"Thoreau had never found a companion that was so companionable as..."

Blazing Reader,

Here's a short excerpt from my novella-in-progress, COVID Disobedience — which takes place partially in 1846, Concord, Massachusetts — recounting the arrest of Henry David Thoreau:

Thoreau had never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. It was with such a companion that he’d expected to be sharing a lonely cell. He was not at all prepared to share a cell with one who snored so loudly.

Chester’s loud exhalations, from the bunk above, had so far made sleep impossible. The close proximity of Chester’s heaving body did not help either. The ropes that stretched across the frame of Chester’s bunk sagged so low that Thoreau only had a foot-and-a-half of space above him. Chester also emanated a mouldy odour, which made Thoreau’s nose wrinkle and his breathing uneven.

In a week, he thought, while plugging his nose, I may smell as ripe and no longer notice. Then, with a shiver down his spine, Or, possibly, die of tuberculosis.

The last bit of grim premonition foreshadows Thoreau's eventual death from tuberculosis (after getting caught in a rainstorm while counting tree rings) at the young age of 44.

On his deathbed, his aunt Louisa asked if he had made peace with God.

Thoreau replied, "I did not know we had ever quarrelled."

John C.A. Manley

PS For more witty words of wisdom from Thoreau, check out: My 7 favourite Henry David Thoreau quotes.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.