How to Avoid Murdering Your Children While You Complete a Thesis
Ever since humans stopped living in caves and started taking up jobs in settlements, parents have had to find something to do with their kids when it was time to get things done. Traditionally, childrearing duties have fallen disproportionately on mothers, who now have to cope with the demands of work or school while somehow also being there for their kids.
In my house, it’s been rough lately. I’m in the final hours of graduate school, and I’m feeling the panicked stress of my thesis deadline looming in the very near future. Literally, the deadline is just over a week away. But do children care about this monumental moment? Nope. Not in the least. So, how might a modern mother avoid strangling the little beauties after the umpteenth time they’ve busted into your workspace? If you’re me, it’s by laughing it off. This time, I chose to write out my frustration by rewriting Edgar Allen Poe’s classic poem, The Raven to fit the circumstances of this modern mother. That way, we all get a laugh and nobody disappears in the night.
So, without further ado, here’s a glimpse into my fleeting sanity…
The Children
Once upon a Spring Break dreary, while I pondered, bleak and bleary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of thesis lore—
While I plodded, keys a-clapping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my office door.
“’Tis some animal,” I muttered, “tapping at my office door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate misremember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my store of mental cargo—cargo for my Thesis Core—
Longing for the radiant months revolutionaries named Thermidor—
Crawling here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain bustling of each villain minute
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors of a deadline wore;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some animal entreating entrance at my office door—
Some late pet entreating entrance at my office door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was recapping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there looking, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no author ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered, “Thesis Core?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back, “Thesis Core!”—
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is some drooling dumbass;
Let me see, then, where it is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis a buffoon and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the entry, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped apathetic Children, their saintly smiles a thing of yore;
Not the least obeisance made they; not a minute stopped or stayed they;
But, with mien of lord and lady, perched within my office door—
Perched upon a tufted chair just inside my office door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then these children beguiling my irked fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance they wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and defiant Children wandering from the sofa shore—
Tell me what thy lordly game is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Children “Nevermore.”
Much I marveled these ungainly kids to hear discourse so plainly,
Though their answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no working mother breathing
Ever yet was pleased with seeing kids within her office door—
Child or beast upon the sculptured chair within her office door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Children, sitting cozy on the placid seat, spoke only
That one word, as if their souls in that one word they did outpour.
Nothing farther then they uttered—not an eyelash then they fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
Any moment they will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the kids said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what they utter is their only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till their songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of their Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”
But the Children still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of kids, and chair and door;
Then, upon the vinyl sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what these ominous kids of bore—
What these grim, ungainly, ghastly, trite, and ominous kids of bore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the foul and wasteful moments now burned into my Thesis Core;
This and more I sat divining, with sanity declining
On the cushion’s vinyl lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose vinyl-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
They shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Conniption whose footfalls tinkled on the carpet floor.
“Out,” I cried, “for I hath lent thee—several minutes, plenty lengthy
Respite—respite and depart so I may write my Thesis Core;
Leave, oh leave this office chair and find something to cease the bore!”
Quoth the Children “Nevermore.”
“Prophets!” said I, “things of evil!—prophets still, if child or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or tempest tossed thee here through office door,
Desolate yet I’m undaunted, on this thesis work enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Can there—can there privacy be had?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Children “Nevermore.”
“Prophets!” said I, “things of evil!—prophets still, if child or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that Nature we adore—
Tell this anxious thesis maven if, within a near occasion,
It shall clasp a scant vacation from the enemies of Thesis Core—
Clasp a rare and radiant vacation from the enemies of Thesis Core.”
Quoth the Children “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, child or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back onto the sofa and watch your movie like before!
Leave no eyelash as a token of that lie thy souls hath spoken!
Leave my quietness unbroken!—quit the chair inside my office door!
Take thy claws from out my heart, and take thy form outside my door!”
Quoth the Children “Nevermore.”
And the Children, never flitting, still are sitting, still are sitting
On the placid tufted chair just within my office door;
And their eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er them streaming throws their shadows on the floor;
And my soul from out those shadows that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!