Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN (04/13/17)
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TITLE: Reality Check | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
04/14/17 -
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From outside, Eden’s Theatre looked like a condemned building. Trash hunkered next to the chipped red brick walls as if to escape the chilling winds grasping at the lapels and hems of winter coats held in place by brave and foolish souls skittering through the puddles between bumper to bumper traffic.
“Eden? A shelter for rats and cockroaches,” my cousin had said.
“Yeah, the human kind,” my brother muttered.
“Pay attention to that shiver down your neck, Fitz,” my boss warned.
“Just come,” the text message prompted.
Flashing red and blue lights from a police cruiser splashed over the fifteen to twenty figures leaning back against the wall. When I marched off the cobblestone street, over the broken curb and onto the potholed sidewalk I was way past fear. The shiver down my neck was racing through my whole body screaming for attention.
The two bouncers at the theatre door looked like retired linemen daring anyone to get past them.
I lowered my eyes and kept walking.
A small brochure released its grip on a wall and flew to paste itself against my knee high boots. An accident? I reached down and grabbed it. The writing was bold: Not all Dead Men Stay Dead.
The shiver froze along my spine. This is exactly what had bugged me when Skeeter Allen caught me yesterday looking over his shoulder at his Tablet. The message there caught my curiosity. “Dangerous Ideas that Changed our World.”
Skeeter wasn’t his real name. It’s what everyone called him because he always talked about the blood of Jesus. Kids started calling him blood sucker – then Skeeter. It stuck. He even answered to it.
“You like to live dangerously?” Skeeter had asked me before I could pretend I wasn’t looking at his Tablet. “Meet me at the Eden at midnight any night this week - unless you’re too afraid.”
Last night there was no way. I paced my squeaky bedroom floor for an hour until my brother had pounded on my door and told me to stop making so much noise. It’s like a tic had burrowed into my soul. “Was Skeeter into zombies?” I couldn’t last another day and so I stared down those linemen and marched toward the door.
The inside dimly-lit lobby was full of ‘normals.’ Jeans, tats, piercings, rainbow hair, leather. Not a zombie in sight. I slid into the deeper shadows near a concession stand and waited. No sign of Skeeter.
Dark shag carpets hung along the walls, giving conversations in the entryway a sense of hushed whispers.
The brochure wrapped itself around my glove so I unpeeled it and examined the other side. I flipped on my cell phone light to read. “Dangerous Ideas” it headlined. God Walked This Planet; We Were Made Perfectly to Fit Here; Someone Else Is Out There; You Ain’t Got What it Takes To Save Yourself; All People Matter; Suffering Ain’t all Bad.
“Fitz…follow me.”
The passing shadow sounded like Skeeter so I pushed off the wall and followed blindly into a darkened room with theatre seating. Candles flickered in glass lamps along the perimeter, shedding just enough light to make the room surreal. Skeeter led me down a sloping ramp and then took my hand to lead me into a row of seats where others already waited. “Sit,” he said.
A spotlight on a stage was soon filled with a broad shouldered, red-haired, leather-vested woman holding a microphone. “It’s midnight,” she began. “I’m Lenny. You’re here by design and not by accident. I’m here to tell you that not all dead men stay dead; that God walked this planet; that we were made perfectly to fit here; that someone else is out there; that you ain’t got what it takes to save yourself; that you matter; and that suffering ain’t all bad. I should know. I met Jesus heart to heart.”
No one laughed. No one shouted. We just sat in the dark with the flickering candles listening to Lenny tell us the most amazing stuff. Now I’m a millennial and we have a lot of strange reality come our way on line. Most people I knew, including my family, mocked this stuff, but here a whole room full sat and listened.
Accidents will happen but not that Easter with Skeeter. I’d met a dead man who didn’t stay dead.
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Blessings
One small bit of red ink: I was a little surprised to read a repetition of the pamphlet in the description of the talk.Either the pamphlet or the talk could have been different.
I loved the story behind the name 'Skeeter'.
I predict this will be in the winners circle and I have not even read the others.