THE TRILOGY UNWROUGHT
The Eumenides at Humpty’s Wall brings to completion a trilogy of sorts built around Mr. Humpty Dumpty, a kingly tetravalent carbon atom who never had any business being that way. The plays’ titles are overshadowed by the titles found in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, a work which also seeks to understand frailty, affliction, and mayhem in the human condition. (The links above are portals to sample scenes from the plays and their narrative tenor.) The molecular biology of the cell is the unbroken thread through the discussion that brings Humpty’s heart and mind through his ordeal into view. Molecular anger, fury, and retribution are easy to see in the Citric Acid Cycle where a small lattice of carbon atoms is manhandled, handcuffed, and taken away by law enforcement in the form of oxygen atoms that seek to stabilize Humpty against his will. The beleaguered lattice safe harbors within it Humpty’s beloved in two of his four tetravalent arms which elsewhere hold high explosives in the form of high energy electrons sewn in tight. Eventually, Humpty and his beloved are both arrested and led away but not before an arsenal is forged that may fairly be described as the weaponization of creation. In this drama, Humpty’s unabrogated fury brings him face to face with the limits of creation – law enforcement be damned – and propels him beyond. In the end the police are given two low energy electrons to take away and two protons and are remanded to a secure location with others of their ilk.
© 2020 Frank P. Langley III