Recalled

Remember this little sentence?

[Caleb] was a young man at Telson’s: locked away from the sunlight so he would age faster.


Yeah? So?

“Anna,” I said.  He stopped.  “Anna’s in the living room.”

I felt his heart pounding through the hands holding mine.

“She didn’t die.  She’s been in that house all along.  I found her.”


What are you getting at?


"I don't know anything." [Caleb's] clenched jaw twitched; his eyes looked rapidly round at nothing at all. "I don't even know how old she is."
"You were seven."
"Yes."
"You're twenty-five now."
"She was three."
"Now she's twenty-one."
"Twenty-one. She doesn't remember me."
"I don't know."

Twenty-five minus seven? Twenty-one minus three? Eighteen years.

'Buried how long?'
The answer was always the same. 'Almost eighteen years.'
'You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?'
'Long ago.'
'You know that you are recalled to life?'
'They tell me so.'
'I hope you care to live?'
'I can't say.'
'Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?'
The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes the broken reply was, 'Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon.' Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, 'Take me to her.' Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it was, 'I don't know her. I don't understand.'

Yes, Anna's story is absolutely one of being "recalled to life," as the phrase is in Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. The time span, even, is eighteen years. I'm not telling you this because I don't think you could figure it out. I'm telling you because it was entirely unintentional. I didn't see it until a week ago. Apparently my brain wakes up during a two a.m. shower.

I didn't add the Telson's comparison after noticing my own theme. Oh no: Telson's was already there. Evan compared Caleb's workplace to Telson's bank long ago.

Isn't that weird? And kind of awesome? I only wish it had been intentional.

If you feel like ditching this blog in favor of Dickens, I can't say I blame you. In fact, I encourage such action. My excerpts against Mr. Lorry's dreams: yeah, I better get started on that revision thing. Leave this blog. Go read some Dickens and come back in twenty years. Or eighteen, if you want to be all poetic.