After Poe.

Having some time to kill in consequence of there being a state of idleness about me, I decided to read again my favourite Edgar Allan Poe short story. I went into my cold and gloomy living room, took my volume of Poe short stories from the bookshelf, collected my reading glasses, and returned to the relative welcome of my desk light in the office.

I didn’t read The Fall of the House of Usher as intended, but fell to reading Berenice instead. And when I’d finished – having read both stories several times before – it struck me for the first time that I seem to be particularly fascinated by tales in which a young female relative – in one case a sister, and in the other a cousin – should be prematurely buried and then re-appear in a state of abject depletion. I wondered whether there might be some reason in fact for my fascination, or whether my mind is as devoid of healthy rest as Poe’s evidently was.

Further, it is a fact that whenever I read a story from the inner turmoil of Poe – as opposed to the stories of detection and the search for buried treasure – I always feel driven to write something myself. This was the best I could manage.