by Rona Altrows
Yours in great admiration,
Ariadne Jensen
TO DEREK WRAGGE MORLEY FROM AJ
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
July 12, 1968
Dear Mr. Wragge Morley,
Allow me to introduce myself as a fellow ant lover. My parents gave me your fascinating book The Ant World for my eleventh birthday last month. I read it in one weekend, stopping only to eat and sleep. According to the back cover, you published your first research at the age of fourteen. So I know you will take me seriously.
I have a worry, it has to do with ants, and who knows more than you do about ants? My mother says I can mail this letter care of your publisher, Penguin Books Ltd., in Harmondsworth, Middlesex, and they will forward it to your home in Cambridge. That is what I am counting on.
Here, then, is the worry. As much as you and I admire ants, that is how much my neighbour Geraldine, who is slightly younger than I, despises them. She conducts her vile activities on the sidewalk. In my city our ants are mostly Formicinae, as far as I can tell, and they do not do well when Geraldine is around. She will set a paper on fire, throw it on the ground, fling a living F. fusca into the flames. She will tear off an ant’s legs one by one, then decapitate the dismembered creature. She will stamp the life out of ant after ant with the sole of her shoe. One ten-year-old girl can inflict sizeable damage in this corner of the ant world, perhaps not in numbers wiped out, but in the degree of cruelty exercised in the act of destruction.
I have tried to get her to stop, to no effect. After I finished reading your book, I had some knowledge to go with my admiration of ants. And I thought if I were to share some unusual or amusing ant facts with Geraldine, she would not have the heart to continue her massacres. I showed her a picture of Pogonomyrmex barbatus of the Myrmicini tribe and explained that its name means “the bearded beardy ant.” Hilarious! Not to Geraldine. Well, then, perhaps information with a disgusting ring to it might do the trick. I told her about the critical role of mutual regurgitation in an ant colony. She remained unimpressed.
Yesterday I figured out a sure-fire way to make her care.
With your permission, I will reproduce, as faithfully as I can, the conversation we had after my moment of insight.
ME: Geraldine, guess what?
HER: What?
ME: Some ants are dairy farmers—just like your Aunt Florence in Leduc.
HER: Eh?
ME: It’s true. The ant strokes an aphid gently with its feelers—that’s how the milking is done—and then the aphid spritzes out this liquid like honeydew and the ant laps it up. The aphid is the ant’s cow, see? And when the ant is done with that aphid, it moves on to milk the next aphid in its herd. What do you think of that?
GERALDINE: Nothing.
ME: I know, it’s exciting. And there’s more. The ant looks after the aphid’s eggs until they hatch, just like your aunt helps her cows with their calving. Isn’t that something?
In response, Geraldine raised her right foot and brought it down hard, crushing three ants simultaneously.
Many lives are being snuffed out every day by that girl. What can I say to put an end to her callous behaviour? Would she think twice before killing if she knew there were variable intelligence between individual ants? Would she become a pacifist if she became aware of how highly developed a sense of smell her victims possess?
Or do I need an altogether different approach?
I would appreciate any suggestions you may have on how to deal with this disturbing and perplexing situation.
And once again, thank you for a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Yours respectfully,
Ariadne Jensen
OCCUPIED AS YOU ARE
With humility, one man accepts the top job with a complex outfit. He lacks access to critical facts on a file. Someone should fill him in.
Another man has been after a top job for years. He waits his whole life, almost. Meanwhile, he makes mischief. Someone should talk him down.
AJ
TO POPE FRANCIS FROM AJ
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
January 16, 2015
Your Holiness,
I know your day must be indescribably full, occupied as you are with practical duties and of course, prayer. I admire the measures you have taken in recent months to clean up the curia, and, like so many other people, I applaud your desire to end inequality all over the world. That is why I am requesting your aid today.
You see, Your Holiness, in Alberta, Canada, the gay youth who attend Catholic schools need your help. They cannot attend Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, because GSAs are not allowed to exist in Catholic schools; thus it has been decreed by the Catholic school boards here.
Bill 10, which will become law if it passes just one more reading in our legislature, would allow a student to request that a GSA be set up in his school. But the request can be refused and the Catholic school boards have already said all their schools will indeed refuse. Then the student can appeal to the Minister of Education and the Ministry will set up a GSA. But since the Catholic school will have said no to providing space, the GSA would have to be somewhere other than the school. That will not work. Where is the support of the GSA needed? In the school itself. And what does the exclusion from the school do to students who wish to be in the GSA? It stigmatizes them further. That is why Bill 10 in its present form must be stopped. Yet senior Roman Catholic clergy in Calgary and Edmonton have spoken in favour of Bill 10. Perhaps you could have a word with them.
Why would I, a middle-aged woman who is not a member of the Roman Catholic faith (or, at this point in my life, any faith) feel so strongly about this subject? Partly it is because, like you and many other people of good will, I try to speak out about injustice when I see it. But also, I know a young gay person who almost died because of lack of support when he was in high school. So the matter is also personal for me.
You see, my dear friend Leo, now in his early twenties, attended a Catholic high school. He felt alone and longed for someone to confide in about his sexuality. Unfortunately he made the wrong choice—his parents. Do you know what they did when he told them he was gay? They threw him out of the family home. There he was, an innocent, sixteen years old, having to couch-surf in the homes of classmates’ families. Can you imagine how he felt? It took two months and the intervention of Social Services before the parents took him back. Even then, they let him stay at home, but gave him no emotional support whatsoever. I’ll bet you can guess what happened next, Your Holiness. Poor Leo tried to take his own life. He made two attempts, one with a belt and one with pills.
Leo is fine now. He is one of the lucky ones. You know the grim statistics as well as I do. Twenty-five percent of gay youth are kicked out of home when they come out as gay to their parents. What is even more horrific, one-third of gay youth try suicide.
And as we know, the sad reality is that some of them succeed.
A GSA in his high school would have been a great comfort to Leo at that critical time in his life. He says so himself.
There are other Leos in Alberta, Your Holiness. Please be so kind as to state your support for the mandatory establishment of Gay-Straight Alliance Clubs in all schools here, including Catholic schools, upon a student’s request. And if you would be kind enough to explain to Archbishop Smith and Bishop Henry the value of such clubs, that would be lovely as well.
Thank you for your ear. I wish you a happy and productive pontificate.
Yours most respectfully,
Ariadne Jensen
TO PRINCE CHARLES FROM AJ
Calgary, Alberta
February 23, 2013
Your Royal Highness,
It has been some years since I last wrote to a member of your family. On the only previous occasion, I invited your mother to tea. Her Majesty was about to vi
sit Canada to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Alberta’s entry into Confederation and I thought she might enjoy some respite from the commotion. Her Private Secretary of the day, Sir Robert Fellowes (who, I understand, has since graduated to a lordship), communicated on your mother’s behalf, beginning his letter with these words: “Her Majesty the Queen has commanded me to write you.”
I did not take umbrage when Her Majesty, through the agency of Sir Robert, declined my invitation. She is a busy woman. In any case, to be entirely frank, tea is not my cup of tea. I am more of a coffee drinker. However, anything to accommodate Her Majesty.
Like your mother, you are always on the go, I know. Lest you entertain any notions to the contrary, let me assure you that I am not about to invite you to tea. I do, however, request a few minutes of your royal time to share my anxieties—anxieties that I do not believe unwarranted—about your current state of busyness.
With due deference, sir, I am obliged to say that, at this juncture, there appears to be a growing gap between your reach and your grasp. Perhaps I can help you gain sufficient self-knowledge to recognize your own problem.
Let me begin by discussing a matter you learned about many years ago at Trinity College, Cambridge. I speak of the entirely unwritten British constitution. As you know, that constitution includes conventions, one of which dictates that the sovereign must maintain a neutral political stance, since there is a vast difference between the Prime Minister as head of government and the monarch as head of state. If you will permit me to say so, the latter position is largely ceremonial and has no connection whatsoever to the running of the country.
Yet you, Your Royal Highness, have written at least thirty-six letters to cabinet ministers in the past three years on a wide range of subjects. Moreover, you have held private meetings with some of those ministers to chat about your pet public policy topics. With the greatest of respect, sir, do you deem it appropriate for the Prince of Wales to promote homeopathy as a treatment to be covered by the National Health Service? Does not the very consideration of such a possibility lie outside your bailiwick as a prince of the realm?
About your outspoken revulsion by modern architecture, let me simply say that one person’s carbuncle may be another person’s castle.
Is it true that you have seconded some of your staff to cabinet ministers’ offices? Please tell me that is a vicious rumour.
Granted, you are not the king. I suspect that nobody is more acutely aware of that than you. One day, however—difficult as it may be for you to believe—your mother will, in fact, die. If you have, in the interim, sent letter upon letter to Ministers of the Crown and have held private meeting upon private meeting with them, who will believe that you, in your role as king, will maintain political neutrality? Surely after so long and frustrating a wait, you would not want your brief reign to get off on the wrong foot.
May I suggest then, that you make a decision sooner rather than later. Would you like, in the fullness of time, to become king? If so, kindly stop writing those letters and put an end to those private meetings.
If, however, you feel compelled to make known your views on everything, including public policy, then I would recommend you renounce your right to inherit the throne, move out of Clarence House, and run for Parliament.
Yours respectfully,
Ariadne Jensen
I CAN EXPLAIN
Why do we do it? To advance? To thwart someone else’s progress? To cover up a past wrong? Or for the sheer buzz of pulling off a deceit?
What is the draw? Why do we lie?
TO DENNIS NASSAU FROM AJ
Calgary Alberta
September 12, 1971
Dear Dennis,
Thank you for your last letter, which I got today. I’ve been lucky to have you as a pen pal. I don’t know even one other girl who has received letters from a real live American sailor. But. There’s a lot on my conscience. I’m embarrassed. Out of fairness to you, I need to come clean.
You know how I told you I found your name and FPO address on the bulletin board of a community hall while I was visiting my cousin in Long Beach, California? That’s true. However, it’s not true that camera-shyness stopped me from sending you my picture, as you have asked me to do. Here’s the real reason: In all my recent pictures I look about fourteen. That’s because I am fourteen, not twenty-one like I told you.
I don’t work as an assistant buyer in a bridal shop, with a supervisor named Miss Sacobucci. I don’t work anywhere. I’m a high school student just starting Grade 10, or as you like to call it in your country, the tenth grade. So it follows that I didn’t visit New York last spring with Miss Sacobucci. Everything I told you about my so-called visit to New York I got out of the Encyclopedia Britannica and my imagination. The farthest east I’ve ever been is Winnipeg, a cool Canadian city nowhere near New York. In fact, it’s north of North Dakota.
In Phys. Ed. last year I failed the gymnastics part of the course, because I am a klutz. I lost my balance while walking slowly across the balance beam and fell, breaking my ankle. In other words, I have never participated in competitive gymnastics, as I claimed in my third letter.
My back yard is not lush with alpine asters and trembling aspens. There is no back yard. My family lives in an inner-city apartment. And since I am speaking of family, this is a good time to tell you my two older brothers are not in the Canadian military or the Brazilian military or any other military. That is because they don’t exist. I am an only child.
I’m afraid there’s more. My name is not Philomena Alhambra. I once went to a movie theatre called the Alhambra. As for Philomena, it’s my favourite name. I think it has a romantic ring to it. My real name is Ariadne Jensen. Much more meat-and-potatoes-sounding, I know.
I could go on, but what’s the point? By now you can see that before today, I have never given you any true information. I’m sure you are wondering why all the lies. I’m not sure. And that, believe it or not, is the truth.
I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to write me any more.
Fair winds and following seas,
Ariadne
TO JULIUS FAIRCHILD FROM PEG WOFFINGTON
Southampton Street
London
17 April 1742
Dear Sir,
I beg your indulgence as I provide an explanation, one that is perhaps past due, in connection with our last encounter a fortnight ago. Your failure to grace me with your presence both last Thursday and today can only be attributable to my silence regarding what occurred.
I can well understand your displeasure when you called on me at three o’clock on 5th April, in accordance with our usual Thursday custom, and found strewn about in my bedchamber sundry menswear, including a waistcoat, breeches, square-toed shoes with a diamond buckles, and ribbed cotton stockings. The unwelcome sight of those garments caused you to depart summarily—and, as your grim facial expression revealed, in anger—without speaking a further word to me.
It is true the clothes are not mine—but neither do they belong to a gentleman. In fact they are the property of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where, as you know, I make my living as a player. Although I have the part of Sylvia in our current production, The Recruiter, we are already in rehearsals for another of Mr. Farquhar’s plays, The Constant Couple, in which I will reprise my role as Sir Harry Wildair.
Rehearsals are, of course, held at the theatre, but I also do considerable practising at home on my own. To engage in proper preparation for a role, I dress as the character I will be playing. Whether other actors follow this custom I do not know, nor is it my place to inquire. I am not one of those actresses like Kitty Clive who feels she must look beautiful on stage; I would as soon play the ugly crone as the comely ingenue. And indeed, I am as willing to take a so-called breeches part as to I am to play a member of my own sex. However, my performances, once the play begins its run, are all t
he better if I practise beforehand in full costume, in my own time and not just when rehearsing formally with other members of the cast. As it happens, I was so involved in practising my Wildair part in my bedchamber on the Thursday before last that I quite forgot about the passage of time. When you called, I changed my clothing in great haste but alas, had insufficient time to put the costume away. Thus arose the misunderstanding.
Our arrangement is most pleasing to me, sir. I hope I have now disabused you of any anxieties regarding the small incident. If you would be so kind as to call on me next Thursday, the 26th April, at the usual time, be assured I shall receive you warmly, and with none of my costumes in evidence.
Believe me at all times with sincerity and affection,
Margaret (Peg) Woffington
UNFINISHED
You saw the need, you made a pledge, you laboured on. To bury your mentor with honour. To give the world your scientific work. To save your loved one’s theories from theft. You strove until time called Time. Who will carry on?
AJ
TO THE PRESIDENT OF MY ALUMNI ASSOCIATION FROM AJ
Calgary, Alberta
September 1, 2012
Dear Alumni Association President,
Since my university graduation thirty-two years ago I have received numerous letters, phone calls and emails requesting a donation to my alma mater and I have consistently declined.
Once, when approached on the phone, I asked a question, and told your representative that if I received a satisfactory answer, I would donate. A callback within two weeks was promised but never came. Consequently, my response to all subsequent requests for funds has been negative.