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WAITING TO ESCAPE RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
— February 5, 1826 —
And so, being young and dipt in folly
I fell in love with melancholy . . .
Edgar
a
G
ood morning, ladies and gentlemen! I imagine myself
saying from the pulpit in the pink sanctuary of our
church. My name is Edgar Poe, and today, for reasons I
don’t fully comprehend, I’m obsessed with the seventy-two bodies
buried beneath us.
Don’t ever forget, my dear friends, I continue with this grim
fancy, that a grisly collection of bones, and teeth, and soot sits
below your very feet, even as you try not to think of such horrors.
Even when your heart is giddy with evangelical glee this fine Feb-
ruary morning, the victims of our infamous Richmond Theater fire
still dwell among us down there—or at least w hat’s left of the poor
souls—piled together in a moldering mass grave.
And then I envision myself tipping my silk hat with the
coyest of grins and saying, A happy Sunday to you all!
Down below the floorboards creaking beneath my
knees, deep in the belly of Monumental Church, stands a
crypt built of bricks that, indeed, holds the remains of all
seventy-two victims of the great Richmond Theater fire of
1811. I kneel beside my foster mother in the Allan family
pew, my lips moving in prayer, my hands clasped beneath my
MPM