Luminance 
Conversation Overheard One Night at the Galloping Tortoise Tavern
by
COUNT BELLWETHER. Must I begin with delineation? Must I strive to recompense the clarity that I detract when I begin to unfold my scroll and gingerly dip my quill into the inkwell of my will, whence there rises an array of perplexing panegyric elegies composed (for want of better metaphor to lightly copy and diagram the patterns of my thoughts as they waft in my head and strike my skull ringing with a profound sound causing clamor in my ears and an aching in my marrow many cups of absinthe cannot overcome), written in the ink of will which necessarily is blood—profound blood that broods and simmers on the windowsill, a blood above the rest that sends boiling hot elegies to the surface, elegies composed in the low light of a servant’s quarters—by the beeswax my scroll and my hand are one. The room swims in dire dread of knowing and obligation—to be one with the horde, this light I cannot know. I am full of dread for my obligations. To permit me this, will you forget the sound of my sturdy voice and find me in the ashes of the evening fire? My head is a rotten cabbage, whence there rises an odour to offend many painted ladies. Nay, I tell them, to be offended is a sought after sensation which many members of our elite society tend to feign for want of superiority. Dare I confess my sins to these many members of our elite society which just as easily condemn the multitude for confessing theirs? Their sins are those of countrymen, bawdy and wont of refinement though never as egregious and enveloping as mine, my sins that encompass my entire sphere of life, these sins that will be severely received by many members of our elite society, my sins that will castigate me and bereave me of my very desire to function!
SQUIRE SHUTTLECOCK. Come, come, have a draught of ale or shall I prepare you a tincture of spirits to rouse your wellbeing? We shall have no more of this terrible discussion this evening when even the loons hear your mournful cries and mistake them for their own. Come, by this fire you must take in the heat, and warm your gullet with a glass of mulled wine or a flagon of cider at the least, for your visage is darkly and speaks much of a need of spirits to conjure the happiness that is inside you. Drink, be merry, and from thereupon you may find the key that will unlock the doors of your incurred prison, a prison which indubitably encompasses all spheres that rear and rule your life. I too have prisons that I find myself bound within, on the contrary side of the lock—yet through those bars of iron I pour when I am as flowing and amorphous as the spirits I imbibe—so soon I shall turn to vapors and rise toward the moon, which itself is only the lid of a tankard of ale which I summarily proceed to displace and graciously partake of the contents lying therein. I fear our collusion is bad of etiquette forthwith abashed by the penetrating sight of sobriety, the eyeballs of which must only be paired in a centre of morality infinite and quite beyond the likes of us gentlemen who better know our tract of hallowed Earth, which provides gentlemen grapes and wine, grain and spirits, and the wormwood sublime that will draw us closer toward the essence of what pulsates somewhere distant and is even the cause of the infinite and morality. You must never confess what you know not, to wit, your sins which are deemed sinful by nature of their character, a character which only the infinitely good may apprehend so little man is capable of construing the character of any other’s actions when they are enshrouded in quivering flesh which speaks against the mind contained therein, which tries eagerly to err for need of recognition, for vanity among the rest, those quivering and fleshy bodies which lope along this Earth. However hallowed though it be, this Earth is such that admits of no other and makes even the finest delineation lacking in clarity, like the dregs of a cask of wine, thus do not hesitate to express your utterances of concupiscence in the fashion concomitant to your redolent head, though only after sampling the concupiscent nature of the state that necessarily arises after imbibing of beverages whose compositions extirpate any disagreeableness a man may encounter within his tortured lot.
COUNT BELLWETHER. (Reaching for stout proffered) I daresay a drink may steady my nerves but it shall never be able to supplant my dread for the castigation I shall receive when I inevitably commit the devious act that my being commands of me. Oh to be such a woeful and wary knave! Oh to once have been and now be barren as a slagheap! To have rise the sound of my errors louder than any sawmill! Must you give me such looks, Shuttlecock? My fate is equally your burden, you Shuttlecock, born into such an elite society as this and dually committing a detrimental error that could be said to mirror mine! I do know that we share this burden, though I carry the burden of many other sins, which I have committed and forever am forced to toil at forging chains to bind and carry them upon my back, a score of iron links that are formed and joined together so as to fetter my very spirit and send such a sturdy spirit flailing and thrashing into the darkness of eternity. I am carrying this burden. It is I, the spirit is me!
SQUIRE SHUTTLECOCK. Get hold of yourself man! You are letting the stout get to you old boy, I swear it. By and by I have come to find myself in such situation and do you know what I do? Why, I ambulate on out the door and give my head a good dunking in the rain barrel. Mightn’t you try that, it would set your aspect right I suspect. I find after enough stout the only spirits I identify is the ones I’m tasting and those certainly cannot be me, the taster. That’s what I say, drink up or don’t drink at all, there’s no sense whatsoever in a sip of stout and getting on your way, especially by such an agreeable fire as this one in this very tavern, and in the company of the Squire even, old boy, I say you are doing the one thing right by drinking up!
COUNT BELLWETHER. The only thing right for me is the stockade I realize when even the stout is not as medicated as you perceive it to be, for I am no more assuaged than I am churning in the stomach, drinking on nothing more today then a grape. I am weakened even by the pleasures I used to partake of to the extent that I shall never partake of them anymore. Must you sneer so, Shuttlecock? I see your cheeks are rosy red, the sign of sheer merriment. Meanwhile I sit here absolutely in dread, I’m afraid that my malaise has overcome me and I must strike or be stricken by that which compels me. Dare I repel what compels me? It is like trying to separate two slabs of marble. Nay, I am restricted to one path of actions, those actions that inevitably lead to the ends of my confession to certain members of our elite society, confessions which will place me in a tower twice removed from my once sturdy and compassionate life.
SQUIRE SHUTTLECOCK. Listen here man! We’ll have no more of this tonight I swear it! One more outcry from you sir and I shall send you to the very stockade you resign your fate to grovel upon! Your arguments are very unsound Bellwether, as such arguments are, those arguments of a fool who only knows the pleasures of life. There is such a fool under that powdered wig of yours and he was once an honorable Count. I’ll have you thrown to the lions and if you feel a driving urge to confess have a go at them, will you! Here we are in this agreeable tavern, I’ve proffered you meat and drink, what are you to make of it sir? I lay my gloves down lest I strike them across your pitiful face, you toad! The impudence you have to dare claim I share any such weight of sins that you share, for I have never committed any action that mirrors any of yours, to wit, I never will!
COUNT BELLWETHER. Now I know that I must leave, that I must send my confessions forth amply from my lungs and be rid of them at last. You are quite correct, Shuttlecock, your actions shall never mirror mine for my actions are the actions of a sinner that will make his sins known to all society! Your actions are the actions of a sinner condemned to sin, and in your merriment, and upon your rosy cheeks, the sins multiply! What shall then be said of the man with his nose in his drink? With your mouth open you receive the sins begotten from your actions, so drink up, I would wish the same of the Devil! By and by you will come to, by and by you will feel remorse for the doings that have set you on this path, but it will be in the early light of morning and looking around you shall find nothing but the empty bottles of your previous carousing! May you be the one who shall sleep in the straw in the stable of some farmer’s field and know nothing better! May you be the one who shall keep your sins close to your heart and taste them more odious than any liquor! You, the taster, shall forever be controlled by those spirits that you taste!
Exit Count Bellwether.
SQUIRE SHUTTLECOCK. A fool Bellwether is… The hand that controls my flagon is all the control needed to administer those spirits to my mouth. I am no more controlled by them then I am by anything I take in. Often I doubt that I am doing the right thing by staying here by this agreeable fire, imbibing a bit of stout or a stronger spirit, and enjoying sheer merriment that transforms my aspect and sends my heels clicking over the floorboards and across the hearthstone. Often I awake on the rough boards of the table, with the empty bottles of my merriment around me and I cast them aside, send them with a crash to the ground! And often I have found myself bedded in straw but the night is still and I am a lone soul within it, I turn in my slumber and dream all the more. Fool Bellwether is surrounded by a circle of painted ladies from which he can never extract himself. From my flagon is the elixir necessary to transcend any encumbering circles, like vapor I float over their heads. The indolence of Bellwether! I feel only remorse that the bottle will soon be empty and I must part with several ducats for another to appear in its stead. But the spirits are not paying for themselves, by God, the pleasing sound of ducats jingling issues forth from my very trouser pocket! It is I, Squire Taster, who shall drink up in the face of the Devil for I pay for every drop I drink twice its weight in silver!
Squire Shuttlecock drinks up.
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