Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media book Club book Club book Club, book
Speaker 1: Club book Club. Hello and welcome to Cooleson Media book Club,
Speaker 1: the only book club where you don't have to do
Speaker 1: the reading because I do it for you. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Margaret Giljoy, and every week I bring you usually stories,
Speaker 1: and this week I'm bringing you a story by someone
Speaker 1: that I didn't even realize wrote fiction, but someone that
Speaker 1: I've referenced a lot in my historian research. Historical research,
Speaker 1: I'm not really a historian, but in the history podcast
Speaker 1: that I run, because I'm going back to a story
Speaker 1: from nineteen twenty written by the civil rights leader, Harvard
Speaker 1: trained sociologist and prolific author W. E. B. Dubois. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you've heard me reference on cool people who did
Speaker 1: cool stuff, the idea that the Civil War was one
Speaker 1: by the general strike of enslaved people in the US South,
Speaker 1: and how that crippled the Confederate economy. I'm referencing W. E. B.
Speaker 1: Du Bois, and he's written a lot, but that's the
Speaker 1: most influential on my understanding of history. W. E. B.
Speaker 1: Du Bois was born in eighteen sixty eight, and he
Speaker 1: is primarily known as a nonfiction writer. Most notably The
Speaker 1: Souls of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction in America. But
Speaker 1: he also left us some fiction that explored ideas he
Speaker 1: couldn't articulate with his nonfiction work, And it's actually good fiction.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear. Sometimes when nonfiction writers are like,
Speaker 1: I'm a writer, story, they're not nailing it. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: the stories, it's very good. Dubois was one of the
Speaker 1: founders of the NAACP and was a longtime editor of
Speaker 1: its newspaper, which is called The Crisis, which is a
Speaker 1: fantastic name for a paper. Politically, he was a Panaic
Speaker 1: Africanist and sympathetic to socialism, and found capitalism to be
Speaker 1: the root cause of fascism, though pragmatism and personal conflicts
Speaker 1: with socialist organizers often led him back to electoral politics.
Speaker 1: This story, The Comet, is a pillar of early twentieth
Speaker 1: century Black science fiction, and a lot of critics look
Speaker 1: back on it as an early example of afrofuturism. Dubois
Speaker 1: was a lifelong atheist, but was deeply interested in religious
Speaker 1: metaphor apocalyptic language and the way that systems bigger than
Speaker 1: us filter down into everyday lives. And you'll see that
Speaker 1: on full display in this story. And just as a note,
Speaker 1: this was written by a black author nineteen twenty talking
Speaker 1: about people at the time, and some people are going
Speaker 1: to use the N word to describe a character in
Speaker 1: the story. I am not going to read the N word,
Speaker 1: but instead I'm going to introduce a bleep okay, without
Speaker 1: further ado, because that's the ado. The ado is done
Speaker 1: without any more of that ado. Here is the Comet
Speaker 1: by W. E. B. Du Bois. He stood a moment
Speaker 1: on the steps of the bank, watching the human river
Speaker 1: that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him, few ever noticed him,
Speaker 1: save in a way that stung. He was outside the world. Nothing,
Speaker 1: as he said bitterly, bits of the words of the
Speaker 1: walkers came to him. The comment, oh, the comment. Everyone
Speaker 1: was talking of it. Even the President, as he entered,
Speaker 1: smiled patronizingly at him and asked, well, Jim, are you scared. No,
Speaker 1: said the messenger shortly, I thought. We journeyed through the
Speaker 1: comet's tail once broke in. The junior clerk affably, Oh,
Speaker 1: that was Haley's, said the President. This is a new comment.
Speaker 1: Quite a stranger, they say, wonderful, wonderful. Well, I saw
Speaker 1: it last night. Oh, by the way, Jim, turning around
Speaker 1: again to the messenger, I want you to go down
Speaker 1: into the lower vaults today. The messenger followed the President silently.
Speaker 1: Of course they wanted him to go down to the
Speaker 1: lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more valuable men.
Speaker 1: He smiled grimly and listened. Everything of value has been
Speaker 1: moved out since the water began to seep in, said
Speaker 1: the President. But we missed two volumes of old records.
Speaker 1: Suppose you nose around down there. It isn't very pleasant.
Speaker 1: I suppose not very said the messenger as he walked out. Well, Jim,
Speaker 1: the tale of the new comet hits us at noon
Speaker 1: this time, said the vault clerk as he passed over
Speaker 1: the keys. But the messenger passed silently down the stairs.
Speaker 1: Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim light filtered
Speaker 1: through the feet of hurrying men, Down to the dark basement, beneath,
Speaker 1: down into the blackness and silence, beneath that lowest cavern. Here,
Speaker 1: with his dark lantern, he groped in the bowels of
Speaker 1: the earth, under the world. He drew a long breath
Speaker 1: as he threw back the last great iron door and
Speaker 1: stepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace,
Speaker 1: and he groped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him,
Speaker 1: and cobwebs crept across his face. He felt carefully around
Speaker 1: the room, shelf by shelf, on the muddied floor, and
Speaker 1: in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back to
Speaker 1: the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He
Speaker 1: sounded and pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away, then
Speaker 1: something brought him back. He was sounding and working again,
Speaker 1: when suddenly the whole black wall swung as on mighty hinges,
Speaker 1: and blackness yawned beyond. He peered in. It was evidently
Speaker 1: a secret vault, some hiding place of the old Bank vault,
Speaker 1: unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long,
Speaker 1: narrow room with shelves, and at the far end an
Speaker 1: old iron chest. On a high shelf lay the two
Speaker 1: missing volumes of records and others. He put them carefully
Speaker 1: aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong,
Speaker 1: and rusty. He looked at the vast and old fashioned
Speaker 1: lock and flashed its light on the hinges. They were
Speaker 1: deeply encrusted with rust. Looking about he found a bit
Speaker 1: of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten
Speaker 1: a hundred years, and it had gone deep slowly wearily,
Speaker 1: the old lid lifted, and with a last low groan,
Speaker 1: lay bare its treasure, and he saw the dull sheen
Speaker 1: of gold. Boom, A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon
Speaker 1: his ear. He started up and looked about. All was
Speaker 1: black and still. He groped for his light and swung
Speaker 1: it about him. Then he knew the great stone door
Speaker 1: had swung to He forgot the gold and looked death
Speaker 1: squarely in the face. Then, with a sigh, he went
Speaker 1: methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead,
Speaker 1: but he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what
Speaker 1: seemed endless hours, his hand struck a cold bit of metal,
Speaker 1: and the great door swung again, harshly on its hinges,
Speaker 1: and then, striking against something soft and heavy, stopped. He
Speaker 1: had just roomed squeeze through. There lay the body of
Speaker 1: the vault Clerk, cold and stiff. He stared at it
Speaker 1: and then felt sick and nauseated. The air seemed unaccountably foul,
Speaker 1: with a strong peculiar odor. He stepped forward, clutched at
Speaker 1: the air and fell fainting across the corpse. He awoke
Speaker 1: with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and
Speaker 1: groped up the stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman
Speaker 1: sat as if asleep, with the gate swinging free, with
Speaker 1: one glance at him. The messenger hurried up to the subvault.
Speaker 1: In vain, he called to the guards. His voice echoed
Speaker 1: and re echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement, he rushed. Here,
Speaker 1: another guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still.
Speaker 1: A fear arose in the messenger's heart. He dashed up
Speaker 1: to the cellar floor. Up into the bank, the stillness
Speaker 1: of death lay everywhere, and everywhere bowed, bent and stretched,
Speaker 1: the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced about.
Speaker 1: He was not a man easily moved, but the sight
Speaker 1: was appalling robbery and murder. He whispered slowly to himself
Speaker 1: as he saw the twisted, oozing mouth of the President,
Speaker 1: where he lay half buried on his desk. Then a
Speaker 1: new thought seized him. If they found him here alone,
Speaker 1: with all this money and all these dead men, what
Speaker 1: would his life be worth? He glanced about, tiptoed cautiously
Speaker 1: to a side door, and again looked behind. Quietly, he
Speaker 1: turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street. How
Speaker 1: silent the street was not, A soul was stirring, and
Speaker 1: yet it was high noon Wall Street Broadway. He glanced
Speaker 1: almost wildly up and down, then across the street, and
Speaker 1: as he looked, a sickening horror froze in his limbs.
Speaker 1: With a choking cry of utter fright. He lunged, leaned
Speaker 1: giddily against the cold building, and stared helplessly at the sight.
Speaker 1: In the great stone doorway. A hundred men and women
Speaker 1: and children lay, crushed and twisted and jammed forced into
Speaker 1: that great, gaping doorway, like refuse in a can, as
Speaker 1: if in one wild frantic rush to safety, they had
Speaker 1: rushed and ground themselves to death. Slowly the messenger crept
Speaker 1: along the walls, wetting his parched mouth and trying to comprehend,
Speaker 1: stilling the tremor in his limbs and the rising terror
Speaker 1: in his heart. He met a business man, silk hatted
Speaker 1: and frock coated, who had crept too along that smooth wall,
Speaker 1: and stood now stone dead, with wonder written on his lips.
Speaker 1: The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the curb.
Speaker 1: A woman leaned wearily against the sign post, her head
Speaker 1: bowed motionless on her lace and silken bosom. Before her
Speaker 1: stood a street car, silent and within. But the messenger
Speaker 1: but glanced and hurried on. A grimy newsboy sat in
Speaker 1: the gutter with the last edition in his uplifted hand.
Speaker 1: Danger screamed its black headlines, warnings wired around the world.
Speaker 1: The comet's tail sweeps past us at noon, Deadly gases expected,
Speaker 1: Close doors and windows, seek the cellar. The messenger read
Speaker 1: and staggered on far out from a window above a
Speaker 1: girl lay with gasping face and sleevelets on her arms.
Speaker 1: On a store step sat a little, sweet faced girl,
Speaker 1: looking upward toward the skies, and in the carriage by
Speaker 1: her lay. But the messenger looked no longer. The cords
Speaker 1: gave way. The terror burst in his veins, and with
Speaker 1: one great gasping cry, he sprang desperately forward and ran
Speaker 1: ran as only the frightened run, shrieking and fighting the air,
Speaker 1: until with one last wail of pain, he sank on
Speaker 1: the grass of Madison Square and lay prone and still.
Speaker 1: When he rose, he gave no glance at all. To
Speaker 1: the still and silent forms on the benches, but going
Speaker 1: to a fountain, bathed his face. Then, hiding himself in
Speaker 1: a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly
Speaker 1: gripped himself and thought, the thing through the comet had
Speaker 1: swept the earth, and this was the end. Was everybody dead?
Speaker 1: He must search and see. He knew that he must
Speaker 1: steady himself and keep calm, or he would go insane.
Speaker 1: First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up
Speaker 1: Fifth Avenue to a famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous,
Speaker 1: ghost haunted halls. He beat back the nausea, and, seizing
Speaker 1: a tray from dead hands, hurried into the streets and
Speaker 1: ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights. Yesterday they
Speaker 1: would not have served me, he whispered as he forced
Speaker 1: the food down. Then he started up the street, looking, peering, telephoning,
Speaker 1: ringing alarms, silent, silent. All was nobody, nobody. He dared
Speaker 1: not think the thought, and hurried on. Suddenly he stopped still.
Speaker 1: He had forgotten, My god, how could he have forgotten?
Speaker 1: He must rush to the subway. Then he almost laughed, No,
Speaker 1: a car, if he could find a Ford. He saw
Speaker 1: one gently, he lifted off its burden and took his
Speaker 1: place on the seat. He tested the throttle. There was gas.
Speaker 1: He glided off, shivering, and drove up the street. Everywhere
Speaker 1: stood leaned, lounged, and lay the dead in grim and
Speaker 1: awful silence. On he ran past an automobile wrecked and overturned,
Speaker 1: passed another filled with a gay party whose smiles yet
Speaker 1: lingered on their death. Struck lips on past crowds and
Speaker 1: groups of cars, pausing by dead policeman at forty second Street.
Speaker 1: He had to detour to Park Avenue to avoid the
Speaker 1: dead congestion. He came back on Fifth Avenue at fifty
Speaker 1: seventh and flew past the plaza and by the park
Speaker 1: with its hushed babies and silent throng, until as he
Speaker 1: was rushing past seventy second Street, he heard a sharp
Speaker 1: cry and saw a living form leaning wildly out an
Speaker 1: upper window. He gasped. The human voice sounded in his
Speaker 1: ears like the voice of God. And do you know
Speaker 1: what else is in your ear right now? Like the
Speaker 1: voice of God. I'm sure as fuck is in sports gambling,
Speaker 1: but it might be the rest of these goods and
Speaker 1: services and we're back. Hello, Hello, Hell in God's name,
Speaker 1: wailed the woman. There's a dead girl in here, and
Speaker 1: a man, and see yonder, dead men lying in the street,
Speaker 1: and dead horses. For the love of God, go and
Speaker 1: bring the officers. And the words trailed off into hysterical tears.
Speaker 1: He wheeled the car in a sudden circle, running over
Speaker 1: the still body of a child and leaping on the curb.
Speaker 1: Then he rushed up the steps and tried the door,
Speaker 1: and rang violently. There was a long pause, but at
Speaker 1: last the heavy door swung back. They stared a moment
Speaker 1: in silence. She had not noticed before, but he was
Speaker 1: a Negro. He had not thought of her as white.
Speaker 1: She was a woman of perhaps twenty five, rarely beautiful,
Speaker 1: and richly gowned, with darkly golden hair and jewels. Yesterday,
Speaker 1: he thought with bitterness, she would scarcely have looked at
Speaker 1: him twice. He would have been dirt beneath her silken feet.
Speaker 1: She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men
Speaker 1: she had pictured as coming to a rescue, she had
Speaker 1: not dreamed of one like him, not that he was
Speaker 1: not human, but he dwelt in a world so far
Speaker 1: from her, so infinitely far that he seldom even entered
Speaker 1: her thought. Yet as she looked at him curiously, he
Speaker 1: seemed quite commonplace and usual. He was a tall, dark
Speaker 1: workingman of the better classes, with a sensitive face trained
Speaker 1: to stolidity, and a poor man's clothes and hands. His
Speaker 1: face was soft and slow in his manner, at once
Speaker 1: cold and nervous, like fires long banked but not out.
Speaker 1: So a moment each paused and gaged the other. Then
Speaker 1: the thought of the dead world without rushed in, and
Speaker 1: they started toward each other. What has happened, she cried,
Speaker 1: Tell me nothing stirs, all is silence. I see the
Speaker 1: dead strown before my window, is winnowed by the breath
Speaker 1: of God. And see she dragged him through the great
Speaker 1: silken hangings to wear the sheen of mahogany and silver.
Speaker 1: A little French maid lay stretched in quiet, everlasting sleep,
Speaker 1: and near her a butler lay prone in his livery.
Speaker 1: The tears streamed down the woman's cheeks, and she clung
Speaker 1: to his arm, until the perfume of her breath swept
Speaker 1: his face, and he felt the tremors racing through her body.
Speaker 1: I had been shut up in my dark room, developing
Speaker 1: pictures of the comet, which I took last night. When
Speaker 1: I came out, I saw the dead. What has happened?
Speaker 1: She cried again. He answered slowly, something comet or devil
Speaker 1: swept across the earth this morning. And many are dead, many,
Speaker 1: very many. I have searched, and I have seen no
Speaker 1: other living soul but you. She gasped, Oh. And they
Speaker 1: stared at each other. My father, she whispered, where is he?
Speaker 1: He started for the office. Where is it in the
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Tower? Leave a note for him here and come.
Speaker 1: Then he stopped. No, he said firmly. First we must
Speaker 1: go to Harlem. Harlem, she cried. Then she understood. She
Speaker 1: tapped her foot at first impatiently. She looked back and shuddered.
Speaker 1: Then she came resolutely down the steps. There's a swifter
Speaker 1: car in the garage in the court, She said, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to drive it. He said, I do,
Speaker 1: she answered. In ten minutes, they were flying to Harlem
Speaker 1: on the wind. The stoots rose and raced like an airplane.
Speaker 1: They took the turn at one hundred and tenth Street
Speaker 1: on two wheels and slipped with a shriek into one
Speaker 1: thirty fifth. He was gone but a moment. Then he returned,
Speaker 1: and his face was gray. She did not look, but said,
Speaker 1: you have lost somebody. I have lost everybody, he said, simply,
Speaker 1: unless he ran back and was gone several minutes hours
Speaker 1: They seemed to her everybody, he said, and he walked
Speaker 1: slowly back, with something film like in his hand, which
Speaker 1: he stuffed into his pocket. I'm afraid I was selfish,
Speaker 1: he said. But already the car was moving toward the park.
Speaker 1: Among the dark and lined dead of Harlem, the brown
Speaker 1: still faces, the knotted hands, the homely garments, and the silence,
Speaker 1: the wild and haunting silence. Out of the park and
Speaker 1: down Fifth Avenue, they whirled in and out among the dead.
Speaker 1: They slipped and quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn,
Speaker 1: until the great square Metropolitan Tower hove in sight. Gently,
Speaker 1: he laid the dead elevator boy aside. The car shot upward.
Speaker 1: The door of the office stood open. On the threshold
Speaker 1: lay the stenographer, and staring at her sat the dead clerk.
Speaker 1: The inner office was empty, but a note lay on
Speaker 1: the desk, folded and addressed, but unsent, Dear daughter, I've
Speaker 1: gone for a hundred mile spin in Fred's new Mercedes.
Speaker 1: Shall not be back before dinner. I'll bring Fred with me.
Speaker 1: J B H. Come, she cried nervously. We must search
Speaker 1: the city, up and down, over and across back again.
Speaker 1: On went that ghostly search. Everywhere was silence and death,
Speaker 1: death and silence. They hunted from Madison Square to Spute
Speaker 1: and deval. They rushed across the Williamsburg Bridge. They swept
Speaker 1: over Brooklyn from the Battery and Morningside Heights. They scanned
Speaker 1: the river, silence, silence everywhere, and no human sign. Haggard
Speaker 1: and bedraggled, they puffed a third time, so slowly down
Speaker 1: Broadway under the broiling sun, and at last stopped. He
Speaker 1: sniffed the air, an odor, a smell, and with a
Speaker 1: shifting breeze, a sickening stench filled their nostrils and brought
Speaker 1: its awful warning. The girl settled back helplessly in her seat.
Speaker 1: What can we do, she cried. It was his turn
Speaker 1: now to take the lead, and he did it quickly,
Speaker 1: the long distance telephone, the telegraph and the cable, night rockets,
Speaker 1: and then flight. She looked at him now with strength
Speaker 1: and confidence. He did not look like men as she
Speaker 1: had always pictured men, but he acted like one, and
Speaker 1: she was content. In fifteen minutes. They were at the
Speaker 1: Central Telephone Exchange. As they came to the door, he
Speaker 1: stepped quickly before her and pressed her gently back as
Speaker 1: he closed it. She heard him moving to and fro,
Speaker 1: and knew his burdens, the poor little bird turdans he bore.
Speaker 1: When she entered, he was alone in the room. The
Speaker 1: grim switchboard flashed its metallic face and cryptic sphinx like immobility.
Speaker 1: She seated herself on a stool and donned the bright earpiece.
Speaker 1: She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never looked at
Speaker 1: one so closely before. It was wide and black, pimpled
Speaker 1: with usage, inert, dead, most sarcastic in its unfeeling curves.
Speaker 1: It looked she beat back the thought, but it looked
Speaker 1: it persisted in looking like. She turned her head and
Speaker 1: found herself alone. One moment she was terrified. Then she
Speaker 1: thanked him silently for his delicacy and turned resolutely with
Speaker 1: a quick intaking of breath. Hello, she cried in low tones.
Speaker 1: She was calling to the world. The world must answer.
Speaker 1: Would the world answer? Was the world? Silence? She had
Speaker 1: spoken too low? Hello, she cried, full voiced. She listened silence.
Speaker 1: Her heart beat quickly she cried, in clear, distinct loud tones, Hello, Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: What was that worrying? Surely no, was it the click
Speaker 1: of a receiver. She bent close. She moved the pegs
Speaker 1: in the holes and called and called into Her voice
Speaker 1: rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It
Speaker 1: was as if she had heard the last flicker of creation,
Speaker 1: and the evil was silence. Her voice dropped to a sob.
Speaker 1: She sat stupidly staring into the black and sarcastic mouthpiece,
Speaker 1: and the thought came again. Hope lay dead within her. Yes,
Speaker 1: the cable and the rockets remained, but the world. She
Speaker 1: could not frame the thought or say the word.
Speaker 2: It was too.
Speaker 1: Mighty, too terrible. She turned toward the door with a
Speaker 1: new fear in her heart. For the first time, she
Speaker 1: seemed to realize that she was alone in the world,
Speaker 1: with a stranger, with something more than a stranger, with
Speaker 1: a man alien in blood and culture unknown, perhaps unknowable.
Speaker 1: It was awful. She must escape, She must fly, He
Speaker 1: must not see her again. Who knew what awful thoughts?
Speaker 1: She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young smooth limbs, listened,
Speaker 1: and glided into a side hall a moment, she shrank back.
Speaker 1: The hall lay filled with dead women. Then she leaped
Speaker 1: to the door and tore at it with bleeding fingers
Speaker 1: until it swung wide. She looked out. He was standing
Speaker 1: at the top of the alley, silhouetted, tall and black, motionless.
Speaker 1: Was he looking at her or away? She did not know,
Speaker 1: She did not care. She simply leaped and ran, ran
Speaker 1: until she found herself alone amid the dead and the tall,
Speaker 1: imparts of towering buildings. She stopped. She was alone, alone,
Speaker 1: alone on the streets, alone in the city, perhaps alone
Speaker 1: in the world. There crept in upon her the sense
Speaker 1: of deception, of creeping hands behind her back, of silent
Speaker 1: moving things she could not see, a voice hushed in
Speaker 1: fearsome conspiracy. She looked behind and sideways, started at strange sounds,
Speaker 1: and heard still stranger, until every nerve within her stood
Speaker 1: sharp and quivering, stretched a scream. At the barest touch.
Speaker 1: She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a child, until
Speaker 1: she found that narrow alley again, and the dark, silent
Speaker 1: figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested. Then
Speaker 1: she walked silently toward him, looked at him, timidly, but
Speaker 1: he said nothing as he handed her into the car.
Speaker 1: Her voice coughed as she whispered, not that, and he
Speaker 1: answered slowly, no, not. And you, dear listener, are also
Speaker 1: never alone in this great and terrible world, for you
Speaker 1: will always have the accompaniment of these sweet, sweet deals
Speaker 1: on products and services waiting for you.
Speaker 2: Gently, here's ads, and we're back.
Speaker 1: They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the
Speaker 1: wheel and sobbed with great, dry, quivering sobs as they
Speaker 1: flew toward the cable office on the east side, leaving
Speaker 1: the world of wealth and prosperity for the world of
Speaker 1: poverty and work. In the world behind them were death
Speaker 1: and silence, grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent.
Speaker 1: Here it was hideous. It clothed itself in every game,
Speaker 1: vastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and suffering. It lay
Speaker 1: wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in
Speaker 1: its dread and awful silence was it like death everywhere. Yet,
Speaker 1: as the two flying and alone, looked upon the horror
Speaker 1: of the world, slowly, gradually the sense of all enveloping
Speaker 1: death deserted them. They seemed to move in a world
Speaker 1: silent and asleep, not dead. They moved in quiet reverence,
Speaker 1: lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had at
Speaker 1: last found peace. They moved in some solemn, worldwide friedhoff,
Speaker 1: above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand
Speaker 1: all nature slept until until and quick, with the same
Speaker 1: startling thought, they looked into each other's eyes, he Ashen
Speaker 1: and she crimson, with unspoken thought to both, the vision
Speaker 1: of a mighty beauty of vast unspoken things swelled in
Speaker 1: their songs, but they put it away. Great dark coils
Speaker 1: of wire came up from the earth and down from
Speaker 1: the sun, and entered this low lair of witchery. The
Speaker 1: gathered lightnings of the world centered here, binding with beams
Speaker 1: of light the ends of the earth. The doors gaped
Speaker 1: on the gloom within. He paused on the threshold. Do
Speaker 1: you know the code, she asked, I know the call
Speaker 1: for help. We used it formerly at the bank. She
Speaker 1: hardly heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below,
Speaker 1: the dark and restless waters, the cold and luring waters,
Speaker 1: as they called. He stepped within. Slowly. She walked to
Speaker 1: the wall where the water called below, and stood and
Speaker 1: waited long. She waited and he did not come. Then
Speaker 1: with a start, she saw him too, standing beside the
Speaker 1: black waters. Slowly he removed his coat and stood there silently.
Speaker 1: She walked quickly to him and laid her hand on
Speaker 1: his arm. He did not start or look. The waters
Speaker 1: lapped on in luring, deadly rhythm. He pointed down to
Speaker 1: the waters and said, quietly, the world lies beneath the waters.
Speaker 1: Now may I go. She looked into his stricken, tired face,
Speaker 1: and a great pity surged within her heart. She answered,
Speaker 1: in a voice clear and calm, no, upward. They turned
Speaker 1: toward life again, and he seized the wheel. The world
Speaker 1: was darkening to twilight, and a great gray pall was
Speaker 1: falling mercifully and gently on the sleeping dead. The ghastly
Speaker 1: glare of reality seemed replaced with the dream of some
Speaker 1: vast romance. The girl lay silently back as the motor
Speaker 1: whizzed along, and looked half consciously for the elf queen
Speaker 1: to wake of life into this dead world again. She
Speaker 1: forgot to wonder at the quickness with which he had
Speaker 1: learned to drive her car. It seemed natural. And then
Speaker 1: as they whirled and swung into Madison Square and at
Speaker 1: the door of the Metropolitan Tower. She gave a low cry,
Speaker 1: and her eyes were great. Perhaps she had seen the
Speaker 1: elf Queen. The man led her to the elevator of
Speaker 1: the tower, and deftly they ascended in her father's office.
Speaker 1: They gathered rugs and chairs, and he wrote a note
Speaker 1: and laid it on the desk. Then they ascended to
Speaker 1: the roof, and he made her comfortable. For a while.
Speaker 1: She rested and sank to dreamy somnolence, watching the worlds
Speaker 1: above and wondering Below lay the dark shadows of the city,
Speaker 1: and afar was the shining of the sea. She glanced
Speaker 1: at him timidly as he set food before her and
Speaker 1: took a shawl and wound her in it, touching her
Speaker 1: reverently yet tenderly. She looked up at him with thankfulness
Speaker 1: in her eyes. Eating what he served, he watched the city.
Speaker 1: She watched him. He seemed very human, very near. Now
Speaker 1: have you had to work hard, she asked softly, always,
Speaker 1: he said, I have always been idle. She said, I
Speaker 1: was rich, I was poor. He almost echoed. The rich
Speaker 1: and the poor are met together, she began, and he finished.
Speaker 1: The Lord is maker of them all. Yes, she said, slowly,
Speaker 1: and how foolish our human distinctions seem now, looking down
Speaker 1: to the great dead city stretched below, swimming in unlightened shadows. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was not human yesterday, he said. She looked at him,
Speaker 1: and your people were not my people, she said. But today,
Speaker 1: she paused, he was a man no more. But he
Speaker 1: was in some larger sense of gentlemen, sensitive, kindly, chivalrous,
Speaker 1: everything save his hands and his face. Yet yesterday death,
Speaker 1: the leveler, he muttered, and the revealer, she whispered. Gently.
Speaker 1: Rising to her feet with great eyes, he turned away, and,
Speaker 1: after fumbling a moment, sent a rocket into the darkening air.
Speaker 1: It arose, shrieked, and flew up a slim path of light,
Speaker 1: and scattered its stars abroad. Dropping on the city below.
Speaker 1: She scarcely noticed it. A vision of the world had
Speaker 1: risen before her. Slowly, the mighty prophecy of her destiny
Speaker 1: overwhelmed her. Above the dead past hovered the Angel of Annunciation.
Speaker 1: She was no mere woman. She was neither high nor low, white,
Speaker 1: nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal woman, mighty
Speaker 1: mother of all men to come, and bride of life.
Speaker 1: She looked upon the man beside her and forgot all else.
Speaker 1: But his man manhood, his strong, vigorous manhood, his sorrow
Speaker 1: and sacrifice. She saw him glorified. She was no longer
Speaker 1: a thing apart, a creature below, a strange outcast of
Speaker 1: another climb and blood, but her brother, humanity, incarnate, son
Speaker 1: of God and great allfather of the race to be.
Speaker 1: He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but
Speaker 1: stood looking outward toward the sea, and sending rocket after
Speaker 1: rocket into the unanswering darkness. Dark purple clouds lay banked
Speaker 1: and billowed in the west behind them, and all around
Speaker 1: the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that suffused the
Speaker 1: darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as
Speaker 1: though gathered back at some vast hand, the great cloud
Speaker 1: curtain fell away. Low on the horizon lay a long
Speaker 1: white star, mystic, wonderful, and from it fled upward to
Speaker 1: the pole like some water bridal veil, a pale, wide
Speaker 1: sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed
Speaker 1: the stars in fascinated silence. The man gazed at the
Speaker 1: heavens and dropped his rockets to the floor. Memories of
Speaker 1: memories stirred to life in the dead recesses of his mind.
Speaker 1: The shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his soul.
Speaker 1: Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his
Speaker 1: cast leaped the lone majesty of kings, long dead. He
Speaker 1: arose within the shadows, tall, straight and stern, with power
Speaker 1: in his eyes, and ghostly scepters hovering to his grasp.
Speaker 1: It was as though some mighty pharaoh lived again, or
Speaker 1: curled Assyrian lord. He turned and looked upon the lady,
Speaker 1: and found her gazing straight at him, silently, Immovably, they
Speaker 1: saw each other, face to face, eye to eye, their
Speaker 1: souls lay naked to the night. It was not lust,
Speaker 1: It was not love. It was some vaster, mightier thing
Speaker 1: that needed neither touch of body nor thrill of soul.
Speaker 1: It was a thought, divine, splendid. Slowly, noiselessly, they moved
Speaker 1: toward each other, the heavens above, the seas around the city,
Speaker 1: grim and dead. Below, he loomed out from the velvet shadows,
Speaker 1: vast and dark, pearl white and slender. She shone beneath
Speaker 1: the stars. She stretched her jeweled hands abroad. He lifted
Speaker 1: up his mighty arms, and they cried to each other,
Speaker 1: almost with one voice. The world is dead. Long live
Speaker 1: the Hong Kong. Hoarse and sharp, the cry of a
Speaker 1: motor drifted up clearly from the silence below. They started
Speaker 1: backward with a cry, and gazed upon each other with
Speaker 1: eyes that faltered and fell with blood that boiled. Honk honk,
Speaker 1: honk honk, came the mad cry again, and almost from
Speaker 1: their feet a rocket blazed into the air and scattered
Speaker 1: its stars upon them. She covered her eyes with her
Speaker 1: hands and her shoulders. Heaved, he dropped and bowed, groped
Speaker 1: blindly on his knees about the floor. A blue flame
Speaker 1: sputtered lazily after an age, and she heard the scream
Speaker 1: of an answering rocket as it flew. Then they stood
Speaker 1: still as death, looking to opposite ends of the earth. Clang, crash, clang.
Speaker 1: The roar and ring of swift elevators shooting upward from
Speaker 1: below made the great Tower tremble. A murmur and babble
Speaker 1: of voices swept in upon the night, all over the
Speaker 1: once dead city. The lights blinked, flickered, and flamed, and
Speaker 1: then with a sudden clanging of doors, the entrance to
Speaker 1: the platform was filled with men, and one with white
Speaker 1: and flying hair, rushed to the girl and lifted her
Speaker 1: to his breast. My daughter, he sobbed. Behind him, hurried
Speaker 1: a younger comelier man, carefully clad in motor costume, who
Speaker 1: bent above the girl with passionate solicitude and gazed into
Speaker 1: her staring eyes until they narrowed and dropped, and her
Speaker 1: face flushed deeper and deeper. Crimson, Julia, he whispered, my darling,
Speaker 1: I thought you were gone forever. She looked up at
Speaker 1: him with strange, searching eyes. Fred, she murmured, almost vaguely.
Speaker 1: Is the world gone? Only New York? He answered? It
Speaker 1: is terrible awful, you know, But you how did you escape?
Speaker 1: How have you endured this horror? Are you well? Unharmed? Unharmed?
Speaker 1: She said? And this man here, he asked, encircling her
Speaker 1: drooping form with one arm and turning toward the negro.
Speaker 1: Suddenly he stiffened, and his hand flew to his hip. Why,
Speaker 1: he snarled, it's ah, Julia, has he has? He dared?
Speaker 1: She lifted her head and looked at her late companion curiously,
Speaker 1: and then dropped her eyes with a sigh. He has
Speaker 1: dared all to rescue me, she said, quietly, and I
Speaker 1: thank him much, but she did not look at him again.
Speaker 1: As the couple turned away, the father drew a roll
Speaker 1: of bills from his pockets. Here, my good fellow, he said,
Speaker 1: thrusting the money into the man's hands. Take that. What's
Speaker 1: your name? Jim Davis, came the answer, alive, voiced, well, Jim,
Speaker 1: I thank you. I've always liked your people. If you
Speaker 1: ever want a job, call on me. And they were gone.
Speaker 1: The crowd poured up and out the elevators, talking and whispering.
Speaker 1: Who was it? Are they alive? How many two? Who
Speaker 1: was saved? A white girl in up there? She goes?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: Where is he? Let's lynch the damned shut up. He's
Speaker 1: all right, he saved her, saved hell. He has no
Speaker 1: business here. He comes into the glare of the electric lights.
Speaker 1: The colored man moved slowly, with the eyes of those
Speaker 1: that walk and sleep. What do you think of that?
Speaker 1: Cried a bystander of all New York, Just a white
Speaker 1: girl in a The colored man heard nothing. He stood
Speaker 1: silently beneath the glare of the light, gazing at the
Speaker 1: money in his hand, and shrinking as he gazed. Slowly,
Speaker 1: he put his other hand into his pocket and brought
Speaker 1: out a baby's filmy cap and gazed again. A woman
Speaker 1: mounted to the platform and looked about, shading her eyes.
Speaker 1: She was brown, small and toil worn, and in one
Speaker 1: arm lay the corpse of a dark baby. The crowd parted,
Speaker 1: and her eyes fell on the colored man. With a cry,
Speaker 1: she tottered towards him. Jim. He whirled and with a
Speaker 1: sob of joy, caught her in his arms. The end,
Speaker 1: and yeah, we're back, Thanks for listening a story with me. Hazel,
Speaker 1: who helps me pick the stories, has this to say
Speaker 1: about it. Dubois is using common literary tropes of the
Speaker 1: day to craft a powerful tale of apocalypse and rebirth
Speaker 1: for black folks. He plays with archetypes from the Garden
Speaker 1: of Eden to cast our protagonists as a new Adam
Speaker 1: and Eve and a grand metaphor for the destruction of
Speaker 1: racism in the birth of a new humanity. Du Bois's
Speaker 1: protagonist could only imagine the destruction of racism through the
Speaker 1: destruction of his entire society, and the restoration of societal
Speaker 1: order coming with some pretty profound degradation and dehumanization. Even
Speaker 1: as the scale of the story returns back to the
Speaker 1: inner personal and out of the mythical. We still see
Speaker 1: how the characters continue to be caught up in rolls
Speaker 1: and narratives and violence that is greater than they are.
Speaker 1: And even amidst that, we still end on a moment
Speaker 1: of black joy, a reminder of resistance and interdependence, a
Speaker 1: promise that the fight for liberation continues. Also that Hazel
Speaker 1: specifically enjoys quote how when the cars honk and the
Speaker 1: fireworks crack, the noise they make is put into quotation
Speaker 1: marks as if they're characters who are also speaking. I
Speaker 1: find this stylistically quite charming. As for what I have
Speaker 1: to say about it, I tend to agree with Hazel
Speaker 1: about stories, That's why we work together on this. But
Speaker 1: specifically he loves alliteration, and it makes it really funny
Speaker 1: to read and to do a lot of like retakes
Speaker 1: of various parts. But I really appreciate that he actually
Speaker 1: cares about the craft of writing. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that isn't the modern style, right, like ending sentences
Speaker 1: with exclamation marks is like seeing as cheesy from the
Speaker 1: pulp air of fiction this was written. Then, I also
Speaker 1: really appreciate that he's managed to write a nuclear apocalypse
Speaker 1: story before the invention of the nuclear bomb. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting because it was probably presented as horror, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't read as horror to me now because the idea
Speaker 1: of literally everyone dying is like apocalypse is a different
Speaker 1: genre than horror now, even though most of the story
Speaker 1: is just like describing dead bodies. And I also really
Speaker 1: like the sort of subtle and unsubtle play of like
Speaker 1: as they're like developing these like sexual thoughts towards each other,
Speaker 1: it's mostly her deciding that she has sexual thoughts towards him.
Speaker 1: I didn't catch it until my second read that she's
Speaker 1: like holding the telephone and this like black telephone. She's
Speaker 1: like it almost looks like a No, I can't think that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but the characters like they're still doing
Speaker 1: this like mythical level thing, but they feel very real. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I understand why people have to imagine
Speaker 1: the destruction of all of the existent. And also I
Speaker 1: just really appreciate stuff that talks about death as the
Speaker 1: great leveler. I really appreciate when I'm reading history, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, these revolutionaries they died or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you're like yeah, and so did everyone who sat
Speaker 1: it out right, so did everyone who just like stayed
Speaker 1: at home twiddled their thumbs. You're talking about nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: Everyone's dead. No one from the nineteenth century is alive.
Speaker 1: So what do you want?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Anyway? This has been the comment by web du Bois,
Speaker 1: published in nineteen twenty in a collection called Darkwater. I'm
Speaker 1: Margaret Kiljoy. You can find me on the internet at
Speaker 1: Margaret on Blue Sky and Margaret Kiljoy on Instagram, and
Speaker 1: next Sunday I will be back with more short fiction
Speaker 1: the cool Zone Media Book Club. Take care of each other,
Speaker 1: love each other. It is our duty to fight for freedom,
Speaker 1: and it is our duty to win. All right, Bye everyone.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool.
Speaker 2: Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com or
Speaker 2: check us out on the Iheard Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources where it Could Happen here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.