Necessity

“Is this really necessary?” her words echoing in my head as I nailed the last board over the door, and made sure the potato gun was loaded. 

“They are coming for me, I know it. I can feel it in my bones. It’s like a tambourine in my chest chanting a tune I’ve never heard before.”

“Why?”

“Why, What?”

That was a good question. One I might have asked myself had it not been for the tambourine concerto, and the fact I was out of potatoes, and wasn’t sure if apples or oranges would have a similar deterrent effect. It shouldn’t have been but probably couldn’t have been avoided, given the time of year, and the fact that day light savings time had thrown the equinox into question, as it had Easter observances, and had cast doubt on all the springtime celebrations, but one. April first, known to all fools, as the day to show yourself. The time to burst from your medieval Machiavellian contempt for piety, and live.

It had always been a day I feared, much as Dr. Frankenstein, Transylvanian Dictators, and Egyptian mummies similarly feared, as the hands of time approached the day when you could be who you really were, and have a prophetic excuse for doing so. It was like posthumous dispensation from a Pope; pardoned after the fact and for exemplary reasons, with preemptive intent one can only assume.

It was the sense of euphoria derived from presumptuous prognostications that made April First, not only the most dangerous day of the year arguably, as The Day of the Dead, had been gaining momentum. I find the Day of the Dead too affirmative to be of any advantage when reaping the benefits of humorized nostalgia. I would rather go through the Pearly Gate Trials, than be stranded in limbo wondering, what comes next. I’ve always been impatient when it comes to uncertainty.

She of course wanted to know why I should abandon reason and law enforcement and sequester myself in this tomb, the basement of my house, with only one entrance, a stairwell that can be defended against intruders with any manner of things; staple guns, ski poles, even a bowling pin I had salvaged from Lufkin’s Bowl when they installed the new automatic pin setting machines. I had intended to make a lamp out of it, but could never find the time.

I have an answer, but it seems to be only suitable, when considered with my opinion. I’ve attempted to explain to her and others, that there are people that take pleasure from introducing suspicion and skepticism into the spiritual manifestations of those who refuse to believe, despite the lack of proof. It is difficult to argue a negative, but I felt I must try. That is why, on this one day a year I must remain free of outside influence, as being converted to any belief, let alone, one that places the future in the hands of a past, simply to enlighten the present, is so alluring. 

Now, I have never been to divinity school, or even a junior college, but I do have the ability to absorb auras complimentary of the Northern lights persuasion. How I came to this power I can only assume was due to the fact, as the story goes, that I was born during a snow storm, in July. A rare occurrence that has happened only once previously, and that it is claimed, was in a suburb of Jerusalem, some two thousand years ago, give or take.

It was at last years dart festival and mustard tasting symposium, that I became aware of the treachery that was to befall me, unless I changed my ways. I was to be baptized by the inspirational waters of January, by the head mistress of the Polar Bear club. She is a captivating woman, but has no sense of subtlety. She made me aware that if I did not convert and become a baptized participant, they would be forced to measures, beyond their own code of ethics. “And you know what that means!” she insisted, as I pleaded indifference.

Then Bob, the fellow who was laid off when the machines were installed at the bowling emporium, whispered to me, “You will most certainly be next.” I had no idea what he was referring to. I looked around, and there were the usual assortment of people dressed in flamboyant shirts with their names embroidered on the pockets. Some of the women had bowling pin earrings dangling provocatively from their ears, and many of the men although bald and overweight, pretended they were members of a visiting ballet troupe.  Everything I observed appeared completely normal.

Luckily, my sabbatical would begin that night.  At 12:00PM I would barricaded myself in my inner sanctum until the following day, when April 1^st had passed into the annals of eternity, and not return for 364 days.

She continues to plead with me to abandon my irrational suspicion of April Fool’s Day, "it is not St. Patrick’s Day, when Little People come out to play,” she chants. I began to understand what was happening. Her subtle implications, were to contrast what I knew to be a supposition of the inevitable, with the reality of uncertainty. All was focused upon me. 

She was good. I couldn’t help but wonder what political affiliation she might be invested in. But I was afraid to know, for reasons of my own, so I parked my inquisitive inclination until a less vulnerable time arrived.

What irritated me was the obvious implication that my salvation depended upon my ability to be baptized by the frigid waters of late winter and remain capable of participating the following day, April 1^st, as a functioning member of my bowling team. It had not occurred to me until she planted the seeds of skepticism that there might be something nefarious at work, hoping to frighten me into abandoning my allegiance to the team, in favor of remaining intractable.

She, although persuasive, had failed to observe my steadfast idealism of the bi-polar affects of cold and dark winters, accompanied by a disease-riddled atmosphere, no doubt imported for the very purpose of testing my loyalty to not only tambourines, but others that also heard them. 

I told her if she wished to remain, she would need to respect my sensitivities to persuasion, as well as my abhorrence of cold-water plunges or showers, regardless of what salvation was prophesized to emerge. She seemed to understand, and asked if she could take the first watch, as intruders have a need to be first at whatever they have prophesized. I couldn’t have agreed more, until I realized she was whispering notions of grandeur into my ear, and pretending it was the winds of my past that I was hearing.

I persuaded her, that she should accompany me in search of an inviable magnet, I used to snare fools. It was hidden in a jar I kept for just such occasions. My plan was to convince her to go into the jar to retrieve the magnet, and then I would replace the lid keeping her from escaping and foiling my plans to resist, until the curse of April Fool’s day had culminated. 

I had not planned however, for her devious assault on my perception of time. Believing, with the aid of an altered calendar she provided, plus somehow magically altering the date on my watch without ever having occasion to touch it, convinced me that I had slept the entire twenty-four-hour period, and it was April 2^nd and I had survived the assault on my salvation.

As it turned out I was only hearing the tambourines, and not the music they were playing. I remembered what my kindergarten teacher had once said about the ability of some, to play tricks on our imaginations by pretending to not exist. At the time, I regarded it as a teachers contrived explanation of what they did not understand. Their inability to predict the true date by the source of light coming into the classroom through the bullet hole in the window glass.  The compressed beam landing precisely on the blackboard, depicting the exact replica of a donkey responsible for our Lord having to spend the night in a stable, as the latest arrival asked, "Is it time for lunch?"

Pixies are devious creatures who care little for conformity, abandonment, or lunch. They appear to be more interested in tambourine music and images painted by refracted light, than the vulnerable days prior to a fool’s redemption. 

In the confusion that follows fool’s day, I had forgotten the pixie I had lured into the jar. By the time I remembered her, it was too late. She had been unimagined by the magnet that attracts fools. She had written on the glass of the jar in invisible ink, “I forgive you.” I began to feel sorry for her until I remembered she was in the business of collecting souls for the Tambourine Man, and I wasn’t about to fall for that ruse again.