What's Playing at the Theater?

I walked into a business meeting yesterday, like a movie theater. I thought I recognized what was playing, but just as the movie was coming to a conclusion, like The Twilight Zone, it switched to a completely different scene.

I was able to suddenly see into someone's mind, someone's alter-world. It was dark and frightening. The rules were powerful and different there. And like a bad dream, I was held there for some long moments, incapable of speaking, horrified. And after, just like a dream, I had difficulty accurately retelling the details, the words.

We often drive through life, gazing out the window at McDonald's and Wal-Mart, at high school stadiums and county roads, oblivious to the basements and cellars of people's minds.

Laws, regulations, and social norms often keep things in check, reminding us what's okay, what's not. But always, while we're sitting at the table with our apple pie, there are entire universes intersecting with our space-time. And sometimes there is a nightmare in our daylight. And there are people who will impose their nightmares upon others, and hold them there without release.

I pray for the end of nightmares.