In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 250-257

So here’s a brief synopsis of his plan:
He visits Darna, just to say goodbye.
He makes his entry into a tin can—
a can, that is, whose instruments apply.

We’ve talked about the trip to pull the pin,
but now he had that episode increase.
He couldn’t leave his womenfolk within
without at least attempting their release.

Again, he asked himself, “Why should I care?
I’ve severed my connection with them twice.
How long they live is none of my affair.
No profit comes this way from being nice.

“Self-sacrifice is only for the faint.
It isn’t rational, so it is wrong.
But there it is, defying all restraint.
I must have been attached to them too long.”

He’d have to find a way to ask advice
of Darna without giving her a clue
that he would make some people pay a price—
a big one, too—for crimes they did not do.

Alas, he never got the chance to ask.
She’d sent him off, though knowing she’d go blind.
He found a note that charged him with the task
of making sure the light of reason shined.

The light of reason? What was that to him?
It sounded like a mystical construct.
She had taught him to pay no mind to whim,
and this was something out of thin air plucked.

It was as though she must on dying leave
posterity what had been in her head,
but logically what would that achieve?
Self-interest is nothing to the dead.

Whose instruments apply: As opposed to a thoroughly unusable carrier, such as the one he had inhabited with Darna.
Episode increase: This has me stumped. The only episode that turned out larger than expected was the sojourn with his family, and since that was entirely unplanned, the word ‘increase’ seems inappropriate. If spending that time with them (presumably some years, if the daughter was old enough to receive religious instruction) gave him a greater attachment to them and complicated his plan, perhaps we can make some sense of this stanza.


©2010 Louis A. Merrimac