Sergeant-Major Perry on Sullivan's Island

Mr. Poe, Sergeant Perry, Henri Le Rennét—what mortalwould be surprised to find I travel under various names,though I'm unknown to most citizens underany fabrication? I have a premonition that statuswill someday change. Exiled as a gunneryclerk among the unread, lice-ridden artillerists,I guard Charleston Harbor with its spires and cotillion gentrywho will never know of solace in the solitary,the candle-lit volumes of Europe's savants,nor find sanctuary in the cul-de-sacs of stone dreary-deepin Fort Moultrie. I converse with marsh hen and heronamid the myrtles and palmetto. Thanks to Providence,the reveling swells of Charlottesville taught me there's moreto ecstasy than whisky, and on Market Street I meet lascarsand celestials with tears of the poppy to barter for silver.Elevated near death's threshold, I can smell the asphodelsHomer and the Romans wrote of, and I feel no painbut pursue the stories I will conjure in my feverish brain,all rooted in my parents' speeches in the limelight,mother's triumph in Richard III. Though briefly hereas a child, it is for the wind-blown shadowsand the egret's cry I was born and orphaned.

The Asian smoke I indulge in is most nights euphoric,and I discourse with souls and phantoms,foremost among them a chief called Osceola, who will be betrayed in a truce and delivered herein chains over a decade hence—asi and Yahola,first for the magical black drink of yaupon, the otherfor he shouts, his tribal name unknown, though Spainwill call them Seminole, for renegades. Valiant warrior,orator extraordinaire, and invader's bane, silencedby hunger, he will end with quinsy, no holy pipeto smoke, no chants to ease him over.He will come as no stranger to visions or agony,and no mortal yet knows this, save yours truly,his kindred soul in exile, to whom he whispers saltmarsh secrets across time's chasms, or do I rave?If only it will serve to distract me from the latedemise of Belle, I would gladly rave.

So much wisdom have I found in the mirling smokefrom a china pipe which tars and mystics venerateover the sea. Neither Dr. Ravenel nor Draton understandsnor approves, but the herb bestows upon me mysteriesreeking of Delphi's oracle. Tears of the poppy, blaze-scarletas the sun, tended by the moon. From my pallet I canascend to the ceiling to confer with infamous Tamerlaneor the miserable ghost of Meriwether Lewis, not prophecy,as he inflicted his demise over a decade past—a braceof pistols to accomplish what his elixirs could not.Mind-exciting roots and brandy were his demons,until he discovered laudanum. (Hear the Latin in that,the grandeur of a suffering tongue?) It is opium.My quest, of course, is for a more pure escape,undiluted and final. As yet the smoke will not crawlinto a vein, but if I remain with the wretches who keepthis suffocating outpost, inspiration will surelyfind me, and I will learn to distill precious sap of the pod.Nights I steal past the sleeping captain of the watchto tramp and slog the swamps where miasma hovers.It is among the snakes and fevers where I feel at home,and there I keep my cache of contraband cognac, my dwindling supply of the ravenous flower's gift.Do not mock me. Alone, I am never alonein this soulscape where the soothing stories lurk.Shadows are my accomplices, words my foxfire,the wind's whisper company enough.

I have since boyhood sought stronger mystery, a wilderphysic to ease the rigors of living, the ache and grief,to conduct me to that Xanadu Coleridge dreamed,the Abyssinian maiden grieving for her demonconsort, as well as my own cursed conjuriesto the country from which no traveler returns. Lossenough has already struck me, beloved young womenwho fall victim to the thousand natural shocks...