Hi folks. I want to thank you for the kind comments on my story--and, oh, you too, August! (hehe) I guess I picked a somewhat unfamiliar story *The Heart of Darkness,* by Joseph Conrad, to send up. If you weren't an English or humanities major, you may have missed it. So, count yourself among the blessed!

As an English lit student, I think I read the durn thing 7 or 8 times over my school days. The novella *is* a masterpiece; but by the last time I had to read it, I thought I would hurl.

I have received an e-mail or two asking what the story was. In short order, it involves a brilliant, sophisticated man named Kurtz who journeys to Africa (then the Dark Continent) and journeys into his own psychological darkness as well. Little by little, he strips off the conventions of civilization, giving into greed and lust. Finally, he indulges in the last taboo, cannibalism! The narrator takes a packet of letters back to England to return them to Kurtz' "Intended." She is a cultured and grief-stricken woman who begs for some last thing of her beloved to hang onto, unaware of his terrible degeneration. The narrator, consistent with the times, "protects" her by lying (thus indulging in his own form of darkness) saying that Kurtz died with her name on his lips, when in fact the old creepo, in his last lucid moment, suddenly realized his own depravity and yelled, "The horror, the horror." Whereupon a servant had announced, "Mistah Kurtz, he dead!"

Okay, that's the Cliff Notes version (hey, there might be a market for this in English departments across the country!). The story is filled with metaphors for and descriptions of darkness in Conrad's fine but sometimes convoluted prose.

Besides, I think that a fair number of folks would clap if someone *did* announce, "Mr. Kim, he dead!"