Sizeable enough to accommodate a collection of more than 50 assembled costumes, a mahogany two-doored wardrobe sits imperceptible to the rows of patients, the nurses and aides moving about an 1849 Boston hospital ward. White sheets hang about but do not section off the myriad of ailing patients moaning or glassy-eyed lying there. 

From the left wardrobe door emerges a massive creature whose wings compose more than twice its own body mass; the veins within the wings emit black ashes like dust falling into the air. Wings unfurled, the being grows to be three times the height, width, and breadth of any ward nurse. Its torso features those of a magnificently proportioned man, blanketed with a black cape.

Out of the right wardrobe door crawls a being just as big but whose bulk is dressed as a kaleidoscopic-clad jester, including curl-toed shoes and carrying a jester’s bell-jingling staff. The two come together at the foot of a looking-almost-dead-patient’s bed.

The black-caped angel says, “Even here at his death bed, you can’t be more reverent?”

“Come, come, now, you’re the one speaking to me about reverence?” the jester asks. “Besides, I thought it might help him through tonight.” He refers to his jester costume. “This is the character that made him most famous, after he saw me perform, actually juggling I was, on the streets in Boston. I reminded him of London. Then, he wrote ‘The Cask’ story.” He jingles his belled hat as if to congratulate himself on a deed well done. 

The other’s voice drips with sarcasm. “And look where he is now. I, in this same dark attire,” he gestures to his costume, “one midnight, did remind him of entombment and death. I like to think I had something to do with that brilliant piece of work. Bricking someone up in the catacombs.”

“You’re in no way his divine inspiration. It’s the 1800’s. Everybody’s scared of being buried alive. Obsessed with it, even.”

When the little hospital-bedridden patient with the black hair and mustache, Edgar Allan Poe, tosses himself about and mumbles, “Reynolds! Reynolds!”, the black angel first stares and then says, “Not that he has to worry about that, people’s obsession, not that he’ll soon have to worry about anything.” He looks at the jester. “Know what I mean?”

The jester stands with his hands on his hips. “No, I don’t really know, because angels don’t feel human emotion, but still you could act BETTER.”

The black angel walks around the bed, prodding at the man. “Yes, people die. At least it’ll be the end of all his misery.”

“Supposed misery. You are supposing he had misery. But he had turned over a new leaf. Had stopped drinking. Was involved with a temperance group. Was to marry.”

The black angel waves his hand in dismissal. “Sure. Sure. Writing about envious angels.” He clears his throat and stands at attention as he begins to recite: 

‘With a love that was more than a love—

I and my Annabelle Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.’” 

“Bravo!” Still clapping, the jester remarks, “So, you know about this poem? It’s not been published yet in human time. I DO, of course, know, being that I AM a seraph. But I’m not coveting anything.” The jester looks at the dark angel. “I didn’t think you knew about things yet to come.” 

The black one shrugs. “Eh, one of the others told me about it, such a gravely inspired piece.” 

“I say, in that black cape, you could represent every evil villain DC Comics or Marvel will come up with. Oh, wait, those won’t be written until the 1900’s.” The jester saunters about the room a bit as if surveying the amenities, or lack thereof. “This time, 1849, suits you. With all its leeches and blood-letting.” 

Nurses rush to attend to a convulsing patient beside Poe.

“Why were you the jester that time you ‘inspired’ him on the street, as well?”

“I entered the wardrobe first. I like being a jester. It suits me. I think people should be happy. It did give me an advantage over you that time on the street. Once I entered his thoughts, I could gain his inner eye. His ear. His attention, more quickly than you.” He gestures to the black angel, “Not like you in this bat-like cape thing.”

The black caped being jumps at him. “I did have influence over him. I have lured him to the dark places. I could have lured him there that night outside the pub—”

“–No, you couldn’t. That night he was too far gone,” the seraph-turned-jester interrupts.

The other says, “What’s wrong with him?” The black angel eyes those running toward them as Poe almost sits up in bed. After this outburst, the nurses restrain him. “They sure as hell don’t know.”

“Only God knows,” the jester claims, and the black angel shoots him a look, to which the jester angel responds, “Hey, I don’t know everything.”

The nurses—-the one homely-gooney tall, another one stubby, and one redhead—-cluster to look at Poe’s chart. Their whispers are loud. Tall Gooney Gooney says, “They brung him in October 3. This here’s the seventh. Near four days. I’m tired of cleaning him up. I ain’t seen no change.”

Stubby says, “Great deductive skills, Nurse Obvious. But what’s wrong with him?”

Red shrugs and adds, “That night an official entry had recorded something was ill-logical before bringing him from the park bench. A doctor at a tavern recorded him as ‘feverish,’ ‘verbally incoherent.’ Now he’s mostly unresponsive.”

Stubby says, “Again, not helpful, Nurse Obvious.”

Tall gooney snaps, “And ain’t you just so knowledgeable and original? To give us the same name, Nurse Obvious. Alls you can do, hmmm? Yous got no answers, neither.”

Red says, “Maybe it’s drink.”

Seeing the cluster gathered and hearing snippets of the conversation, Dr. John Moran, attending physician, interjects. “Drink—-not likely. There was no evidence of it about the patient, Mr. Poe. It’s been reported that he was about to be wed.” Moran peers over his spectacles to more closely survey the women. “I think you three would better serve our patients by conducting your hourly rounds, am I correct, ladies?” 

The doctor and nurses disperse themselves throughout the hospital ward. 

The jester shakes his head. “It’s a shame. Such a talent.”

The dark angel says, “Ha, his talent gives or rather gave people nightmares.” 

The jester sighs, “Nothing yet compares to what they’re going to write in the 1970’s. Wait till you see The Exorcist.” 

The patient rolls around in his bedsheets and vomits froth.

“When will it end?” the dark one asks.

“That only God knows.” 

“Where will he go? To hell, I imagine.”

“You know better than to judge.”

The patient screams, “Reynolds! Reynolds!”

The black angel says, “Well, I’m not waiting around anymore.” He steps into the wardrobe and emerges dressed as a mime. “I’m performing up on a corner in Boston. Another mime is killing it up there.”

The jester angel refers to Poe in the bed. “Did you have anything to do with this man’s condition? It would seem to me that you and his arch nemesis Rufus Griswold may have put your heads together when I was otherwise preoccupied.”

“Griswold is sooo evil, he has no need of my influence. He even has events planned for Poe after his death—-to kill all manner of his attaining literary immortality. Forgive me, I’ve got bodies to mime.”

“Forgive? Not my place, you know, not in my jurisdiction—forgiving.” 

“Figure of speech.” The mime climbs into the wardrobe. 

 

There is a certain state where you cannot see reality, but  you see other things. Unconsciousness is one of those states. And that’s where Poe is, in a place called Nowhere. 

In Nowhere stands a tree some call the Hangman’s Tree because thoughts and memories there can be separated out and framed as images hooked and hanging on its dead limbs. From time to time these thoughts and memories can spill out from the frames and run amuck in the otherwise barren landscape and then hop back up into the hanging frames. 

Poe has no intention of ever getting out of Nowhere. He has no intention of ever anything again at all.

But you don’t just sit when you go to Nowhere. Just below those dead limbs, under the Hangman’s Tree beside The River sits a mirrored inescapable bowl—-inescapable because you can’t climb out of it. And that’s where Poe sits-–inside the bowl. There Poe feels all alone. And he is.

From where he sits (he had quit struggling to exit the mirrored bowl), Poe cannot see the pictures hanging above him or even running amuck—-because if he starts to remember these, the hurt and the struggle to climb out of the mirrored bowl is too great. 

Just then, the mahogany wardrobe lands at Nowhere, but no one notices, of course. When the jester angel emerges from the wardrobe as a man now all dressed in white with white gleaming all around, Poe at first takes no notice of him. Then Poe cries out, “Reynolds! Reynolds!”

“I heard you calling for me. Did you use all your talent from the bowl?”

“Reynolds! Reynolds! Oh, yes, Reynolds.”

“Good man, take my hand.”

 

Back in reality, in the hospital ward, stepping out from the wardrobe is a priest that only the ill-struck Poe can see. Certain states and certain unseen things can be seen only when you believe. And that’s where Poe is. The priest holds the rosary in his hand as he proceeds to Poe’s side. He reaches out and touches Poe’s hand. 

Poe says, “Lord, help my poor soul.”

The priest says, “It’s all good. And you’ll be long remembered, rest assured of that. Truth and Beauty never die. Come.”