, dangling and ready to fall off."

Morgan and Elisabeth enter deep and mysterious caves to attend a secret conference about the dangerous situation causing human dis-figuration and hundreds of deaths.

"They all stayed close to the light and followed Rizwan downward through an intricate network of winding passageways, impossible to traverse without his experienced guidance. Half an hour later a warm pulsating firelight appeared in front of them as they walked into a huge open chamber."

"Morgan was drawn in by the light reflecting from the rock. It highlighted the lines of life in the farmer’s furrowed and still shiny face. The wisdom of experience was intoned in the orator’ voice. The man was standing upon his story as if it were a carpet unrolling with soil and atmosphere, farming from the sun and sky, his life rooting into the earth, entwined and scratching the world for food."

Deep in the cave, Morgan gets very personal: “O.K. My thought is to break the stereotypical bonds we are all indoctrinated with. Remove the porno and religious dogma from masturbation and everything inevitably connected and implied by those attitudes. Experience a bond directly to your own DNA; a method of reconnecting to our own design.

Elisabeth contemplates," We are witnesses to experiments upon an unsuspecting people. ...We are ingesting the identical chemicals in North American and around the world."

The characters face life-changing consequences as they learn of their own body burden of chemicals. Some scientists think that five days of continuous antibiotic use can kill up to one third of the tens of trillions of micro-organisms found in the vast human micro-biome. In a child or compromised adult, this loss may remove some biological components which are necessary for normal immune development and function.

“Morgan,” exclaimed Elisabeth, “It is ironic, don’t you think? Back in the war the scientists were trying to make poisons to kill people. Soon it was, and still is, used to save people from malaria, kill mosquitoes and other little beasties. Now we find it in our food. Has it come back to harm and possibly kills us?”

A speck floating in the air becomes a morsel in a stream caught by a fish you eat. Hidden within that fish, or on a piece of fruit, vegetable, nut or meat, invisible tentacles of the beast reaches into you. The insidious toxin moves through you and quietly alights. Your body, to protect you from the fragment, suspends it in the fat around your organs.
The abhorrent chemical poison is released by your liver when you need energy. The villain in your bloodstream finds its way into your endo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dana A. Mason
• Release date: Dec 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370632817

Dana A. Mason

I am a writer, eclectic sculptor, photographer and a human being with great concerns about the health of our planet, and most of the people, animals and plants living upon it.

Book preview

Prologue

This is a work of fiction. The names of the characters and their involvement in each situation are fabricated. The events and circumstances may have actually occurred, but are imaginatively interpreted for the purpose of the story. The appearances, likenesses, and similarity to any living or dead people, or places are coincidental.

This book's purpose is to inform and entertain. Written over a period of many years, it is based upon approximately four gigabytes of research documents.

The Canary Died is a fictional novel based upon facts. Facts change as we increase our knowledge. Sometimes information which seems irrefutable is wrong. Facts might show us people who eat vegetables and drive red automobiles get into accidents. It does not mean broccoli causes accidents. Although some conclusions are obvious, people who eat vegetables do have accidents, we must be vigilant.

The who in this story is fictional, the what and the science are authentic and the numbers are accurate or close approximations.

This story is filled with the real and imaginary as it unfolds across the mixed time lines of today, tomorrow and yesterday. The reality of dreams is an old story. We go through life often disregarding reality as if it is a dream. Culture places the divide inconsistently and without apparent reason.

I see the earth as a drop of cosmic matter in a vast and unknown universe filled with synchronous moving intertwined evolutions of life. Each piece of matter blends and intimately unites with another of the Earth’s life puzzle, affecting its neighbor and taking its place as a part of the whole.

1. Commonwealth Avenue

I am headed toward Boston traveling down a long curvy road called Commonwealth Avenue in my green 1955 Ford. It has a 292 cubic inch V eight engine and a three-speed stick on the column. A kid throws a white plastic cup spilling soda out of the window of the car in front of me. Flying with it is some hamburger bun in an opened Styrofoam box. He thinks ‘it does not matter, all of it will disappear‘. He is dreaming. In reality the plastic stays and the food rots or is eaten by vermin, rats, or something.

The things we leave beside the road are landmarks of ourselves. Our garbage, like an extended family, is the DNA of our living habits, a historic trash logarithm of human beings.

Memories serve the same function. Experience eaten to sustain our hope and guide us is often left behind.

This vehicle, like the Styrofoam case bouncing in the wind ahead of me, was discarded. It sat in an alley behind some apartment buildings in Allston. When I discovered it 15 years ago, major wiring, distributor cap, spark plugs and battery were all missing. Two weeks later I had it running. It is a simple, powerful, reliable and exciting old car. My heart races when I downshift into second gear and accelerate around curves and slow vehicles.

Commonwealth Avenue, also called Route 30, is the same road the marathon runners travel each year. I grew up near it and loved to bicycle along large parts of the very hilly road full of curves, old buildings, homes of the rich, golf courses and places to play. Traveling from the suburbs towards downtown Boston, near Boston College where the trolley line begins, the houses change to apartment buildings and stores. It always gives me a good feeling when I journey down this road and see the people on the street by B.C. and a few miles more, Boston University. This town is filled with scholarship, thinkers, art, pretty people and things to do.

Today the warm fresh moving air of a late spring morning is full of sunshine and energy. The winds seem to bestow on me the same bounce and the lightness as they give to the empty Styrofoam container floating ahead.

I am exhilarated in the freedom of traveling on this road and thinking back over the years. Near Heartbreak Hill, the steep downgrade every marathon runner knows and dreads, I sometimes turn off the main road and go exploring through the different neighborhoods. I park, visit a little Greek food shop and buy a piece of vanilla, pistachio, hazelnut or chocolate flavored halvah, a candy made from ground up sesame seeds, honey and nuts. There is a comfort in the familiarity of the small grocery stores, the auto body repair shop and its hand painted faded sign of a dented car with a sad face and headlight eyes, the liquor store with its black and rusty iron bars and the fasciae of the old apartments. The unique connective tissue covering and binding together the bodies of these structures changes color and style from corner to corner, speaking its history and at the same time defining the neighborhoods.

This day I stay on Route 30. The news on the radio said there has been a disruption of trolley cars on the line today because of a truck accident. This explains what looks like a college student hitchhiking ahead of me. Years ago I used to stop routinely and pick up almost any hitchhiker. Now everyone is so afraid of crime the practice is discouraged. I refuse to be coerced by fear. I still like to give people the benefit of the doubt and reinforce neighborliness. I stop to pick him up. He hops into the back seat and thanks me for the ride. A few blocks later, another student, another, and still one more. The back seat is filled and one in the front. Soon we are a friendly group full of nudging and chummy talk.

Down the road a beautiful young woman is hitchhiking. This must be a dream, a car filled with five young men, hardly enough room for another person, even if she is bold enough to consider a ride. I begin to break, everybody in the car murmurs and with the unison of a chuckle, could not believe I had the gumption to even try. The vehicle, now mirth mobile, slows to the corner for her. The young man in the passenger seat rolls the window down.

She is tall and thin with long flowing black hair. Her wispy yellow skirt moves with the winds, the black figurines on it, alive in themselves.

A dark blue long sleeved silk blouse clings to her arms and shows off her braless breasts. Her nipples push through and trigger instant and quickly dissipating fantasies inspired by her and me but not connected to any other reality of her. I have almost mastered this hidden trigger and to all but the trained eye keep the well-established social mechanism.

This is not all my fault. Beyond my testosterone is a hidden sexualized media woman. Perhaps during adolescence when my hormones were raging I was open to the imprinting of disinformation. Her fantasy was programmed into me by unreal women in commercials, movies, television and airbrushed models in magazines. She strokes herself into my thinking, a mind-training overlay, sistered with long ago deep-seated memories of a baby’s sustenance and comfort.

Sunglasses frame her face in a mystical smile. With an expression of amusement in my voice, I speak across the front seat as if there were no other passengers, at the same time counting on them.

Would you like a lift?

She leaned over, put one hand on the open window frame, and with the other removed her sunglasses. A serious woman perused the interior of the car, stopping for a moment on each man’s face and then looked at me. Her eyes, a clear deep aquamarine blue instantly penetrated my heart. Shivers ran through me.

She smiled as if she knew and replied, Sure.

The car quieted and my heart jumped. I hoped for but not expected a yes from this striking woman. The fellow next to the door opened it and stepped outside. He mumbled something about how he would probably get out first and so she slid onto the bench seat, soon to be squeezed between us. I could feel her warmness, soft and exciting. An exotic, sweet and spicy fragrance folded and twisted through the old Ford, transformed into an unseen dragon’s fiery head and consumed me. Instantly I imagined love and adventure.

As each fellow got into the car I had asked, Where are you headed? In turn, one passenger to the next answered a different building connected with one university or the other. I did not ask this glowing woman. I wanted her to stay beside me.

A calm quiet filled the spaces.

I get out after the next light, by the bus stop.

Past, after the gray truck, said the first two passengers in unison from the back seat.

The one in the front: For me, the next place you can stop.

Upon the last Over there, the door sealed itself with a heavy push of air and she moved slightly toward the passenger window, but still touching at the hip. A thrill rose through my being. I was untrained for this exciting conglomeration of emotions, unexpected joyous hope, my cheeks pulling my face uncontrollably into a smile . . . she and I are alone. A frond of the metaphysical touched my shoulder.

She looked at me and spoke, If you take me to Copley Square I’ll buy the coffee. She paused for a moment, How about Poe’s near the Fenway?

2. Inquiry in the Conference Room

Several days earlier Elisabeth had been sitting in a conference room in the Poe building listening to Bill Nask address a gathering of professionals. She felt her peace and tranquility disturbed as the narrative unfolded. While he was on an assignment in South Central India Bill read several newspaper articles describing hundreds of suicides. He began investigating the perplexing government reports. Pesticide was involved in almost all of them.

Elisabeth visualized a fifty-year-old woman named Medini living with her five children and her sick husband in a small cinderblock house. Medini worked all day as a farm laborer for 20 Indian Rupees (Rs. 20), $0.42 U.S. After her toiling day on the nearby farm she would go home to her family and soon begin working on their own three-acre patch of groundnuts (peanuts) planted in July. Medini was a good public-spirited woman who listened to her neighbor’s hardships. She tried to help alleviate some of their suffering by collecting money for them, organizing the local farm workers into an agricultural union and led them on their demonstrations for higher wages.

One evening, she came home from work as she usually did and went into her field. Then, according to the official government report, drank the pesticide she had been using on her crops and died a few hours later. There were other similar accounts of nearby farmers and some of their children dying from the same pesticide.

Bill made his closing, The more I asked around, the more tragedy I found. The nearest I could surmise there were 41 suicides and nine attempted suicides between September and November in the same district. Thirty-four of the suicides were by groundnut farmers who owned or leased between one and one half and ten acres of land. All the farmers had some of the free pesticide which had been distributed by the district administration. The suicides peaked in October-November then slowed down.

A search of newspaper articles confirmed 300 to 500 cotton farmers committed suicide in the same area a few years ago. The whole thing strikes me as strange and unlikely. Why would so many farmers be killing themselves and all by the same method? How are they connected? On the surface, the case made by the government in the district administration’s report appears reasonable. All the farmers were in profound poverty and debt. Many years of ‘drought’ had produced small or bad crops and this acute misery caused them to kill themselves. In this part of India, the word ‘drought’ is often used as a deceptive term by the governmental agencies for any agriculturally bad situation.

I interviewed some of the neighboring farmers and they turned it around back at me, ‘If what the government says is true why are there more deaths now than there were in past years which had lower crop outputs? Bill paused and put down his notes and pushed the report toward the center of the table.

Here is the whole story. Unless there are any questions, I’ll get back to my office. If anybody needs me, call. Low-tone goodbyes were uttered as Bill turned and left.

Harriet, the organization’s president, notorious for her brevity and bluntness spoke up, Goodness, what an alarming story! Elisabeth you are the administrator on this one. Keep me posted. This meeting is adjourned.

Everyone rose from the conference table and dispersed into their respective offices. Elisabeth was beaming and surprised. This was the first time she was put in charge of a project since she had been hired as a consultant eight months ago. The moment she sat down in her office she got online and began gathering information from news articles and official Indian government sources. Her thoughts transformed to words. She talked aloud as she followed the links.

All of these stories seem to agree the groundnut farmers who died used the government distributed pesticide. If we want to prove it we will have to approach the government and the victims’ families for permits to exhume the bodies, if they were buried. Fat chance that will happen. I suppose if the stories were true it must have been the free stuff, considering the poor economic circumstances of all of the victims. Hum . . . the poison is one of in the family of and she sounded out the word ‘or-gan-o-phos-phate’ insecticides.

Wonder what it is? She traveled down the page and began reading aloud, acts systemically and on contact to control a diverse array of sucking, chewing and boring insects, ticks and spider mites on cotton, peanuts, tobacco and some other plants. Oh, it gives me an allover itchy feeling. Unconsciously she scratched her arms. It is very poisonous to mammals, extremely toxic to birds and it has been used as a bird poison. Why does anybody want to kill birds? Maybe pigeons, they can be such a nuisance. Oh, I remember . . . the pesticides killed so many insects and other small living things including the birds which survived on those very insects. I suppose the overkill got some of the little animals too, the ones’ birds of prey like hawks, owls and eagles lived on. It began a new cycle bird patterns and problems. Some of the birds, mostly starlings, survived the poisons. Deprived of their normal food supply they had to turn to eating crops instead. Now the wildlife services who are supposed to be conserving animal life and habitat are killing two million birds a year with poisons. The irony of it. I suppose we will find more things put out of balance by this kind of pattern.

She searched the internet for more data and found the EPA assigned this pesticide as ‘class 1 toxicity’ - highly toxic, specially labeled with the signal word ‘Danger’.

Whoa, whew, I can’t believe all of this, she exclaimed, feeling more apprehension and fear. According to this page, I wonder if all of this stuff is true, a few years ago thousands of hawks died from exposure to the same insecticide. Turning away from her computer, Elisabeth dialed a few digits on her landline.

Three rings and, Research, Sue.

Hi Sue, its Elisabeth. Do you know anything about Swainson’s Hawks?

Actually, yes, a lot. There was a big bird scare a few years ago. Forgive the pun, she continued. I was on the research team.

What happened? Elisabeth asked. Did pesticide actually kill 6000 of them?

Probably more. One biologist estimated close to 20,000 Swainson’s died in a one hundred and fifty square mile area, Sue affirmed. You know Elisabeth, the scary part is that it was an emergency then, at least for the people who studied the event and today the cause of the disaster is still dire. Hardly anybody pays attention to the problem or to me when I talk about it. To understand what happened you need to know a little about this impressive bird. The Buteo Swainsoni is a magnificent migratory raptor. Has a wingspan of 47 to 57 inches, which it uses to fly a round trip of 12,400 miles a year.

That is an amazing feat. Where does it go? asked Elisabeth.

"In the summer their range extends from central Alberta and southern Manitoba in Canada, down through western Minnesota, south through Texas, southern California and parts Mexico. The last part of April the breeding season begins and they build their nests in trees or large shrubs near crops or fields of grass. Usually they are not far from the banks of moving water. They forage for small mammals and rodents such as mice, beetles, small reptiles and their preferred food of grasshoppers. They benefit farms by removing creatures which destroy field crops. As the summer turns to fall you can see flocks of up to a hundred birds hunting in freshly harvested fields.

At the start of the North America winter they gather for migration. As they fly, the numbers grow and have been spotted in parts of Texas in flocks of 5,000 to 25,000. The majority of them end up in the alfalfa fields of the La Pampas region of Argentina where they form communal roosts of between 1,000 and 5,000 birds. Most of the world’s population of Swainson’s Hawks spends the season there. At the time the population was 350,000."

I like the Audubon lesson, but what happened to them? questioned Elisabeth impatiently.

O.K., O.K., I just had to give you some background, Sue rejoined. The real horror story started in 1995 and ran into 1996 when, I’m not sure who it was, maybe some bird watchers, noticed huge numbers of hawks were not returning to North America in their usual spring migration. Birders in the avian community started investigating. This led to a scientific study and satellite tracking of some birds equipped with miniature transmitters. Much to everybody’s shock and alarm, what they found were thousands of dead Swainson’s Hawks. One roost had 700 dead. In the night, hawks were dying and falling out their nests. Several governmental scientists, as well as other NGO’s, (non-government-organizations), a university toxicologist and a representative of the world’s largest pesticide manufacturer examined the dead birds. The conclusion was unanimous. The poisoning was caused by direct exposure and/or when the birds ate grasshoppers contaminated with one or more of the organophosphate pesticides which had been used to control large grasshopper incursions into the area. Sue, with heartache in her voice, paused.

Elisabeth empathized, let out loud a sigh and asked despairingly, Was anything done?

Eventually, after some more disasters, answered Sue.

What do you mean?

Well, in July 1997 there was a farmer in a place called Entre Rios province who soaked his seeds in organophosphate pesticide. The result was the death of 100,000 Eared Doves, as well as Barn Owls, other birds and who knows what else. Then, later in the summer, another 500 Swainson’s Hawks were found dead from the same poison. Of course, there was a lot of hubbub, pressure exerted by all sorts of people focused on the effects of pesticides on wildlife. Finally, in late March 2000, the offending pesticide was banned throughout Argentina.

Did the bird disaster have any effect on the usage of the pesticide in the United States? Elisabeth asked.

Not really, responded Sue. It was reported a little bit. Most people thought of it as something happening ‘over there’ and it left their consciousness. If anything, the situation is getting worse. I cannot seem to get people to understand how pressing the pesticide conundrum actually is.

What do you mean by pressing?

Are you familiar with the cliché ‘Canary in the coal mine’?

I think so, but I’m not sure?

Canaries were used in coalmines in the United States and in Great Britain up until 1986 and in other parts of the world as an early warning device. The pretty little birds are quite sensitive to toxic gases such as carbon monoxide which is odorless and tasteless, and methane. Each of these gasses will kill a canary before a miner realizes they are at harmful levels, Sue explained.

You’re kidding? Birds instead of electronic testing? I guess when it comes to mining cheaper is better, Elisabeth disdained.

I’m not sure why. It could be cost or may be the birds are dependable and the miners trust them. ‘The canary in the coal mine’ saying comes from a bit of life we all can relate to. If you are down in a hole where there might be some deadly gas or no oxygen and your ‘healthy up to now canary’ gives out a little chirp and keels over you probably ought to think about what you are breathing, Sue explained.

So, what has the coal mine canary got to do with pesticides? Elisabeth questioned."

A lot, Sue tensed up her face as she spoke. Today this common sense, below ground, early warning system has breached the mines. Bird warnings are almost everywhere we look, even though most birds are hardier and a lot less sensitive than canaries. Generally, the changes in the animal population are seen before the same transitions happen in humans. So, the logical question is what are the effects on the bird population of all of the agricultural chemicals and pesticides used in the United States? The horrifying answer: 67 million birds a year are dying, ten percent of the exposed bird population.

You can’t be serious. It’s unbelievable! exclaimed Elisabeth.

Worse than you think, Sue continued. Pesticides along with other chemical pollutants and environment factors have put almost 1300 of the approximately 9800 remaining bird species on the extinction radar. Actually, while we are discussing this, it is worth noting, almost one in three species of amphibians are threatened with extinction, and one in four mammals. Now, are you wondering what this stuff does to us?

Sue, is all that really true? How can this be happening and it isn’t in the papers?

Good question Elisabeth. It is true. I think the reason it is not in the mainstream media is a complex one involving politics and money. But, that is a conversation for another time. One more thing, next time you go outside look around and note how few birds you see, excluding those around a bird feeder. Rachel Carlson was right, though now the silence is encroaching all of the seasons on the planet.

This last part of the conversation on top of the disturbing project left the bird loving Elisabeth feeling sad. She decided to head for the ‘Hill’ and see if she could feel better.

3. Elisabeth

E-Diary

I distil my thoughts and reflections of the day. On the drive home, my car is a part of the city in one of those opening movie, aerial, rush hour night shots from a helicopter. The red taillights of the moving cars look like blood rushing through the highway arteries. I am another pulsing vessel. The stop and go clogs and pollution continually remind me how much more sense it makes to take the subway most days, unless I need to travel. The good side of it is, by the time I get home I always find some new ideas to give me energy and direction for tomorrow.

Today begins another phase of my life. Harriet has put me in charge of an important project. I am a Strelitzia Nicolai, steadily growing upward through the not so friable pane of the glass ceiling. Like the banana plant, when I reach the top I will break the glass and shards will fly. I will keep them from cutting me by using special care to listen to every voice and keep an open mind to explore all of the possibilities.

What will happen when the private and powerful think-tank group I work with puts its hand into the enigma of people dying on the other side of the earth? I have never experienced a personal connection with another culture’s death. It will be a challenge for me to identify the surrounding social clues, their influence and how they are intertwined with the events and conditions. What is the significance of these new deaths? Will this incident have some world consequence?

It will take a strong conscious effort to relinquish myself from this mystery, even for a short while. I suppose it is like meditation. I have to allow all of it to flow through me without hanging on to bits of the negative.

As I approach 32, familiar places from my past reappear. I was not prepared for what happened to me on the way home. At a stoplight near the Boston Public Gardens, one of the country’s first public botanical gardens, I gazed into the past as I watched the Swan petal-boats on the pond. Funny how memories create a history unique to experience, time and place. They do not work for me as they once did.

The swans look the same but they are a parallel memory. Immediately I felt a special longing for when my parents loved me as a princess. Like a childhood dream, from spring through summer, we would come to town on a clackity trolley car and have a picnic in the Gardens. Mother, a blanket in one hand, me on the other, and dad with the basket and my other hand, would walk around the twenty-four or so acres looking for a special spot. After we ate our sandwiches with lemonade and cookies for desert, we got on a Swan shaped boat and effortlessly floated around the little pond. There was a man sitting behind us who would maneuver the Swans with ropes, and propel us by constant bicycle-like pedaling. To finish our afternoon we would walk to the ice cream parlor where we sat on wire stools around a little white marble table. We all had a sugar cone filled with peppermint stick ice cream covered with chocolate jimmies.

My walk-up is at the base of Beacon Hill on Charles Street. The car just fits in its pricy little space in the alley behind the apartment building. Parking here is a difficult maneuver when the winter snow comes. Still it is worth every penny. I walk down the alley and turn toward Charles Street. The little Italian grocery is just a couple of blocks down. Even though the food is not all organic, their cheese, bread and salads are very tasty. I love the spicy aroma as I walk around on the wooden floors and find things for supper.

On the stroll home, the air cooled as the day darkened to the blooming streetlights. The next corner holds a gas lighted uphill alley of cobblestone. It is lined with old trees and an assortment of distinctive wooden doors. Even from the outside, they somehow give me comfort and security. I step down the curb and the old city penetrates my feet with a wistful grab for a time when it was a simpler world.

Home, I put the paper grocery bag down on my kitchen counter. It tips over and slices fall from the aromatic loaf. The port wine cheddar finds its way to the bread and joins the salad for supper. I will spend the rest of the evening on the computer learning more about India.

4. Morgan and Elisabeth

We were quiet for a while. She shifted slightly, her body still touching mine. I turned on the old AM radio and tuned in some low background music.

I have never heard of Poe’s, I said.

It’s a private little coffee house.

Where is it?

I’ll show you.

I pulled onto a side street with free parking, past Copley Square near the Fenway. We walked close together in silence, enjoying a shoulder or arm brushing, for half a block on the tree-lined, buckling concrete sidewalk. She nudged me toward an old apartment building with a yellow and gray brick face and an archway covered entry. We turned and climbed the wide granite stairs, worn hollow in the center, up to a big oak and stained glass door. Under the portico was a series of shiny metal mailboxes built into the wall. Some of the older ones had brass nameplates. Others had paper taped across paper, with names written in ink, pencil and crayon on every form of sticky tape and viscous gluey thing you could imagine.

Beneath the ‘P’s in the window of a little brass door was some India ink lettering. It said Poe’s. She reached up to the black gum drop shaped protrusion