“I am the A and the Z, the earliest and the end, the beginning and the conclusion” (Revelation 22.13).
Carnivals don’t come this late. By now they’ve parked the trucks, stored the tents, broken down the rides in preparation for winter. Yet, in the meadow where the moonlight shines, it’s here. But what kind of carnival comes at…three o’clock in the morning?
Something Wicked This Way Comes was written by Ray Bradbury and originally published in September of 1962. I have been wanting a reason to write about this book for years now, and that desire is a big reason this series came into being this year. Of all the books I’ve read in my life, this is the one I love the most.
It’s a short book, not even three-hundred pages, that takes place over three days, 23-25 October. Over the course of those three days Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, who are on the cusp of fourteen, encounter Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show, and are never so young again.
There are many themes within the book. But all of those themes, I think, orbit one core idea: time. The boys are thinking about time the way young boys do, wondering why it seems to pass so slow, why being older seems to take so long. Will’s father, Charles, is thinking about how quickly time has passed, amazed that the man in the mirror is fifty-four years old.
This, to me, is where the horror takes root in the book. At first blush, you might think that time is another word for death. And, sure, the pulse of the clocks that stare at us from our phones, cars, and computers are reminders that the years of our lives are like the flowers of the field, but there is a greater terror all of us can face in the deep hours of the night.
Deep in the book, Charles Halloway remarks that no one is a hero to themselves. All of us have lived with ourselves, hour after hour. We know, even better than our most intimate partner, our flaws, our pettiness, our apathy. Much of this, if we’re fortunate, occurs within our heads and, unless we tell on ourselves, stays locked away in our memories.
I find that, each year, I understand more and more what the older Halloway says. I know all the arrogant and irritated thoughts that have run through my head the past day (sometimes in the past hour). I know these just as I know the thoughts of Jim and Will who wish away the moment, looking off and, despite having all I could need, dreaming of more. Mix into this the million small regrets about things done and left undone whose moments have passed and cannot be replayed, and you have the awful realization that not only have I have wasted so much time but that I’ll waste much of what remains.
This is what the Carnival, led by Mr. Dark, tempts us with. It shakes the rattle of possibilities, of leaping ahead toward the days that seem like they’ll never come. It holds out the sweetness of having the chance to do it all over again. And in the sunlight of an autumn afternoon, it is tempting; because it means we can, at last, make peace with ourselves. Even though we know (yes, we know) the Carnival with its carousel and mirror maze can’t give us what we desire.
What can is found in the verse above. At the culmination of all things, when everything has been redeemed and all the broken parts mended, the Holy One says these words: I’m the beginning and conclusion, the whole alphabet. I am time, the one everything has existed within.
The Divine is what all of us live and move within. Not outside of it, notice that the words aren’t a statement of where God has been but where God is. They are words not for the end of time but for now. Because time, that fearful thing that is where our fears are born, is the very thing that Love is.
You may have noticed the error I made above in saying the elements of our fears and loathing are known only inside the bounds of our own bodies. But that’s not true. The One knows those things, has heard all those thoughts. And what we are reminded is that we exist in love anyway. Not despite but because of the frightened, flawed beings we are.
Does this remove the thoughts and emotions that come at three o’clock in the morning? No, those stay with us. But it does give us a means to resist the temptations to relive and redo what has been done. Love, after all, is the greatest defense against the despair that can creep toward us in the dark because it tells us that we are valued, forgiven, and accepted for who we are, regrets and all.
And with that, we can ignore the calliope’s call and sink back to sleep.
Holy One, help us seek joy not in the past or future but in this fleeting, fragile moment.