Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 07:06:58 -0700
Title: Neighborhood fears

The child was running, screaming, frightened.  Running away from
something. Running down the block, past houses in the neighborhood,
as if something or someone was chasing her.  I heard the sound and
looked out the window to see what was causing the 5 year old such
stress and fear. Nothing, just the kid running and screaming from
apparently nothing.  I looked at the child, then back from where she
ran, still nothing there, when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye
I perceived movement and a shape.  Yet when I looked straight at what
I thought I had seen there was nothing there.  Again I looked away
and again perceived, not actually saw, the shape, like some hunched-
over animal with a snout, moving persistently toward the child.

By the time I was outside the child had fallen on the sidewalk in front
of the house next door to mine, sobbing words of fear and helplessness.
I looked at the child holding my focus there and concentrating on
my peripheral vision to again see if I could see, when the child rose
into the air as if tied to a large helium balloon, floated one or two
feet above the sidewalk.  I was finally close enough to grab her when
she was released and had I not caught her she would have landed flat
on her back on the sidewalk.

She stared at me and both of us looked as we heard a swishing sound,
something disturbing the air, rush further on, down the block.  Her
arms clung to my neck as I kneeled to put her down.  I sat and held
her, feeling her sobs and her tears and her strong little arms locked
in fear.

puis.sance \'pwis-*n(t)s, 'pyu:-*-s*n(t)s, pyu:-'is-*n(t)s\ \-*nt, -s*nt\ n
   [ME, fr. MF, fr. OF, fr. puissant powerful, fr. poeir to be able, b]e
   powerful - more at POWER : STRENGTH, POWER - puis.sant aj.

Happy Monday (he said quietly).

love ya,

d.

The business of life is to go forward. -Samuel Johnson