Coalescing memories

I took the garbage out a little after midnight last night and coming back was startled to see what looked like white pants hanging at the end of our building.

I couldn't imagine who or what it was, but I could see those legs as clear as day. They seemed too close to the ground, but I remembered how, when I was on the Coroner's jury, I learned that it was possible to pass out then die while unconscious even though you could have stood up.

I tried to remember what was down there in the dark, how this could be possible and then I remembered something very sad.

I was in a play that people were paying to see for the first time in my life and a young man, a teenager really, gave me a rose on opening night. The note said, "To the only person who has fewer lines than me. Love, "  I had two lines, but I was tickled by the rose, the only flower I ever got for acting.

This youngster would always be standing on a stone bench outside the theater when I arrived. He wore a large black Sherlock Holmes cape and hat and looked very dramatic. We would walk in together and sometimes talked while waiting. Then very early one morning, while driving down Main Street I saw what looked like a large crow hanging from a tree by the university high school. I wondered what it was, but I didn't find out until that night when no one waited on the stone bench.

It turned out all I was seeing last night was a combination of a new sign's post superimposed over another signpost.  All that was there were old memories coalescing into an imaginary fear.

I'm so glad.