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Title: The Secret World of Duvbo Author: CrimethInc. Date: October 25, 2018 Language: en Topics: fiction, liberation, children's story Source: Retrieved on 17th June 2021 from https://crimethinc.com/2018/10/25/the-secret-world-of-duvbo-a-magical-story-about-a-perfectly-ordinary-world
A secret childrenâs book passed from hand to hand, invisible to the
market. After a decade and a half, weâre finally offering a zine version
of The Secret World of Duvbo, the companion to our other childrenâs
book, The Secret World of Terijian. This is a story about the furtive
outlets we create for the parts of ourselves that do not fit into our
ordinary livesâabout the potential for transformation hidden within
seemingly staid and conservative communitiesâabout how the courage of
one can become the courage of all.
This story has followed a long and winding path to reach your hands. The
plot line was conceived in SĂŁo Paulo, Brazil in early 2000. The first
draft was composed at the end of January 2002, at Demonbox, a
now-defunct collective house in Stockholm that, incidentally, was also
the original European publisher of Days of Love, Nights of War. It was
written as a gift for Arwin, who was born the following May in the
real-life neighborhood of Duvbo.
In 2004, after publishing several books for sale on the market, we
wanted to make a book that would only be available through gift
economics. We printed a few thousand copies of The Secret World of Duvbo
and gave them away to friends, lovers, and charming strangers over the
following years.
Traveling in Minnesota in 2006, we discovered a new CrimethInc. cell
that had composed a sequel, The Secret World of Terijian. In 2007, we
published it in the same format as The Secret World of Duvbo, selling it
as a fundraiser for defendants accused of earth and animal liberation.
Within two years, the authors were themselves imprisoned on such charges
and we had to raise funds for them as well. By then, most of the print
run of The Secret World of Duvbo was long gone.
In 2018, we saw copies of the 2004 printing of The Secret World of Duvbo
selling online for $125 and up, shipping and tax not included. We had
eluded both the market and the internet for 14 years, but they were
finally catching up to us. We prepared this edition to make sure that
the text can still reach you outside the exchange economy, if no longer
in the context of personal interaction that gave the original printing
its special power. May we meet someday as friends, nonetheless.
Burn every toy store and replace them with playgrounds,
-CrimethInc. Childrenâs Crusade
---
Little One,
I wanted to write the most perfect story for you, so you would know how
excited we all are for you to join us. I went around with a blank
notebook for weeks, trying to work out the perfect first line for a
perfect story. Finally, since I couldnât come up with it, I moved on to
trying to work out the perfect second line. I went through every line
that way, right up to the last one, without any success. And then it hit
me: I had written a perfect story, after all, but since this is not a
perfect world, the story couldnât join me hereâit was waiting in another
universe, the one where everything is perfect, even me.
To solve this problem, I had to sit down and write you an imperfect
story, so at least you would have something to read. If nothing else, I
think Iâve succeeded in doing that. By the time this reaches you, it
will have been waiting for years; but all the same, late as it is to say
thisâwelcome here!
Yours, ââ
---
Duvbo was a sleepy town in the world that is just like our world in
every respect except that it is the one in which stories like this one
take place. It wasnât particularly close to or far from any other towns,
and although people came in and out sometimes, life in Duvbo centered
around what was going on in Duvbo, which generally wasnât much at all.
The residents didnât seem to think much about this, but if someone had
asked them, they probably would have answered that this was the way they
preferred it.
If you were to take a walk around Duvbo on a sunny afternoon, you would
pass through neighborhoods of modest houses, a few to a street, trees
shading the well-trimmed grass behind white picket fences. Whatever path
you took, you would be bound to come eventually to the center of town,
where there were a street of shops, a street of civic buildings, and a
central square where they intersected. It was a large enough town that a
small child could get lost in it, but not so large that he would not
quickly be found and returned home.
In this town there lived one mayor, four policemen, six firefighters,
three mail carriers, four hundred and twelve assorted other workers,
some retired, and their one hundred and nineteen children, most of whom
attended the one school, which was staffed by nine teachers, including a
particular Ms. Darroway, who taught mathematics. In addition to all
these inhabitants, there were two especially grumpy retired army
officers, who donât come into the story until later, and one especially
shy, especially sensitive boy, Titus, who will be the hero of this tale.
All in all, then, there were five hundred and fifty seven residents of
Duvbo; you should try to remember this number, in case it becomes
important later on.
Letâs start with Titus: he was a tousle-headed little fellow, perhaps a
little shorter than his classmates, given to daydreaming and distraction
but no more preoccupied than any other child his age. He wasnât a boy to
stand out in a crowd, but on closer inspection you might notice himâhe
would be the one near the edge of the group, looking one direction while
everyone else was looking the other. Truth be told, he paid more
attention to his surroundings than adults gave him credit for, and
sometimes noticed things no one else did.
The mayor was a great big ostentatious man given to flaunting
extravagantly ordinary ties and delivering long-winded speeches about
nothing in particular, and Titus only saw him on special occasions like
the county fair or the Christmas parade at the end of autumn. He didnât
see too much of the police officers, either, and though police officers
in other towns are known for doing quite horrid things, these four
werenât really a bad sort. The firefighters would come to his school
once a year to ramble through a presentation about fire safety and
prevention, but as far as Titus could tell, there were never any fires
in Duvbo for them to put out.
The mail carriers were more interesting to the boy, or at least one of
them was. Every day on his way back from school, Titus would pass her
coming down the driveway from his house, having just dropped the mail in
the mail slot; as soon as he had passed her, so she wouldnât see him do
it, he would run up the front steps and fling open the door to see what
had arrived. Nothing ever had, of course, except for bills and other
confusing, humdrum things that set his parents to muttering; but all the
same, it seemed to Titus that a mail carrier ought to bring important
packages, magical invitations, parcels that would open to reveal hidden
entrances to other worlds or at least maps to buried treasure. So every
afternoon, just in case, he was there, fingers crossed, to check the
mailâand every afternoon it was the same: bills and advertisements.
As youâve probably already guessed, Ms. Darroway was Titusâs mathematics
teacher, and he sat in her classes many long hours every week
daydreaming and counting down the minutes until he and the mail would
arrive on that doorstep. She was a stern, strict, unlaughing woman, and
would always catch him with his head in the clouds and chastise him in
front of his classmates. Still, his mind would wander, and he couldnât
help following it out those windows, across the placid fields around
Duvbo, over the hills and far away into wild jungles where women and men
with painted skin rode winged fish up black rivers to abandoned cities
at the feet of towering mountains⌠sometimes when the bell rang to
release him, he was almost sorry to come back to his seat, even though
he knew it was time to run home to see if the package he longed for had
finally arrived.
Through the course of this tale, you may sometimes wonder where Titusâs
parents were; the answer is, of course, that they were there, somewhere
in the background, like many peopleâs parents are these days. Titus was
not so lucky as to have parents who knew how lucky they were to share
their lives with him, and he had to work a lot of things out on his own.
This is the story of how he did, and of how much of a difference it made
for everyone.
---
Weeks and weeks of hopeful afternoons added up to months with still
nothing special in the mailbox. At Titusâs young age, that seemed like
an impossibly long time for nothing special to happen, and he began to
fear that something was wrong in the world; but everyone around him
carried on in such a nonchalant manner, and with so little visible
desire for Something Special to arrive in the mail or from any other
direction, that some days he wondered if something was simply wrong in
himself that he should want such a thing. If he had been a braver boy,
he thought to himself in a tone of accusation, he would have asked the
mailwoman if strange packages from exotic lands didnât show up on at
least some doorsteps, sometimes; but he was at that age when boys become
too self-conscious to ask such things aloud, even if a part of them
still shouts the question silently.
He should not have been so quick to criticize himself, for as it would
turn out, he would demonstrate great bravery and initiative when the
time came. But he had no way of knowing this, yet, and went about
thinking of himself as something of a coward, hoping for an opportunity
to prove his courage with the same mounting impatience with which he
awaited the arrival of something magical in the post.
This impatience led him to do something that parents tell their children
Never To Do Under Any Circumstances, the sort of thing they certainly do
not want little boys doing in the stories their children readâso if
youâve gotten this far, you can consider yourself lucky. Fed up with a
life in which nothing ever happened, Titus began secretly staying awake
until everyone else in the house was asleep, and thenâthis is the really
controversial partâsneaking out of the house to take walks in the
witching hour of the night. Each night he would wait until he heard the
low rumble of his fatherâs snoring, then the quieter whistle of air
between his sleeping motherâs lips, and, after counting breathlessly to
one hundred, would hold the pillow over the window latch to muffle the
sound as he unlocked it. Then he would open the window just wide enough
to slip his body out, and lower himself carefully to the ground a few
feet below, trembling as he did in the thrill of doing something so
frightening and forbidden. Some nights he would step on a twig as he
reached the ground, and freeze in terror for minutes until he was sure
he hadnât awakened his parents; he began to check the area under his
window for sticks in the afternoon, after the latest disappointing batch
of bills had arrived.
On the first few outings, he didnât stray far from the houseâit was
enough just to stand in the dim streetlight in the front yard, looking
at the dark forms of trees that loomed overhead and savoring the chill
air on his face. After a week of this, though, he had built up enough
courage for a short expedition down the street, and then another. The
whole world looked so different at nightâeverything that was familiar in
daylight became, in the still starlight and emptiness of sleeping Duvbo,
spooky and nearly magical. Squinting at the silhouettes of street signs
made blank by the blackness, almost swallowed up by the silence in which
his footsteps boomed, Titus felt like the last human being on earthâor
the first.
Parents and other adults forget this as the years pass, but you know it
well, Iâm sure: childrenâs lives are electrified by secret adventures
like this, given their true form and meaning by moments no one else
witnesses. Already Titus was daydreaming less about the afternoon mail
and more about what he would do later in the evening while the city
slept; and every day in class a taciturn, tired Ms. Darroway would snap
him out of his reveries with a sharp word or a rap on the wrist.
---
One night, flushed with a growing confidence from weeks of these
expeditions, Titus crossed a line. This evening, when he arrived at the
edge of the neighborhood he knew, he didnât turn back, but pausedâand
then, mustering all of his little boyâs bravado, walked forward, onto a
street he could not recognize in the darkness. Every step was a terror,
at first: he laid his feet down as if the pavement might give way
beneath them, or the whole town suddenly be transformed into thick and
impassable jungle. As successive steps revealed these fears to be
unfounded, he shook himself, tried to relax a little, and returned to
his usual pace. It was a little like walking with your eyes closed,
which, if youâve never done it, you should try some time: he expected to
hit disaster at any moment, and shuddered sometimes despite himself, but
the disaster did not come, and if he didnât think about it too hard, it
was as easy as anything to keep moving.
Soon, he began to feel free and sure of himself in a way he hadnât
before in the few long years of his young life. Here he was, out in a
fairyland no one else ever saw, navigating it with the fearlessness and
finesse of a true explorer; if those sleeping civilians only knew! He
rounded corners and set off down new lanes like a pirate captain
swaggering onto the beach of a newly discovered island. Finally, he
decided it was time to return to his bed.
And then, with a dread that ran as deep as his elation had soared high,
he realized he was lost. He hadnât kept track of every turn as he should
haveâand in the dim of the streetlamps, all the landmarks he had
haphazardly picked out looked the same. He took one familiar-looking
road, but it led to no others he remembered; he turned back, and tried
another, only to have second thoughtsâand, upon trying to retrace his
steps, lost track of his path altogether.
Looking on from above, as it were, we can see that Titus had not strayed
more than a few streets from his neighborhood; but from where he stood,
in the murk of moonless night, it seemed home might as well be a
thousand miles away. He wanted to sit down and cry, but he knew he was
in such deep trouble that he couldnât afford to waste a moment. Bravely,
he walked on, deeper and deeper into the maze of his own confusion,
hoping now against hope that he might stumble upon something he
recognizedâDuvbo was not such a big town, after all. Still, nothing of
the sort appeared, for what seemed like hours and hours and miles and
miles, and he was in the final stages of panic when he was startled by
something altogether extraordinary and unexpected.
At the far end of the street he was passing on his left, he made out a
glimmering distinctly different from the light the sparsely scattered
streetlamps cast. It glowed, red and golden, and flickered as if with
movement, or shadows. This was such a wild development that for a moment
little Titus forgot all about his predicament: he had to see what it
was, whatever the consequences. A lifetime of private fantasy had
prepared him for this moment, and although his imagination conjured
nightmares and well as wonders out of the light ahead of him, he turned
and crept up the sidewalk towards it all the same.
As he proceeded, the street grew wider, and he saw that there was an
open space ahead of him, in which he could make out the silhouettes of
trees above and the texture of grass below. He also made out something
else: figures, spinning and whirling around a great fire. The fierce
light stretched their forms and magnified their proportions, made them
appear unreal and enormous. This was beyond out of the ordinaryâit was
positively beyond belief, and Titus whirled internally at the shock and
wonder of seeing with his own eyes, in monotonous Duvbo, a scene the
like of which he had only dimly imagined in his mind. He froze, dizzy,
torn between running forward and running awayâbut it was a choice he did
not have to make.
In the very next instant, the great bonfire went out with a whoosh of
sparks, and the figures disappeared in all directions, melting into the
darkness. Titus leaped into the bushes behind him, but it was
unnecessaryânothing and no one reappeared, and soon the stillness
settled back in and resumed its air of permanence. Something else
happened, too: Titus discerned the first glimmers of pink in the sky
overheadâthe sun was preparing to rise.
As it got lighter, the street came into focus, and Titus suddenly
realized where he was: this was the central square of Duvbo! He could
make his way home from here, if he followed the street past the fire
station. There was no sign anywhere of the fire or the feral dancers,
and he crept carefully out of his hiding place and across the cool
grass, morning dew dampening his shoes, to start back.
He hurried through neighborhoods that once again took on an entirely
different character, the rosy first light falling on familiar roofs and
hedges as the dreams of slumbering families drew to a close. He was
drained and out of breath, yet still shaking with adrenaline and awe
from his discovery, when he slipped back in through his bedroom window
and pulled it shut behind him, almost too distracted to muffle the
latch. A few minutes later, as he lay in bed, heart racing, attempting
to feign sleep, his mother came in to rouse him for school. It was as
amazing to him as everything else had been that night that she didnât
notice anything unusual.
Titus spent the next day in a confused combination of exhaustion and
exhilaration. It was impossible to think about anything but what he had
seen, what it could have been, what he should do the coming night, and
at the same time his brain was so foggy, his eyelids so heavy, his body
so worn out that it was all he could do to stay awake in class. Ms.
Darroway seemed particularly short-tempered and weary herself, and gave
him no quarter whenever his head drooped to one side. Poor Titus pinched
himself and kicked his feet against each other, trying to keep up at
least a veneer of attentiveness, but with his mind swirling with dervish
dancers and sleep deprivation it did little good. Finally, after five
hundred years of mathematics and dour reprimands crammed into fifty-five
minutes, class was over.
There was nothing special in the mail, of course, so Titus set himself
to the task of killing the hours until his parents were asleep. What was
it he had witnessed, after all, he wondered? Did witches visit Duvbo?
Was it haunted by ghosts? Had he almost interrupted a gathering of
bandits? Were there even bandits, or witches, or ghosts anywhere,
anymore, in this age? The one conclusion he came to again and again was
that, whatever the danger and however great his fears, he had to go
investigate further that night.
But when the moment came, and his mother switched off the light in his
room, he plunged instantly into sleepâlong before his parents even
retired to their room. He was simply too exhausted to stay awake any
longer.
---
The next evening, of course, he was wide awake and electrified with
anticipation. After he heard the first whistle of his sleeping motherâs
breath he was barely able to restrain himself while he counted, as fast
as possible, to one hundred. On the final number he bolted upright and
threw open the window latch with scarcely any muffling at all, and
hopped down to the ground, which he had carefully picked clear of twigs
that afternoon.
Once on the street outside, apprehension set back in. What would happen
if they caught him, whoever or whatever they were? What if they were
unfriendly? They were certainly otherworldly, at least of another world
than Duvbo. He couldnât know what to expect from them, couldnât begin to
imagine. But there was no way around it: he would have to be careful,
and find out what he could. He wrapped his scarf over his mouth and nose
as an impromptu mask, more as a charm against his own fears than
anything else, and set out.
He had carefully charted the route from his house to the central square
that afternoon, so there was no chance he would get lost again; all the
same, it was a very different walk in the darkness. The uncertainty of
what awaited him ahead coupled with the gloom of the streets around him
made the trek fearsome indeed. Had he been older and more what adults
call âmature,â he might have reasoned himself out of it, or at least
waited to return with reporters and a camera crew; but he was young, and
innocently impetuous, and ready for magic.
And it was waiting for him. Drawing close to the central square again,
he once more made out a light in the center, beneath the trees. It was
less bright, and flickered less wildly; soon he saw that the figures
around it were not dancing, now, but gathered in a great circle of
seated silhouettes. In the middle, before the bonfire, one towering
figure stood, moving its arms in powerful sweeping gestures. All backs
were to him, so Titus moved in closer.
The standing figure was draped in a complete bearskin, the fur hanging
in strips around the arms, the shadow of the open jaws obscuring the
face within. And she was speaking: when Titus heard her words, he
recognized it as a womanâs voice, one that sounded almost familiar, and
yet at the same time was unlike anything he had heard before. Her tone
was so clear and strong that it carried through the square and resonated
in his chest, but it had a softness and a warmth that only deepened his
impression of its strength. It was a story she was telling, a story like
the ones he made up in mathematics class, but fleshed out with even more
imaginative details and fantastic settings than his own: men tattooed
maps to mysterious portals on their childrenâs skin, women traveled on
subterranean streams to the inner space at the core of the earth, flew
there in the zero gravity to a hidden moon floating within. He listened,
entranced, and crept closer, despite himself.
The speaker concluded her tale with a line of eerie poetry, and then
turned sharply in Titusâs direction: âAnd now,â she pronounced, âit is
time for us to hear a story from our new guest.â
Titus jerked to his feet and stumbled backward, but before he could get
any farther a pair of hands seized him from either side and bore him to
the center of the circle. Little Titus stood there before the great
fire, surrounded by dark forms in outlandish costumes, and froze like an
animal under a searchlight. Impulsively, he tightened the scarf around
his face, but there was no getting around it: he was caught. âGo on,â
another figure urged him, in a tone of voice he could not decipher: âa
story.â
Titus opened his mouth, and began to speak: haltingly at first, but
then, discovering a voice of his own that he had never had cause to
engage, he told, with mounting confidence, one of his own stories from
his daydreams. He narrated for dear life, adding clever digressions and
extravagant descriptions, hoping the shadowy circle would not be
disappointed and have him flayed or burned alive.
At the end of his story, there was a silence. He looked, fearful, around
the circle, but could not see the eyes of the ones watching him, could
not imagine what would happen nextâand then, all at once, there erupted
from all hands a great applauding, and from all throats a great
cheering, and in the next instant, as had happened two nights before,
the fire went out in an explosion of sparks and all the figures
disappeared abruptly into the darkness.
---
The following day Titus was as exhausted as he had been two days
earlier, and as perplexed and excited. He sat in mathematics class, eyes
pointed at the blackboard but unfocused, and reflected on his discovery.
He had uncovered a fabulous mystery, a secret side of Duvbo that no one
knew of but himself; it was amazing that such an exotic company would
gather in the heart of such an ordinary, even dreary, place. Where were
they coming from? What drew them here? He had the strange feeling that
the pieces of the puzzle were right in front of him, but he couldnât put
it together. He resolved, head blurry with fatigue, to let himself catch
up on rest that night, so he could be in top condition to investigate
further the following evening. At that moment, Ms. Darroway wrenched him
from his reverie with a sharp word. She looked as tired as he felt.
---
The night after, he was there again, making his way into the main square
in the middle of the night, scarf around his face and heart pounding in
his chest. Again it was different: now there was no central fire, but
the area was lit by torches on the trees; some of the figures were
playing instruments, sweet-voiced silver wind instruments and
belligerent booming box-drums and great strange stringed things stroked
with two-pronged bows, while the others spun and twirled and leaped in
trailing scarlet gowns and elaborately layered veils and elegant black
capes. It was a masked ball.
Still apprehensive, Titus paused at the edge of the torchlight, but one
of the dancers saw him and, as she passed by, seized his hand and pulled
him into the dance. He had never danced like this before; growing up in
Duvbo, he had hardly ever danced at all. Now they were all clasped in
concentric circles. They sped above the ground, feet barely brushing it,
clutching each othersâ hands lest they hurtle out into space, momentum
pulling the circles ever wider as they spun faster and faster. In the
center of the action, Titus now made out the imposing woman from his
previous visit: the bearskin was gone, replaced by a wrap of dozens of
multicolored scarves, but it was unmistakably her. She held hands with
no one, but stamped out her own dance, kicking her legs high over every
head and swinging her arms like the wings of a fierce bird of prey; the
scarves retraced her movements in the air behind her in slow motion,
following like a shadow dancer in her footsteps.
All in an instant, the dance shifted, and each participant took a
partner. Titus was chosen by a young woman with a brightly painted face,
who lifted him up high in the air above her; then the music paused for
an instant, and the partners switched. Now Titus was passed to an
impossibly tall, long-legged manâno, he must be wearing stilts!âand now,
at another sudden pause, to a pair in matching costumes, and then to
another partner, and another. The song grew rowdier, faster, more
forceful and irresistible; it seemed to be emanating from his own
pounding heart.
Suddenly, Titus was arm in arm with the woman in the scarves. The rest
of the world seemed the fall away to a great distance, and even the
deafening music became remote, manifesting itself instead as the
inexorable rhythm of their bodies. She was clearly possessed of a
superhuman strength, and as her companion, it was communicated to him:
Titus found he could leap high in the air, spin in circles, lose himself
in movement in a way he never had before. The musicians struck a high,
drawn-out note which brought the world back into focus for a second as
he spun to face his partner, and then again cut all the sound for a
secondâs pause: and in that instant, looking into her eyes, he
recognized exactly who this woman wasâit was Ms. Darroway.
Another dancer seized him, and she disappeared behind him into the
throng before he could react. Now, looking around, he saw others he
could recognize in the torchlight, despite their disguises: there atop
the stilts was the fireman who did the yearly fire safety presentations,
and there behind a veil was an older student from the school, and
thereâthat was even the woman who brought the mail to his doorstep every
afternoon! This was far stranger than any strangersâ carnival could have
been. And once again, in the instant he formed that thought, all the
torches came down, the square was plunged into darkness, and Titus found
himself absolutely alone in the hour before dawn.
---
The next day was a Saturday, so Titus had the chance to fall asleep when
he slipped back into bed, and he slept lateâlater than he ever had
before. His parents didnât notice; they went out early to do something,
and so when he woke up, muscles sore and feet raw from the dancing, head
still groggy from a week of little sleep, he found he was alone in the
house. He dressed slowly and then stepped out onto the front porch.
It was nearly noon. Duvbo looked exactly the same as it had every
Saturday morning for as long as he could remember, but he saw it with
different eyes. As old men passed walking their dogs, or mothers with
their children, he wondered which ones had been with him in the dance
the night before, which ones shared the secret he now possessed as well.
Now every passer-by was a potential conspirator, a might-be fly-by-night
reveler or story-spinner; it was as if trap doors waited around every
corner and under every bush, all leading right out of reality as he had
known it. Titusâs world, once no bigger than the small town from which
he had pined for deliverance, now expanded around him in every
direction.
When Monday found him back in mathematics class, he concentrated for the
very first time on really paying attention, and fixed his eyes on Ms.
Darrowayâs. They were indeed the eyes of the woman who had told that
dazzling story and danced that magnificent dance, though here they were
somewhat tired and distant. He winked at her, as he had wanted, walking
on the clouds of his new discovery, to try winking at everyone he had
met since his last adventure, in case they too were in on the secret.
She gave no indication she had noticed anything: either she hadnât
recognized him, or it was a secret not to be referred to outside the
gatherings. Titus was comfortable with that. He would see her and their
companions in surreptitious adventures later that night at the square,
after everyone else was asleep.
---
Months passed. Through a strange process of attraction, an invisible
magnetism, or perhaps simply as the inevitable result of living in a
town in which Nothing Ever Happened, every week brought a few more
wanderers to the secret gatherings. All were absolutely astonished to
discover that they were not the only ones who had harbored unspoken
longings for Something To Happen, that fellow dreamers had lurked in the
ranks of the polite and restrained citizens surrounding them.
The night assemblies were everything these unconfessed outsiders had
dreamed of, and moreâthey were the very opposite of life in Duvbo:
witchesâ sabbats in which everything savage and beautiful, every wild
impulse stifled by decorum in daily town life, was given free reign in a
symphony of creativity and abandon. The conspirators juggled, walked
through, and swallowed fire, erected fantastic stages and performed
life-sized puppet shows, lay naked but for their masks in the moonâs
rays upon the grass and composed their own constellations out of the
stars in the sky. They lived for these hours, they counted down the
minutes through weary mornings and tedious afternoons and uneventful
evenings to the nights when they could give expression to their secret
selves, when they would be possessed spirits again. As little Titus had
discovered early on, no one ever spoke aloud of the meetings, or alluded
to them in any gesture or signâin fact, as it turned out, he was the
only one perceptive enough to have recognized any of his fellow revelers
by their daytime personasâbut for all who participated, these nights
dominated everything, invisibly.
And so something else was happening, in a town where no one could
remember ever seeing any change at all. It was a very slight thing,
something an outsider would have missed entirely and that the residents
did not notice because it appeared too gradually, but all the same, it
was true: an air of mystery now hung in the streets, and however placid
and simple everything appeared in Duvbo, there was always something
beneath the surface, like a fluttering just outside the corner of your
eye. This was not all: all those sleepless nights had started to show on
certain faces. In every office and classroom, in the supermarket and the
synagogue and the fire department and at the post office, the watchful
observer could pick out the dark circles under eyes, the drooping
eyelids, the drowsy sluggishness of bodies that have not had enough
rest. Nothing like this had appeared in Duvbo before, either, and so no
citizen could yet articulate a question about it to himself, let alone
aloud; but the scene was set.
As smart as you are, youâve probably guessed that a tension like this
could not remain unresolved forever. But there was nothing yet to light
the fuse; so things continued like this for a few more months, and all
that time, every week brought more people to the night gatherings.
---
Summer came and passed; Halloween arrived. By this time, it seemed that
nearly the whole population of Duvbo was meeting at the central square
at midnight. Anticipation among the conspirators was great, and
preparations in the nights leading up to it had been extensive. That
evening, after an early dinner, parents dressed their children up in
matching plastic costumes modeled after television personalitiesâTitus
was a cartoon character from a Saturday morning show, at his motherâs
insistenceâand walked them neatly around the block, collecting little
sweets from the baskets that every household had dutifully provided.
Then the adults hurried their children home, took the sweets from them
to be rationed out one a day over the following weeks, and quickly set
about the business of putting them and then themselves to bed. As soon
as each one was sure the others were asleep, windows were slipped open,
clothes hurriedly slipped on, and fathers, daughters, mothers, and sons
slipped out into the night to assemble, disguised beyond each otherâs
powers of recognition, in the town square.
There the wildest, most enchanted carnival yet unfolded. Red-skinned
devils, tails swinging, muscles flexing, prowled between the legs of
great dragons and Trojan horses bulging with Greek soldiers; zombies and
vampires and skeletons danced to rhythms beaten out on bones by ghosts;
eagles flew overhead. It was as if the earth itself had opened up and
revealed a fairy kingdom within; the throng stretched in every direction
as far as the eye could see through the torch-dotted darkness. Although
there were so many present that it appeared practically the entire
populace was in attendance, each individual still felt that he or she
was getting away with something that Duvbo would never and could never
countenance.
In fact, if an outside observer had been there to witness the nightsâ
antics, and had carefully counted all the people in the crowd, the total
would have come to exactly five hundred and fifty five. Who was there
and who was not there were about to become very significant, though only
two people knew this was comingâand they were the ones who knew least of
all what was going on.
---
The next day Titus, like everyone else, was exhausted beyond words. In
every class every body sagged, studentsâ and teachersâ alike. Ms.
Darroway droned listlessly through her lecture, scarcely bothering to
scold the students whose heads lolled on their shoulders and chests.
After school, the boy practically staggered homeâto find something new
and unexpected had, once again, taken place.
These days, he only checked the mail out of habit, in unthinking
faithfulness to a routine he no longer regarded with any serious
optimismâhis longings for adventure and escape were fulfilled by the
nightsâ activities, anyway. But there, just dropped off by the drowsy
mail woman, was a letter unlike any other that had ever arrived on his
doorstep. It wasnât a bill, and it wasnât an advertisement, either, as
far as Titus could tell. It seemed to be an announcement: it was a
single sheet of thick paper, folded in half and taped shut, with ominous
lettering on the front that read simply FELLOW CITIZENS OF DUVBO. In an
instant Titus was awake again, nearly bursting with curiosity. This was
the first unexpected thing that had ever appeared during daylight
hoursâcould it be that the secret world was about to erupt into being
around the clock? As curious as he was, he knew the daytime rules still
applied, and they dictated that he wait to find out what this message
might be until his parents came home and opened it themselves.
It seemed an eternity before his mother and father were both home from
work, and then Titus had to wait all the way through the usual silent
proceedings of dinner. Finally, when the boy was at his witsâ end, his
father drew out the mail to go through the dismal daily process of
paying bills and balancing accounts. He dealt with every bill at length,
reading every invoice and receipt twice and perusing all the fine print
with a magnifying glass to be sure not to miss anything, making notes on
his clipboard as he went, before he came to the announcement. Titus held
his breath. âOh, you open it, honey,â his father sighed, passing it to
the boyâs mother: âitâs nothing important.â
She did, and peered at it for some time, until Titus could restrain
himself no longer. âWhat does it say, mom?â he ventured, trying to sound
nonchalant.
---
âItâs some of kind of public notice, I think,â said his puzzled mother.
âIt requests our attendance at a meeting tonight of âAll Concerned
Citizens of Duvbo,â at the town council building. It doesnât say much
more than that.â
His father grumbled about always having to go to meetings and how the
last thing he needed was another one but he figured they had better go
anyway since you canât risk looking bad in the eyes of the community,
and all the same what a chore it all was, wasnât it. âCan I come, too?â
queried Titus, in his most courteous voice.
âI donât think this is the sort of thing for young boys like you,â she
answered definitively, and that was the end of the matter. So of course,
well-practiced prowler that he was by now, Titus sneaked out and
followed his parents at a careful distance when they left an hour later
to attend the meeting.
---
The town council building was one of the oldest in Duvbo, and
correspondingly dour and stuffy, like a bitter old man clinging too
tightly to tradition. Inside, the adults sat stiffly in rows of
uncomfortable chairs, backs straight and aching, hands folded in their
laps, in much the same way that a decade and a half of schooling had
taught each of them to when they were younger. Virtually every grown
person in the town was there: the firefighters were seated near the
front, Titusâs mail deliverer just behind them, and in the center were
all nine teachers, including Ms. Darrowayâtaciturn as she was in class,
and still wearing the same grey dress. There was a dry, awkward silence
in the room, broken occasionally by the hiss of a nervous whisper, or
the screech of a moving chair as an embarrassed man arrived late. Hidden
in a bush to escape detection, Titus looked on through a window from
outside.
At precisely eight oâclock, two stern, grim middle-aged men stood up
from their chairs and advanced to the podium in the front of the room.
One of them took his place at it while the other stood behind him,
casting vaguely menacing and judgmental looks around the audience at
random.
âIt has come to our attention,â began the first of the two retired army
officers, for that of course was who these men were, as you may remember
from the beginning of the story, âfrom certain sources we need not
divulge, that Duvbo has become a fallen town, a den of iniquity, a place
where evil has taken hold. We have summoned you to this meeting because,
as you well know, it is your duty as Responsible Citizens to root out
all blemishes and stains, all Unacceptable Behavior, from the precious
soil of our community, and steps must be taken immediately to do this
before our beloved heritage of Honor and Morality is lost forever.â
The second man stepped to the podium and replaced the first, and the
first in turn took on his role of glaring at the audience. âBack in our
day, in the Service, we ran a tight ship, as they say, so I believe
youâll all agree when I say that we are the right men for the task of
cleaning up Duvbo. What you must do is report to us any inconsistencies,
any foul Deviations you are aware of, beginning tonight, at this moment.
Well then, whoâs first?ââand he joined the other in glaring.
Titus craned his neck to see the faces of the adults throughout the
room. They were all casting furtive glances about, guilt writ large on
every face, each practically wondering aloud who the wrongdoers were but
secretly cringing lest his own culpability be uncovered. Months of
living in secret had subtly, inexorably bred into all of them the sense
that they had something to hide, and now that the question of evil had
been broached, those feelings rose to the surface. Every citizen felt
the officers must be talking about him, and looked around to see what he
could expect if they were. Who could be trusted here? Who was a part of
their secret intrigue, and who was a spy waiting to catch them in it?
Could fellow conspirators even be trusted, now that the pressure was on?
None of them had needed to consider such questions before. The officers
might have been bluffing, might have been referring to a boy who had
copied his friendâs homework or a driver who had run a stop sign; but
the reception of their claimsâas if everyone knew exactly what they were
asking aboutâwas so suspicious that now there was no going back. No one
spoke, or even dared cough; the tension became unbearable. Finally the
mayor came hesitantly forward.
âGood men,â he began, deferentially, âof course we are all very honored
as well as outstandingly fortunate to have you put your services at our
disposal to expose and eliminate thisâer, contagionâin our midst. I move
that each citizen goes home to make a full report of all the suspicious
activities and criminal behavior he is aware of, so when we reconvene in
a week to address this matter further, we will have some reference
material for, uh, reference in pursuing this matter, arhum, further.â He
straightened his tie, twice, and attempted to compose his face into an
ingratiating expression while maintaining the dignity befitting a
dignitary.
âAll right then,â growled the second army officer, with a look that
snarled Consider Yourselves Lucky, âweâll meet again in a week, and
youâd all better have some evidence by then of whatâs going on and whoâs
to blame. Remember, citizens,â he thundered in a concluding tone that
made Titusâs skin crawl, âin the war of good against evil, right against
wrong, tradition against corruption, you are either one of us, or you
are against us. There is no middle ground to muddle around in. See you
in a week, with your reports, and God Bless You all. Oh, and policemenââ
he snapped, singling them out, âkeep your eyes especially open this
week. This is supposed to be your department.â He turned, and, with his
fellow ex-officer behind, stomped out the door.
---
Every citizen of Duvbo woke up the next day feeling hunted, guilty. The
time-engrained habits of concealment, the exhaustion that attended such
double lives, these now felt like bodily indictmentsâif they had nothing
to be ashamed of, why had they been hiding? And if what they were doing
was healthy and right, why were they exhausted all the time? Forced now
to assess their nighttime activities by daytime standards, they found
they could not translate between the two contexts, could not justify
themselves. Each felt he could never explain what he had been doing to
those who had not been a part of it; in the meeting room of the town
council building, with those two men glaring at them, some had even
wondered if they were indeed monsters in disguise, if their nightly
pursuits proved they were in fact evil. So while it might seem
surprising to an outsider that the citizens of this little town could so
easily be turned against themselves and one another, it was not actually
so unusual, after all.
For the following week, daytime Duvbo crackled with rumors and
suspicion. Everyone went about with a great show of righteous outrage at
the discovery of possible illicit influences in their precious
community, and gossip abounded as to who might be responsible. All
mature citizens were too well-mannered to refer to anyone by name, but
insinuations proliferated: the residents of each street spoke of other
streets, âbad neighborhoods,â just as the employees at each company
spoke of the bad sorts that might be found in less honest lines of work,
just as, at the end of the day, husbands and wives spoke in hushed tones
of the bad influences of other families. Everyone was anxious, above
all, to direct attention away from themselves, since each person was
sure that, were their own nocturnal activities to come to light, their
fellow citizens would give no quarter in the rush to attribute guilt and
deflect suspicion.
By night, the gatherings still took place, but in decreased numbers, and
there was a tension in the air that had never been there before. In
denial about the measures being taken in the daylight world, afraid to
speak aloud about the situation but unable to shake the burden from
their minds, the conspirators who did show up threw themselves all the
harder into their invented ceremonies and flights of fancy, but to less
and less avail: a dark cloud hung over every moment of abandon, every
step of each dance. At least here, in open if anonymous admission of
their guilt, people did not look at each other with hostile or
judgmental eyes; but each morning as they passed their fellow citizens
on the street, things were decidedly different. When once they had
looked on passers-by, like Titus did that Saturday morning, with a sense
of joy and companionship, wondering if they too were secret revelers,
they now regarded all others with fear, lest they be judges waiting to
pass sentence upon them, or former comrades who would turn them in to
save their own skins.
---
At the next town meeting, every adult arrived with a complete report.
Some brought big sheaves of papers under their arms, others great
folders divided into sections according to arbitrary systems of
categorization, others thick notebooks with every possible infraction of
public morals and tastes that had come to their attention noted and
annotated. They sat, heavy testimonials in their laps, backs ramrod
straight, lips tight, faces blank masks, looking neither to the left nor
the right, and waited for the proceedings to begin. No one was late this
time, and at the appointed hour, the mayor, anxious to maintain the
image of responsible authority, arose to officiate. From their seats at
the front of the room, the two ex-officers regarded him with expressions
of acid impatience; Titus, too, looked on from his post in the bush.
âFellow concerned citizens,â the mayor began, and cleared his throat as
if to command attention, in a room already empty of all distractions:
âwe are gathered here to show our concern about, our commitment to, our
deep-seated feelings for the continuity of our proud tradition of
greatness and purity in this town which we all so know and love, the
name of which you know as well as I, fair Duvbo. I hope youâll join me
in these trying times in holding out a light of hope to the futureââ and
he went on, and on, and on in this style for some time, before one of
the ex-officers cut in and demanded he get down to business.
The mayor summoned the first citizen to the podium to make her
reportâthe roster was arranged in alphabetical order, so it was Anna
Abelard, the retired grocer. She shuffled through a veritable mountain
of loose papers, and approached the stand with her eyes on the floor.
Anna had a gentle heart, and much as she knew what was expected of her,
she hadnât been able to bring herself to specify any names or risk
endangering anyone else, so her entire account was a string of
abstractions and ambiguous references to unspecified people and events.
For the purposes of the ex-officersâ inquisition, it was absolutely
useless, but they let her stumble through it for a good half hour,
presumably because they could tell this was even more mortifying for her
than it was exasperating for them. Time seemed to grind to an even
slower pace than it kept in mathematics class.
Then without warning, without asking permission, someone stood up from
the audience. It was Ms. Darroway. Her face was lined with years of
little sleep, the dark circles under her eyes were heavier than ever,
but the air of elderly irritation she affected during the day dropped
away and her bearing here was suddenly as imposing as it was when she
presided over storytelling circles in the witching hour. âThis is
foolishness, and you know it,â she stated plainly. âLet Anna beâshe
obviously doesnât have anything to tell you. If youâre so certain there
is wickedness in our town now, why donât you tell us where it is?â
Both former military men shot to their feet in indignation. âHold your
tongue, schoolteacher!â shouted the first. âThis is an important
meeting, not to be interrupted by idle questions! You should know from
your own profession better than to talk out of turn!â
âSo tell us where it is,â she insisted, calmly.
âIâll tell you where it is,â yelled the other, âitâs in teachers like
you who set bad examples! How are our children supposed to grow up with
a proper respect for rules and authority with women like you for role
models?â He stepped back to address the audience in general. âAnd itâs
in all of you who let the moral fabric of this town fray and unravel!
Itâs written on every face in this room, the secrecy in your movements,
those mysterious bloodshot eyes, the indifference you show to important
matters like this! We may not know whatâs going on yet, but mark our
wordsâweâll find out!â He stomped out of the room in a rage, his
henchman close behind.
At the mention of bloodshot eyes, everyone in the room had flinched
despite themselves. They looked around, and it was true: on practically
every face was this sign of guilt, the evidence of a double life. So the
game was almost up: the two self-appointed detectives knew nothing yet,
but they knew where to start looking, and it was only a matter of time
before they would uncover the truth about Duvbo. The townsfolk trembled,
gazing at one other in fearâfor however many of them were involved, it
only put each one at greater risk if they could not trust each otherâand
hurriedly began filing out the door to head home. Only the mayor
remained behind, wringing his hands at the scene his citizens had caused
and yearning for the simpler days when his greatest concern had been
which tie to wear for the Christmas parade.
---
That night, five hundred and fifty five conspirators sneaked out their
bedroom windows, one by one, each going to greater pains than ever not
to wake the others from their sleep. They crept through dark streets
thick with the shadows of their sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers,
neighbors, and coworkers, doing everything to avoid detection until they
arrived, in disguise, at the main square. Here, a great bonfire burned,
and Ms. Darroway, clad in her magnificent bearskin, was already leading
a discussion of what was to be done.
Tensions were high and accusations flew. Some held that the gatherings
had to be suspended until a safer time; others, speaking eloquently of
the freedom and energy they prized in these moments, believed they could
continue to take place, but at more prudent intervals; still others
argued that it was foolish and irresponsible to think of gathering this
way ever again, that it endangered everyone too much. All agreed, if
nothing else, that the good old days had come to a close, and dark times
descended in their stead.
âBut what are we supposed to do, if we canât come together here
anymore?â demanded an impassioned young woman no one recognized as a
local real estate agent, clad in a scintillating dress of green sequins
and wild feathers. âAll of us went wandering and discovered this
midnight carnival because life without it was too vacant to bear! We
canât simply go back to those barren lives, can we? I almost feel as if
Iâd rather die!â
âI wish I could tell you there was another choice, dearie!â said Anna,
the retired grocer, sadly, from behind her silver veil. âBut I think we
have to let it go. Thatâs the way life is. There was a life for me
before I found my way here, you know, and there will be a life after,
for all of us, though it may not be what weâd prefer.â
âWe donât have to let it go unless we choose to,â countered Ms.
Darroway, hotly. âWe decide what risks are worth taking, we decide what
we give up and what we keep. Thatâs how we made this secret society for
ourselves, and if we suspend or dissolve it, it should only be because
we believe in doing so, not because we think we are the victims of fate.
Make your decision for yourself.â
âThatâs easy for you to say, perhaps!â It was Titusâs father. Titus
himself looked on, his face concealed as usual by his trusty scarf, in
unnoticed mortification. âSome of us have children. We have to think
about their future, about making this a healthy environment for young
people! Weâre not at liberty like you must be to make decisions for
ourselves alone. In fact, when you make your decisions, they affect the
rest of us as well! What if you and people like you keep coming out
here, causing trouble for all of us? How are we supposed to raise our
children in a town where things like this go on?â
Little Titus wanted to demand how children like himself were supposed to
grow up in a world without magic, without dances and costumes and
fairytales, but he was afraid to speak up, afraid too of being
recognized by his parents. âYouâd have us give up our lives all over
again!â shouted an angry figure from the shadows, a fireman by day.
âWhat did you start coming here for, anyway?â
âWho are you to risk our lives for us, and our childrenâs lives?â
retorted another enraged parent, and real quarrelling broke out.
Everyone tried to shout louder than everyone else, and for many minutes
the chaos spiraled out of controlâuntil a sudden realization choked the
words in every throat: the townsfolk had lost track of time and dawn was
already breaking. In a panic, they scattered everywhere, leaving the
square in such a hurry that they forgot the care they had always taken
before not to leave any evidence of their gatherings.
---
The next morning, while doing his rounds, one of the policemen came upon
the still-smoldering remains of the fire in the center of the town
square. He tried to pass it nonchalantly, stifling a shiver of fear as
he realized how careless he and the others had been, but then he caught
sight of another citizen at the far end of the street. If he was caught
deliberately ignoring such obvious evidence of unusual activity, it
would be taken as a sign of complicity; he put his whistle between his
teeth and sounded the alarm.
The report of his finding spread like wildfire, and the responding
outcry was immediate and intense. Word passed from mouth to ear to mouth
around the town in a matter of hours, and an emergency meeting of All
Concerned Citizens of Duvbo was called for that evening. All afternoon
speculations circulated as to what outlaws or fiends might have been
doing in the very heart of Duvbo the night before, and how they could be
captured and brought to justice; everyone fought to outdo each other in
shows of righteous indignation.
This time the mayor did not even make a show of administering the
meeting. The two former officers had set themselves up at a tall table
in the front, from which they glowered at everyone else as they filed
in. This was the tensest atmosphere yet: hostility hung in the air like
an electric charge, and while no one dared make eye contact with anyone
else, condemning glances were cast like darts all around the room.
âAs spokesperson for the emergency panel that has been established to
handle this situation, I call this meeting to order,â began the first
ex-officer. âObviously you are all well aware now of how real the threat
we warned you of is, so I trust we will not have to bear any more
interruptions tonightââhe cast a withering look at Ms. Darrowayââand
will be free to get down to the business of cleaning up this town.â
âClearly, the undesirable elements, the subverters, are meeting by
night, plotting heaven knows what sickening disgraces and crimes,â
continued the other man at the table. âPolice chiefââ
âYes sir,â responded the haggard-eyed chief of police.
âYouâll need to extend your patrols to cover every hour of the night in
addition to the standard daytime schedule, starting this evening, so the
monsters can be brought to justice and their plans foiled.â
There was a long, uncomfortable pause. âIâm afraid I canât do that,
sir,â responded the police chief, and one of his men nodded. âMy men
will need at least one good nightâs sleep to be ready for a shift change
like that. We can get the patrols in effect by tomorrow night, but
thatâs the soonest. Iâm sorry.â
âWell, lock your doors tonight then, fellow citizens!â roared the first
ex-officer, and it sounded more like a threat than a warning. âThis will
be the last night any funny business takes place in this town! And
tomorrow weâll meet here, at the same time, to discuss some other Big
Changes that are going to be made around this place.â
---
After midnight, only the bravest few dared to congregate for a final
time. Ms. Darroway was there, and the woman who delivered the mail to
Titusâ house, and the young lady in the green sequins, as well as a few
others, including the police chief who had bought them one more night to
bid a melancholy farewell to each other and the world they had created.
Titus was there, too, of course; his parents had indeed locked and
barred the doors of his house, but they hadnât thought yet to do the
same with the windows. Spirits were lower there at that moment than they
had ever been before in Duvbo, day or night. No one spoke; they simply
sat in a circle around the small, struggling fire, staring into its
dwindling flames, lost in their own thoughts.
Finally the woman in green broke the silence. âItâs just so sad, so
unendurably sad,â she began, haltingly, âto discover what you spent your
whole life longing for, to find that it was within you all along, and to
explore it, to find out how much bigger and wilder it is than youâd ever
imagined, and even share it with others, only to lose it, all of it,
because of their fears.â
âBecause of our fears,â the sorrowful police chief broke in. âBecause of
our fears. And thereâs nothing we can do, however much we want it,
however much it breaks our hearts.â
Ms. Darroway, still tall and proud even in this bleak moment, remained
silent. Titus looked at her in horror and dismay: it was unthinkable to
him that this powerful woman, who was practically a supernatural being
in his eyes, might become, again, a mere math teacher, a woman who had
to lecture and reprimand indifferent students all day as an actual
lifeâs work rather than an alibi. Just as he had once before, on the
first night he ventured outside his neighborhood, he gathered his
courageâand spoke up.
âIs there really nothing we can do?â demanded the boy. âArenât we giving
up too easily? Are you sure there isnât something we havenât thought of
yet?â
âBut what could that be?â asked his mailwoman, who still didnât know
that he had once believed so fervently that she could bring him an
invitation to another world.
âWell, letâs think!â Titus furrowed his young brow. âif this is our last
night together, and tomorrow we will never be able to meet again, well,
at least we are free and together now. Thatâs something.â
âYes, go on,â encouraged Ms. Darroway, quietly. âWhat can we do with
that?â
âIf weâre still free now, and we donât want to lose that, and we know
weâll lose it tomorrowââTitus pondered this, but there seemed no other
way around itââthen I guess the only hope for us is that tomorrow
doesnât come.â
âAnd thatâs impossible,â said the policeman. âThe sun will rise in just
a few hours, and then Iâll be just a policeman, nothing more, for the
rest of my life.â
Titus was much younger than the others, though, and not as resigned to
the inevitable as they were. âWho says itâs impossible?â he replied,
surprised at his own voice. âI believed that it was impossible that you
could be anything more than a policeman, before I stumbled into the
dance here that first night. All we need is some magic to stop the sun
from rising, and this world will be ours forever, as it has been only
for a few hours at a time until now.â
âMagic? Yes, thatâs what weâd need,â sighed the woman in green. âItâs
too bad itâs only in our stories. We could use it in real life tonight!â
âMaybe we can!â said Titus, standing up. âWhat we need is a magical
dance, a ceremony to stop the sun. Will you join me in making one?â
The others were silent; the hope in the little boyâs voice only saddened
them more. But finally Ms. Darroway spoke up. âItâs true that when I
came upon my first night gathering in Duvbo, years ago, when there were
fewer people meeting than we are here tonight, I felt as though Iâd
found something magical,â she began. âIt was like a miracle, something
so totally different from everything Iâd known that it seemed to defy
the very laws of nature. If thatâs what weâd need to discover again,
tonight, for this story to have a happy ending, perhaps we shouldnât
despair yet, since it has already happened to each of us once.â She
looked around at the others, her eyes bright in the firelight. âIâm
ready to dance with the young man, unless any of you have a better idea.
Even if it is our last night here, itâs better we spend in on our feet
than at our own funeral.â
The others slowly rose and joined Titus on their feet. Titus seized a
great burning branch from the fire, and lifted it high over his head,
waving it defiantly towards the east. Ms. Darroway did the same, and the
others followed. One of the firemen began to beat out a quiet rhythm on
the one drum that remained with them, and the dancers began stamping
their left feet, then their right. Titus took the towering womanâs hand,
and they began spinning.
As they had so many times before, they left the world of solid things
and gravity, and entered the world of energy and motion. The stars in
the night sky, the red glow of firelight on the trees, the grass and
shadows underfoot became a blurred background against which their bodies
sailed, crisscrossed by the streaks of white light their torches left in
the air. The rhythm intensified and accelerated. Their feet were flying
over the soil, barely touching down long enough to push off again, their
hearts pounded with the drumsâtheir hearts were like drums themselves,
inside them, urging them on. The others too were whirling now, coming in
and out of their vision like comets, trailed by the afterimages of their
torches, wild animals set free for a moment from fear and inertia and
weight itself.
But they knew they had to break out of everything, to leave the world
they had known entirely, so they danced harder and faster. Harder, so
the drummer feared his thumbs might fly off; faster, so dizziness welled
up in them in almost unendurable waves; harder, so they thought their
bones would break and their fingers snap away; faster, until it seemed
that their feet and hands and muscles themselves were fire, that they
danced as only fire can dance through burning leaves. They danced as
though mad, as though animated by demons or angels; leaping into flight,
they kicked against the ground so hard it seemed the force must stop the
earthâs rotation, must halt it dead in space.
They were so caught up in their dance, so absolutely possessed and
entranced, that they didnât even notice the light creeping into the sky
in the east. They didnât notice the first bird calls, as the breeze
lifted the branches of the trees overhead; they didnât notice the red
clouds burning away to reveal the first ray of sunlight shining over the
horizon; they didnât even notice as the sun crept up, over the hills,
and morning began. There they spun and flew and twirled, the torches
shooting out sparks around them, sweat raining down upon the grass from
their bodies, eyes rolled back in their heads; they were oblivious to
all but the magical world of the dance. This is how their fellow
townspeople found them that morning.
And a strange thing happened. As the first early risers filtered out
into the streets, and saw their companions from previous nights of
abandon here in the sunlight, leaping without shame in the same
unchained motion they too had savored, one by one they came forward and
joined them. They, too, began to dance as if it were still night, as if
they were wearing masks that hid their identities, as if no one were
watchingâas if it were the most natural thing in the world. Slowly all
Duvbo assembled in that square, as they had so many midnights before,
but now with no camouflage or subterfuge; all, that is, of course,
except the two retired army officers, who had the sense to get out of
town immediately and never come back.
The schools and offices were empty that day, and the next day as well;
and no one in Duvbo ever had to sit up straight and quiet, or struggle
silently with boredom, or cast a suspicious eye on a neighbor again.
Some say you can still find the townspeople there, that life in that
village is a continuous festival that knows no beginning or end; others
say Duvbo is a hidden and wandering town, that it appears for moments or
hours in every city across the world, unexpected and unpredictable, and
one day it will emerge everywhere at once. Still others insist that the
whole thing is just a myth, or a bedtime story to be told to little
children without being believed; but at your wise age, little one, Iâm
sure you know better than to believe the ones who speak like that.
---
âŚlike all children are born to smuggle in the end of the world with no
one qualified to herd themâŚ