A HALLOWEEN STORY

I sat alone in the balcony of an ancient, Gothic theater. It was dark but for the sliver of light that peeked out from under the heavy velvet curtains. An ominous hush hung in the air as the curtains parted. A woman entered from the left wing and strode rapidly across the stage. Her eyes expressed a terror that no actor could have conjured. The emotion she exuded was the deep, trembling panic of one tormented by maddening fear. The scene moved in slow motion, as if she were slogging through molasses and making little headway. Her long, dark hair flowed out behind her. The sinister presence in pursuit of her, though not visible to the audience, seemed to be closing in, as she frequently turned her doleful countenance in backward glances as she ran.

All at once she turned toward the audience and bolted right off the stage. She did not go down into the orchestra level, but took long strides upward, walking on air... up, up toward the balcony. As she drew closer to me, I saw that the terror in her eyes had turned to ghoulish malice, and I became paralyzed with fright. So completely and literally paralyzed was I, that as I attempted to turn and climb over the seat to make an escape, I discovered that I was unable to move. Time stood still. Then from out of the shadows a large bat came screeching down from high in the rafters and landed in the woman's long hair, driving her into a frenzy.

At that moment of heart-pounding panic, I awoke from the nightmare in a chilling sweat.

This is an actual dream I had at the age of thirteen. I have always remembered it because it was so insanely terrifying. The scene, horrific as It was, was not the most memorable part. The emotion that accompanied the dream, the unbridled feeling of terror, was what stayed with me. It was a terror so compelling that the bottoms of my feet tingled for several minutes after I awoke.

Now I will take you into the realm of reality. This is the real world in 1984. I am wide awake in the middle of a sunlit day.

I enter the arched Gothic style doorway of Flowers Hall on the Huntingdon College campus in Montgomery, Alabama. Len is with me, and we are attending a piano recital where our son will be performing. We are ushered upstairs into the balcony. We find our seats, and I begin to look around. Below us is the stage covered with a heavy velvet curtain. The orchestra section sits empty. Other people are filtering in and getting seated. Suddenly the scene seems eerily familiar. I stare up into the shadowy beams of the arched ceiling and experience a tingling sensation that the whole setting is, indeed, unnervingly familiar! All the old feelings of dread are returning to me. This is the same balcony that was in my dream some 27 years ago! The stage is the same, the curtains are the same, the seats are the same, the arch in the ceiling is the same. Then I hear a muffled swooshing sound and I look up. What is that...Up there on one of the rafters? A bat? Yes, a bat just like before! It swoops down, down, down into the unsuspecting audience and lands in the hair of a woman seated several rows in front of us. She screams and flails at the bat. An usher appears, but the bat has escaped. Somewhere in the dark reaches of Flowers Hall, it lurks.

And what was once a dream...a sinister dream from the twilight of long ago...has become a vivid reality.

JUDGE NOT...

For Q's birthday celebration, we took him, April and Celeste, her three year old daughter, to dinner at Outback. We ordered our drinks and a Bloomin' Onion, and things were underway for a festive dining experience.
Our waiter seemed somewhat distracted, however, and had to be reminded every time someone needed a drink refill. He also neglected to clear away dishes we were finished with, and the table soon became cluttered. We complained among ourselves about the service not being up to speed. After we had finished dessert, we waited a long time for the bill to come. We finally had to signal him that we were ready for it. He was just standing around in the doorway at the back engaged in conversation with another waiter. The bill arrived and we noticed that he had not charged us for any of the drinks. We pointed it out to him and he told us in a soft voice that he hadn't really forgotten. We assumed he meant that he had left the charges off on purpose. A few minutes later he returned and very apologetically informed us that he had brought us the wrong bill, and that he was so sorry but he was having a very bad day. There were no charges for the drinks on the correct bill either. We assured him that we understood, and that everyone has a bad day from time to time, and not to worry about it.
At that point his eyes began to fill with tears, and he told us that he had just received some very bad news. He indicated that he wanted to tell us, a group of complete strangers, about his devastating news. We braced ourselves. He then related how he had received a phone call this afternoon confirming that he has cancer. He has been having frequent nosebleeds and bouts of vomiting. He has Leukemia. We guessed his age at about 25 years old.
Suddenly Q's broken toe which was throbbing under the table didn't seem like such a big deal to him anymore. Len's constant foot pain became a minor issue. The myriad of crises that frequently besiege us were reduced to mere annoyances. Here before us was a young man whose adult life was just getting underway, and in a matter of a few hours all his aspirations, his hopes, his plans, had been yanked out from under him and cruelly replaced with dark, ominous prospects of illness, pain, hospitalization and chemo-therapy with all it's miserable side-effects.
My immediate impulse was to jump up and hold him in my arms. I held back, as I feared that such a gesture would push him over the edge and he would break into uncontrollable sobbing. Instead we asked him if he prayed. He assured us that he did. We asked him if he had family. He lives with his brother, and plans to move back in with his father during the chemo. He said that his father is his best friend. We are thankful that he is a young man of faith, and that he has a strong, supportive family to see him through this ordeal. We assured him that we would be praying for him also.
We left the restaurant in a somber mood, each feeling that we had gained new perspectives. I thought of the saying I once copied into my notebook, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."