Premonitions of Delirium at the Hour of the Wolf

In November of 1989, we were ensconced in a pleasant, rented apartment on the outskirts of Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, awaiting the completion of all of the paperwork needed to support the adoption of Sam, our first child.  It felt rather like imprisonment, with outside daytime temperatures approaching 100 degs and no real access to transportation.  And so, for long periods between visits with the authorities, we were left with only a TV to keep us company.  There were soap operas, game shows and silly commercials on tap, and also a daily children's extravaganza hosted by a Brazilian former porn star known as "Xuxa" -- "Shoo-sha."

And at every break in the action, an imposing and sonorous voice, almost Darth Vader-ish, sounding to me a caricature of machismo, intoned the same phrase -- "Red Privada de Television!" -- "Private Television Network!", but also perhaps a multilingual play on words insofar as the ruling far-right party of the Paraguayan republic for decades had been the Colorado -- the "Reds."

Now as I lie sleepless at 3:33, the Hour of the Wolf, the phrase repeats itself in my head in the same sonorous voice, like waves booming off of a particular forlorn lighthouse.  And it occurs to me that I might come to repeat it aloud myself in a final delirium, without context for my caregivers, the repetition without context fitting the very definition of raving madness.