It Happened One Night…
‘Twas a dark and stormy night. Have you ever wanted to begin a story with that line? Sure, it’s cliché and really might make a lot of people turn away from your story, but what if it really was a dark and stormy night? You really want to set the scene for the action that is about the occur, wouldn’t you?
Of course, if the plot didn’t revolve around the fact that it was stormy, since nights are always dark, to begin with, then you probably shouldn’t begin your story by describing the weather. You should probably focus more on an action or a character.
But I digress, for indeed it was a dark and stormy night. Halloween was always the time to go trick or treating in my neighborhood. Back then, we could go out in groups without parent supervision as long as we stayed within our own apartment building. Which for the most part we did. We were careful about whose apartment doors we knocked on. If we knew the person that lived there, it was a no-brainer, treats were to be had. If we had no idea who lived there, as might have been the case in an 11-story apartment building with 8-10 apartments on each floor, we were more tentative as to whether or not to knock. Some doors had signs on them that said “Quarantined, Contagious Disease, Do Not Disturb!” We tended to leave those apartments alone; Since at ages 10 and under, we actually believed those signs. Unlike today, where there are no signs on any doors, but in fact, anyone within might be contagious.
Once I reached the age of 11, though, I was sometimes able to go outside of our safety zone into the apartment buildings beyond our own. And so it was on this dark and stormy night, that my friends Ronald, Jude, Dave and I, ventured out to the apartment building behind my own. The entrance closest to us was down a secluded narrow alley, restricted from car traffic. My apartment building was on a hill, so it had two entrances, one on the upper part of the hill (on the 6th floor). We met at the sixth floor back entrance.
Ronald, naturally, was the impetus for us going to the other apartment building. He was the idea man. He was bored with his own neighborhood and told us it would be fun. “What could go wrong?” were his spoken thoughts. So we followed him.
This alleyway, had no lighting, hence the dark part, and it was raining pretty heavily, hence the stormy part. It was a short distance from my apartment building to this one, so we didn’t get too wet. I should mention that my mother thought we were only going trick or treating in my own building that night.
Did you ever go up to a door and as you were about to knock, the power goes out in the building you’re in, and a bright flash of lightning lights up the hallway, then the loudest thunderclap you’ve ever heard BOOMS and the whole building shakes? Well, this night that’s exactly what happened. Before we could even react, the door we were in front of swung open, and something with a ghoulish-looking face, lit only by a light source being held beneath it, jumped out at us and yelled, “TRICK, no Treat!”.
This was followed by almost every other door on the hall we were in opening with assorted people pouring out of them screaming, followed by another flash of lightning and clap of thunder.
My mother may have insisted that every time I go out to other people’s houses I was to make sure I was wearing a clean pair of underwear. On this occasion, I certainly wasn’t returning home with a clean pair. We didn’t wait to find out what had happened to the building’s power, or who the people in the hall were, whether living or dead. I’m not even sure if we still had the bags that we brought with us to collect the treats we had already been given when we charged out of the building, down the alleyway, and back to the safety of my own apartment building only to find that the power was out there too.
Dave and Jude politely said they were going to go back to their own houses using the excuse that there were probably some safe houses they hadn’t been to yet. Ronald on the other hand suggested that he and I go to a house in his neighborhood, which he was sure wasn’t haunted despite what local legends attested. I pointed out to him, that I wasn’t even supposed to be out of my apartment building during a storm so leaving my own neighborhood would have compounded my mother’s reaction when I got back.
“How would your mother know? What could possibly go wrong?” was his assertion.
My response was, “I really can’t. Right now my main concern is to deal with getting back into my apartment and changing my clothes without having to make any explanations.”
I wished him good luck in his endeavors as he left. I never did find out what happened to him after that. He was out of school for the next 3 days.
As for me, I made it into my apartment and went straight to my room to change out of my costume before my mother caught up with me. When you’re not allowed to leave an apartment building it’s kind of hard to explain wet clothes. I told my mom that I had been attacked on the 10th floor by some teenagers with water balloons. Judging from the look on her face, I don’t think she believed me.
So starting a story with “Twas a dark and stormy night” might just be the right way to begin one, under certain circumstances. As for this story, I could mention the mysterious and eventful, sunny day that followed that night. Just know they don’t call it the Day of the Dead for nothing. But there are some secrets better left untold.
