# "Once Upon a Midnight Weary..."

*The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 02 Jun 1998*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/718>

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### Robert Borski
*02 Jun 1998, 13:51*

Somewhat earlier the more than astute mantis, amaneunsis to M. Vladimir,

> wrote:
> Then there is the Edgar Allen Poe sequence: the officer is distracted
> by a one-eyed black cat; then by a mysterious black bird that flies
> in and perches on the picture frame--one almost expects the bird to
> croak, "Nevermore."  Both creatures in Poe's work signal missing
> women: the first a murdered wife, the second a wife lost to disease.
> Regardless of that, animal messengers are a part of the abo world
> rather than that of the colonist.

The cat is lifted nearly wholecloth from "The Black Cat," from monocularity
to its name, Pluto. As the officer tells us he's a *graveyard* cat.

Also a semi-autobiographical note, since Gene Wolfe attended a school named
after Eddy Poe. 

Re the IGene colors: Green: Victor's mother; Lucius Shepherd.

ta-tap-tap

YOU STILL THERE NINETY-NINE?

I SEE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE CAVE.

FAITEZ ATTENTION... ROY'S HANDS? HIS ABONESS?

RECORDS DESTROYED IN WAR, N'EST-CE PAS?

START THINKING FROGTOWN.

POSSIBLE SIDETRIP BLOUNT.

POSSIBLE CLUTISH TIE-IN/STANDALONE: TANTE'S GIRLS.

taptap-taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap-taptap

"...Suddenly I heard a tapping."

NEVERMORE

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