The Bright Stuff

Dear Aunt Gwen,

I have received your gift of two Bright Basics Motion Activated Light Bars, as well as your card in which you say you “saw them online” and “thought they’d be good for the basement” and might even help with “finally getting some eyes on the critter down there.”

I must take issue with a few things here. First of all, I thought I had made it clear when last you visited that the miles and miles of tunnels running under my manor should be referred to not as “the basement,” but rather “the catacombs.” Likewise, the “critter” is not a critter at all, but a mysterious beast.

As for the lights themselves, they definitely function as advertised. I set one up in the small room hidden behind the sliding bookshelf in my study, and wow! It really brightens things up! I could see all of the cobwebs on all of Adelaide’s jewelry, as well as the thick layer of dust covering the diary she kept, documenting the every dismal turn of our doomed engagement right up until the point whence she was drawn by a mysterious internal whisper out to the moors, never to be seen again.

And yet, despite their brilliant luminescence, I cannot thank you for them, dearest Aunt Gwen, as they confirm what I have long felt: that you do not respect my way of life.

I have consciously chosen to live here in this manor abutting the moors, with hidden rooms and a series of beast-inhabited catacombs. Thus, I do not want bright lights. I want brooding darkness that plays in perfect harmony with the coldness of my ice-enshrined heart! When will you finally accept this about me?

At any rate, I have decided to send the lights to my brother Dale. He has an electrical issue in the attic of his townhouse in Naperville, so he will have plenty of use for them.

Sincerely,
Benedict Heath Moorebund