February is the Month of Envy
Dear readers,
As much as we Curators don’t quite want to believe it, time has continued on, as it tends to do, and we now find ourselves in the month of February.
February, I think you’ll agree, is a funny sort of month. It’s shorter than all the others, for one (not that there’s anything wrong with being short), and it’s when the groundhog pops up and does or doesn’t see his shadow (a strange custom, if there ever was one), and it’s that last stretch of winter when it seems like the world will never be warm again.
It’s also a month in which people celebrate love, or don’t, or wish they could, or are glad they don’t have to, or think it odd that a day originally meant to honor a martyred saint has evolved into a day on which we give each other boxed chocolates and cheesy greeting cards.
And let’s think about love for a moment. Last February, when the Cabinet was newly opened, we Curators wrote about love in its many odd forms–between a woman and a child that isn’t hers; between a girl and her doll; the love between friends, and the love between the living and the dead.
Now, a year later, we write about a thing that often comes along with love, or interferes with love, or pollutes it, like a burr stuck to the shadowy underside of something that should be beautiful, if you do it right. This year, we write about something that doesn’t even have to be associated with love at all; no, this thing comes in all shapes and sizes.
This month, we write about envy.
A person might envy someone their happiness, their success, their magical abilities, the love they share with their boyfriend, girlfriend, sister, parent.
A person might envy anything, big or small, good or evil.
What will the characters in this month’s stories envy?
You’ll just have to wait and see for yourself.
Teasingly,
Your Curators