The instruments of darkness, eh? It’s hard to believe in this scientific age, but lots of folks think them external (Satan, Beelzebub, Old Scratch), and others conceive of them as intrinsic to human nature. Banquo, in his first lines betraying a rift between him and Macbeth, suggests their dual nature. Since childhood I’ve considered them internal; no forked-tail monsters for me. They’re part of my nature.

The last few months, however, have strongly militated for the opposite. One misfortune after another has befallen our quiet existence on the hillside above the state capital, until at times I find myself, like Job, sitting in the First World equivalent of sackcloth and ashes.

It hasn’t been all bad; that’s the winning-us-with-honest-trifles part. But looking back at the slowly multiplying misfortunes, I can see that they were all leading to a climax on Friday, the thirteenth of April. An old spelling-bee word has kept popping up in my brain: triskadekaphobia, the irrational fear of the number thirteen.

It started on July 12 on the Lynnway in Massachusetts, when a speeding Honda (this is not intended to discriminate; what vehicles on the Lynnway aren’t speeding?) smacked into and caved in the left side of my RAV, Erik. The driver’s side door was inoperative, which made for a fancy recumbent chinup when finally I had to get out over the center console. But Erik still could run; so I brought him home and left him at the body shop. Luckily, I have a backup car, Helga, a little German roadster (I told you it was a First World problem) that got us around in good shape, but holds only two souls at once; so Kiki got left behind more than ever.

Then the new printer, which takes its cues from the computer by Bluetooth, decided to take a vacation instead. Suddenly I was faced with the need to recognize that even old folks like me, who were kids in the days before dial phones, rely a great deal indeed upon modern technology. Shortly after that, my computer began signaling that it was entering a final decline. It began losing the last paragraph of everything I wrote. If this sort of thing has ever happened to you, you know how hard it is to replicate the genius that created the original missing text.

Meantime, of course, Erik was in the body shop and, according to reports, waiting for parts that were somewhere near the Port of San Diego and perhaps weeks, or even months, away. Hearing that did not exactly make my day. I was due to drive to Maine, across the grain of the continental ice sheets, on the 15th of September, and Helga, doughty as she had been, wouldn’t serve. I couldn’t leave her on a strange wharf for four nights, even with her top up and her doors locked. On top of that, on a recent trip to Boston after a day of rain, she’d begun hiccupping at high speeds. Very unsettling. All her dash warning lights came on at once, she died for a few seconds, and her gas gauge caromed wildly up and down. Nope.

It began to look as though the instruments of darkness were colluding to converge on the weekend of Friday, the 13th, and any bright spots were just honest trifles calculated to create false hope that everything might work out.

The new computer, which also had been detained somewhere near San Diego, arrived. I took the decedent computer to the shop for transferring its files – which, of course, were in worse shape than we’d realized. The new one performs, in spite of external similarities, almost none of its functions as the old one did, and doesn’t offer my favorite type face that I’m used to; but I reckon that the price of progress.

The point of convergence was almost upon me. I’d rent a car for the run to Maine, and among the sea breezes and spruce-clad islands of Penobscot Bay try to forget the details of the mess at home. But when I pulled into the yard after a few errands yesterday, there was Erik in the carport! If you’re reading this, I’ve got the new computer working, at least minimally. Bea’s due from Boston in two hours; a friend is taking care of Kiki. As an old boss of mine used to say, Fings are wookin’ up!