Anthology: Barry Ulanov

SERMON IDEA: Sometimes it seems that our forebearers and the world they knew are lost in the mists of time, so far back, so different from the live’s we know as to be irrelevant to our present circumstance. But it is closer than you think, more relevant than you think. Imagine if you will a two lines of parents facing each other on either side of our central aisle. On the left is your mother, on the right is your father, facing in towards the aisle. Next to them is your grandparents, it doesn’t matter which side of the family, presume the side that leads back to the founders of this or a similar church. And so it goes mother by mother, father by father. We all stand at the head of the column and begin walking back, generation by generation. Imagine you could look into their eyes, understand their hopes and dreams for their children and neighbors. If you imagine that this line continued all the way back to the rise of homo sapiens, it would extend about 300 miles. But if you wanted to walk past to your forbearers who founded this church, you would only walk back about half-way down the aisle. By the time you got to where Mary is sitting you would be about 17 generations back, just about 1639.
17 mothers, 17 fathers. Their hopes are your hopes, their joys are your joys.

We are in our home, which seems almost like an apartment, Amy is out and Owen, Katy and I are in and around living room with Christmas tree. There is some back and forth between Owen and Katy about huge backlog of dirty dishes. Owen suggests starting them together so they are done when Amy gets home. Katy wants to wait. Owen is stymied. I suggest they each do their half separately. That would permit Owen to start. He doesn’t like that plan, it seems too confusing. I am a bit frustrated, it would have been nice for the dishes to be done for Amy’s return.
I am lying on floor near Christmas tree when I notice that it has caught on fire. I jump up. Owen and Katy are just watching. I also watch, stupidly half-thinking that perhaps no harm will be done. Blaze causes ceiling paint to begin to flake and darken. I then realize we must immediately put it out or there will be substantial damage to home and perhaps conflagration. I begin beating it with towel or rug and put out blaze.
I feel anger, frustration that Owen and Katy had just stood by watching (a more pronounced version of what I feel when they spill something but don’t make a move to clean it up as it seeps onto floor.) But is there also some guilt in the back of my mind as even as I am angry at them. I kind of recognize that I had stood back watching too. There is damage to the ceiling and wall. Curiously there is no smoke and smoke detector did not go off.
I shout at Owen that there are embers still live on the couch and floor. Can’t he see that they will singe the fabric. He hesitates and my anger flares again. Why is he just standing there? I beat at the embers and he joins in. We put them out but not before they do burn marks in fabric. Why did he just stand there?. More anger.
Amy comes home and does not notice damage or missing tree. There is some foggy notion that there is another fellow with us. Seemingly my age or older and kind of out of the action or nonconsequential to action (David Colton, George Rebh?) He floats around periphery. We are about to go out and I am building up to telling Amy. I do. She is unhappy but not as angry with us as I expected. You can see some Robins egg blue paint through where the white paint had burned off over the couch.

Terrible series of nightmares of death and flight from authorities. First, a dream that Amy and I are with my father. He does something I view as threatening and justifying a defense. I kill him (by reaching down his throat almost to my elbow?) We are in anteroom talking about the horror of what has happened. I am defending it as justified.
Second, I am in a prison cell type room with a notorious and powerful bad guy. Am I his lawyer? He is roguishly good looking in kind of a dark haired and menacing Gerard Depardieu kind of way. Suddenly, at the cell door or whatever appears an attractive woman with black, shortish hair. I can’t believe she wants to come in. I feel betrayed that she wants to talk to him. Am I jealous? Doesn’t she know how dangerous he is? Was she the prosecutor that put him away? He kind of reminds me of Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear. She comes in, the Deniro type smiles viciously and attacks her. She screams but is immediately overpowered. I don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. There almost seems to be someone else with me, but I can’t be sure. I sit on a mattress on top of her and him, sandwiching them. He is trying to brutally rape her, she is screaming. I am trying to pin him and stop him. Someone else is trying to get a gun out to shoot him. We are hoping we can kill him before he rapes her. We pull back the mattress and the shooter shoots him, struggling to get a clear shot at him. The wounding shots don’t slow him down, and I realize that the shooter is trying to shoot him in head. Finally a head shot stops him. She is sobbing. Police come in and take him away. Remarkably, he doesn’t seem to be dead. Third, I am in a motel type place, trying to make a call. The manager is watching me, trying to keep an eye on me until the police arrive. He hasn’t told me he has called the police, and I am acting like I don’t know he is concerned. I can’t seem to make my call. I am nervous, anxious, guilty. I hand him the phone and then bolt. He follows as I run off. As I get to the woods line I notice I am being chased by an overweight woman (Terri Grziak?, Debbie?) As I start to descend a trail, I turn and smile at my pursuer, do you really think you can keep up with me, well come on? I am confident she is too out of shape to follow (she’s too overweight to run, what can she be thinking!) but I am also a bit concerned about my ability to run, do I realize I am overweight and in my 40’s? I run off. There is a sense in the back of my mind that surely my flight is futile. Fourth, Owen, (Katy) and I are fleeing in Germany by car. We hear sirens in beach type resort town, I am driving too fast and recklessly worrying about sirens but not wanting to be too noticeable by my driving. I know I have to whip around corner and hide from pursuit, but I am wondering what chance we can possibly have. We are in a foreign country after all and don’t even know where we are going. But perhaps police don’t have a specific description of our car. We pull around corner, right into police trap. We give up and are taken inside. Inside is a rogue who plainly is not a cop and its obvious we have been taken by non policemen as part of a tourist shake down. Rogue beckons me forward and demands money. I have only $10 and offer it to him. He is incredulous that this is all I have. I think he will let us go, but I wonder if he will figure out the real police are looking for us or whether being delayed will let them catch up. Fifth, we are in revolutionary or post revolutionary France. I have a vague sense we are in a movie of the revolution mixed with a movie of Frankenstein. Revolutionaries are plotting to overhear and betray someone. Is he a hero, is he the same guy who has a commemorative plaque on the wall honoring his role in the revolution. Why has his name been Anglicized? The shenanigans of betrayal over. The hero type and his wife are both in my custody. They say they were here to collect, view or do something with the body of their infant and they have a very small casket. To see if they are telling the truth, I brutally decide to open the casket in their presence. I figure the mother will reveal by her reaction whether they are telling the truth. The mother has short hair and looks a little like Owen’s French teacher. I open the casket, the dead infant’s face is caked in black decay. A terrible sight. As I walk past the mother I notice that she is weeping and that her face is now also caked in black decay. Plainly she is stricken and plainly her face makes clear she was telling the truth about the child.{S} {!}