Tranquility
“It
is vain to say that human beings ought to be satisfied with
tranquility; they must have action; and they will make it if they
cannot find it.”
Charlotte
Bronte
I'm
sitting on the screened porch of my friend, Ellen's, lake house. All
is quiet; the lake is perfectly still. No humans are as yet screaming
around on sea-dos or shrieking behind ski boats. Tranquility reigns.
Bronte
is correct, however. We humans, although we talk about peace as
something desirable, even picture heaven as eternal peace and
tranquility, we can truly only take it in small doses. Then we get
bored—and bored humans are dangerous. All the buzz here on the
lake, for instance, is a murder-by-hire case that's been playing out
in the local newspaper for a year. I sometimes think the police and
the paper are in cahoots not to solve it until they've juiced it for
all it's worth.
The
story goes that the bored housewife (universally despised by all) of
a prominent lawyer (the darling of the lake crowd) took a fancy to
the gardener (aka yard guy). Their affair involved look-outs and
smoke screens and went on for some time, scandalizing the neighbors.
There's innuendo that drugs may have been involved—since the woman
is morbidly skinny and dramatically made-up (always suspect).
The
husband moved out of the lake house, back to town, and filed for
divorce. That dragged out endlessly—bickering over settlement,
property, and money (the usual culprits); with the wife refusing to
sign the papers. Then one evening when the husband returned home from
work, evildoers were lying in wait. They shot him, and just to make
sure he was good and dead, stabbed him, too. They stole his car,
drove it ninety miles to a back alley in a Birmingham suburb and
torched it. Forty thousand dollars changed hands in a brown paper bag
(southern style accoutrements).
The
case lingers in the courts. Thus far, four people are in jail
awaiting trial, but the wife is still as free as a bird (much to the
chagrin of the lake crowd, who monitor her every movement). I'm
telling you, it's O.J. in stilettos! People are so riveted by it,
they don't even talk about religion and politics.
Next
time you imagine heaven, don't put angels on clouds playing harps.
Instead, give it a little mystery, a little intrigue—otherwise, you
know, bad things may start to happen. I'm just saying...
In
the spirit,
Jane
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