Break time...

That's it. I have to back away. I didn't go online, today, till almost 5pm to finish reading The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey...and the book was kind enough to remind me of all the hellacious things people have been doing to each other since forever.

Shakespeare and many historians claim Richard III had Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, 12 and 9 years of age, respectively, killed in the Tower of London to secure his place on the throne of England. But only gossip and politically instigated accusations say so. No evidence. Not even the bodies.

The book's conclusion is that Henry VII, who succeeded Richard after he was killed in the battle of Bosworth Field, had the boys smothered long after Richard was dead because they might threaten him as king of England. He was the first Tudor king, and they would have been the last of the Plantagenets. Instead, Richard was the end of that line...and the Tudors reigned for 118 years.

But what it lays out is how so many innocent people were imprisoned and killed in the political machinations, or had their home and incomes stripped away from them. And I think of what happened in Rome during the Caesars. And the Crusades. And how the Europeans and Americans were when dealing with indigenous people around the world. And how the rich treat the rest of us. And it's overwhelming.

Maybe I'm weak...or weak-minded. Too sensitive. Or afraid. Or just plain lost in futility. But I can no longer see a reason to write The Murder of a Quiet Man. The world is rushing headlong into ever greater chaos and we cannot avoid knowing about it.

So I just want to hide, for a while...like a cat licking its wounds, waiting to heal before it comes out of the shadows.