I Wonder If I Could

Gossip Says She Hanged Herself From The Turret On The Tower, But When You Have A House Like Hill House With A Tower And A Turret, Gossip Would Hardly Allow You To Hang Yourself Anywhere Else.

I Took My Coffee Into The Dining Room And Settled Down With The Morning Paper. A Woman In New York Had Had Twins In A Taxi. A Woman In Ohio Had Just Had Her Seventeenth Child. A Twelve-year-old Girl In Mexico Had Given Birth To A Thirteen-pound Boy. The Lead Article On The Woman's Page Was About How To Adjust The Older Child To The New Baby. I Finally Found An Account Of An Axe Murder On Page Seventeen, And Held My Coffee Cup Up To My Face To See If The Steam Might Revive Me.

On The Moon We Have Everything. Lettuce, And Pumpkin Pie And Amanita Phalloides. We Have Cat-furred Plants And Horses Dancing With Their Wings. All The Locks Are Solid And Tight, And There Are No Ghosts.

I Was Thinking, I Could Turn Him Into A Fly And Drop Him Into A Spider's Web And Watch Him Tangled And Helpless And Struggling, Shut Into The Body Of A Dying Buzzing Fly; I Could Wish Him Dead Until He Died.i Could Fasten Him To A Tree And Keep Him There Until He Grew Into The Trunk And Bark Grew Over His Mouth. If He Was Under The Ground I Could Walk Over Him Stamping My Feet.

Don't Do It, Eleanor Told The Little Girl; Insist On Your Cup Of Stars; Once They Have Trapped You Into Being Like Everyone Else You Will Never See Your Cup Of Stars Again; Don't Do It; And The Little Girl Glanced At Her, And Smiled A Little Subtle, Dimpling, Wholly Comprehending Smile, And Shook Her Head Stubbornly At The Glass. Brave Girl, Eleanor Thought; Wise, Brave Girl.