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Such is the nature of the small but desperate urgencies that they come at large and ultra-desperate times, actions required of impossible and uneven urgence, responses vaulted into the black hole of needless authority.  Or some such.  That is the way some of these images looked to me, removed from their context, taking away their stories and supplying one’s own. Urgently.

This post is related in a way to this blog’s series on using a “paper microscope” to find semi-hidden human geographies in old prints–where there are scenes of low drama taking place in the tiny incidental detail of some architectural rendering of some sort.  In this case, though, the story is the main image, though the original story has simply been removed.  So, our urgencies (top to bottom): the expression of urgent staying-in-bed, despite entreaties and an advancing army; urgent sleeping to ward off an advancing lion, horse, and highwaymen; terrifically urgent sitting, even when being upended and beaten with sticks to make the sitting stop; and, finally, urgent suicide (with backup sword at the ready) to evade capture of an advancing army.  The end.

• Image source: Theatre Historique (I believe), Amsterdam, ca. 1700-1710, published by Pieter van der Aa.