comedy and tragedy

A few hours on the road and I realize we’re not going to get back home in time for me to help out with the baby’s bedtime. I’m embarrassed to say anything, I don’t want to appear unprofessional.

We arrive at the venue — an old theater in Charleston, West Virginia. A few people are already in the balcony seats, waiting for the show to begin.

While the comedian gets ready to go onstage, I call my wife to apologize and break the news.

“I should be back around midnight,” I tell her. Then I remember the driving time. “Actually, it’ll probably be later than that.”

She is annoyed, rightfully so. But she doesn’t press the point.

I feel terrible and offer to rent a car so I can return early.

She hesitates before answering. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but…”

She tells me that there’s been an accident. The father of the two girls who lives across the way fell from their balcony and died.

(Somehow I recall an earlier dream, while dreaming this one, in which the man’s mentally disabled brother also died. This family has seen nothing but tragedy, in my dreams.)

I rent a car and, in time, arrive back home. A cloud of sadness hangs over the apartment complex, clinging to everything.

Looking across the way, I can see into the windows of the neighboring apartment where the two little girls play on their bunk bed. I worry that they might fall.

An elderly man comes into their room — their grandfather, I assume. He moves so slowly, weighed down with age and sorrow.