IT’S GONNA BE ALRIGHT

Things are really getting strange; late last night, in the darkest hour the boogeyman came out to see me full of remorse, begging me to forgive him. He stood beside my bed, head down, trembling.

His voice was so weak and mournful as he confessed: “Remember all those times since you were just a tike when I’d catch you in a real dark place and make those shadows move and look like monsters and you’d hear those creepy noises that would make shocks run up and down your spine; remember those bumps under the bed and the blurry, creepy faces at the windows, I just loved it. Oh my, I was so horrid to you. “He whined contritely and bowed his big wooly head very low. “I was so mean to you every chance I got,” he mumbled, his voice even more sad and remorseful. “I promise I’ll never do it again.” He went on and on as he very slowly very timidly climbed into the bed and cuddled up close to me. “We really have to stick together, “he said, “because the world is so frightening now.

“There, there,” I said as I stroked his big wooly head and shoulders and told him that he and I and everybody else was gonna be OK and that all the times he’d scared me had just helped to make me braver now; that when I’d gotten so scared but everything turned out fine my faith grew. My faith just got stronger and stronger every time that happened. I told him that he, just like me, was a precious part of God’s creation and that we are gonna be just fine; we just have to keep the faith. As I comforted him, he got very still and smaller and we both drifted off and slept like babies.

Jack