Serial (The Quickies), Part 2

2. Had George Whitby considered in which act he would hurl himself from the heights of the Family Circle down to the pampered depths of the Orchestra? His bereaved sister assumed he had planned to commit suicide before Otello so tragically kills Desdemona, and because he did not, because it came afterwards, she assumed that his courage had faltered and that second thoughts had delayed his jump. Sara Whitby, once she developed this assumption, could not stop thinking about it. She thought about it day and night and what little sleep she got was tormented by it. She had been perfectly aware that her brother was depressed, but given that he had lost his job and that his magnus opus had been rejected by its thirteenth publisher, she considered his depression situational (as opposed to what?) and felt justified in thinking that his spirits would improve with the passage of time and a new job. George had never been what you would describe as a cheery fellow. Neither he nor Sara had much time to spare for the cheery souls of this earth. Life, like good operas, was tragic, and they knew it.