By Klarissa Kronschnabel

What are you up to on a Tuesday night around, say, 9pm? Don’t say writing a paper, or making the most of Coco Bongo’s $1 taco night, or putting sticky-fingered children to bed; instead, follow me. We have a journey to take together. 

It is imperative that you bundle up. My preference is a petal pink bathrobe, but any old, soft scrap which allows you to move from perching on your elbow, to flat on your back, to hunched like a shrimp will do. Ideally, brew a mug of something warm to go cold beside you. Procure a creature to snooze at your hip. Mine is more dustbunny than cat, but it’s the spirit of the endeavor that counts. 

Do your skincare, obviously. Don’t feel like you have to be meticulous about it. Leave faint spectres of mascara to haunt your undereyes. Give your gua sha the night off. Lay down your burdens, ditch your wallet and keys. We are going, dear one, to Wikipedia. 

I get it–you may be skeptical. Perhaps for you, Wikipedia is a destination associated with winning arguments and confirming crossword answers. That’s all well and good, but trust me on this one–take my incorporeal, authorial hand. I’ve read a fair amount of stories in my day, and Wikipedia is one which always delights. Here, taffy rubs elbows with tuberculosis to concoct saccharine, mucosal narratives. Like any good story, all things bright and beautiful reside pages away from that which is repulsive and unthinkable. We’ll start slow, like lowering into a hot bath. That which may have burned you at our beginning will be a comfort by the end.  

Let’s begin with a classic: the extensive “House of Hapsburg” page. Allow the 6-part names of forgotten royals to illuminate your moisturized cheeks like a feeble sun. See also, Wikipedia will suggest, Royal intermarriage.This will inevitably lead us down a rabbit hole of Habsburg jaws and Romanov hemophilia. Let it happen. So begins our descent. 

Like many greats before it (ogres, onions), Wikipedia comes in layers. As we pass through them, cast your eyes about. Did you know both American, British, and German soldiers were regularly given Schedule II stimulants during WWII, including cocaine and amphetamine? This will be tucked into a dense paragraph about military history, so keep your eyes peeled. And there, in that section about pad thai–did you know Thailand was never colonized? And look there, and there, and there–British sailors got a daily rum ration until 1970, horses have canines only for combat, and both komodo dragons and coconut crabs routinely practice cannibalism. This is an expedition where you must keep your wits about you, lest you miss a gem buried in tangents about public policy. You will soon learn that within every barnacle-crusted mundanity waits a glittering pearl. 

At this point, you may find yourself reflecting intently on yesteryear–more specifically, on the iconic scene from 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where a KGB operative (played by Cate Blanchett) demands hydrocephalic aliens for access to all the world’s knowledge and it makes her blunt-banged head explode (this is a great time to see also: Harrison Ford, personal life). It can be overwhelming, this first plunge. Maybe those remnants of mascara have begun to make your eyes itch. Maybe The Creature has woken up and begun to demand dry kibble (The Creature loves kibble). I am reluctant to tell you this, dear one, but it seems the time has come. You have been nothing but good to me, and the least you are owed is honesty.

Wikipedia, like anything, can be conducive to doomscrolling. Past the 1AM mark, it may begin to seem that war crimes are the only constant throughout human history, and that the mistreatment of women, children, people of color, queer people, the elderly, and the differently abled are their common bedfellows. There are countless atrocities, both remembered and forgotten, which prowl through these articles like shadows on your bedroom wall. I can never help but follow them to their dark places, to gaze upon those preserved in 12-point Arial tombs. Someone, I figure, should bear witness to these tragedies. Someone should be newly shocked and outraged on behalf of those who are lost. I cannot tell you not to linger, dear one, when I myself so often do.

We cannot stay forever in the lands of the dead–you know this from the stories. In the wake of articles like this, it’s important to see also, Spanish Teacher Barbie; pumpkin; tangzhong. It is important to stroke The Creature and, oh, alright, give it just a touch of dry kibble. Reflect on the resplendent quetzal, on petticoats, on the vernal equinox. 

I am grateful for popcorn and ponies and you. I am grateful for leeches and legumes and life. I am grateful to share these beautiful, mundane things with you, when so many cannot. Here, I make my final suggestion: set your phone aside. Get some rest. A borzoi’s skull isn’t fully developed until age three, and the Mari Lwyd party, all clacking horse skulls and ribbons, doesn’t come knocking till Christmastime. The world will be waiting for us in the morning, its stomach full of pearls.