When I was living in Brisbane, many years ago, I had a neighbour, Barbara, who was living a life of the utmost awfulness, with one hideous disaster after another. In the space of the six months I lived next door, her eldest son was killed in a motor-bike accident, her grieving husband pulled every single thing out of the house into the garden, doused it with petrol, set it alight, and then shot himself, her eldest daughter ran off with a bunch of street kids and became a junky-prostitute, then Barbara, one of the strongest women I've ever known, living day-by-day, barely holding the rest of her family together, discovered she had cancer.
My heart bled for her.
She was in hospital, dealing with it, when I woke in the middle of the night. There was a huge moon shining through the bathroom window so I didn't turn on the light. Was sitting there when I noticed a young man shimmying up Babara's drainpipe to a small louvered second-floor window. Leaning forward, just inside my window, I said "I'm watching you." It had that wonderful bathroom echo and sounded wonderfully creepy.
The young man screamed, fell, and was lying down on the ground, dazed, so, still just inside the window, I said "Please don't rob Barbara's house. She has enough troubles without you adding to them."
The young man screamed again, and started shouting "I'm sorry, Angel, I'm sorry."
Angel? Then I noticed that he was looking up at an enormous staghorn fern up a tree that had the moon shining through the branches, several feet to the left of me.
It tickled my funny bone so I pushed it wayyy further. "I've been watching you for a while now" I said in my most epic voice. "because you have fallen off your true path. This is not the life god wants for you."
"Yes. Yes." the young man shouts at the tree, so, desperately trying not to laugh, I say "God told me to tell you he wants you to go back to school and find your true calling."
"Yes, Angel, I promise, Angel."
"So go now and tell all your friends that god is watching them too and doesn't want them doing what they're doing. He wants them to go back and find their true path."
"Yes, Angel, I promise, Angel."
"So leave now, knowing that all is forgiven and your life starts again tonight."
"Thank you, Angel, thank you." and he starts to run off.
"And tell everyone to leave Barbara's house alone because I'm guarding it!" I shout after him.
Well, it couldn't have been better because I was then working on a project looking at self-esteem levels of runaway girls who joined street gangs in the area, so ... well, for the next few weeks, I was there, in among them, handing out questionnaires and interviewing, gathering stories, so had the wonderful privilege of listening to the story grow: Tony saw an angel. An actual angel. Golden hair. Enormous white wings. Beautiful face. Halo. White robes. Just like all those angels you see in church. Stood right in front of him. Tony said that the angel told him he had to return to his true path. They all had to return to their true path. Tony was returning home so he could go back to school. Tony had found religion!
Ruhe! Totenstille! Schwrigend zu horen! Sometimes the truth is better off remaining untold. Yes?
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