Fatima

Everyone takes a fall some time. Some are career ending, or teach a lesson, and like that. This one brought the house down.

Our neighborhood church youth group was flourishing.  As I recall, there were over twenty of us in regular attendance.  We had a pretty good supply of participants (notice that I did not say "talent") for a particular a Friday night money maker, which was a production. We had a hall-filling crowd.  There were several acts and kinds of entertainment, including a skit entitled "Fatima and the Nine Camels.” (One must have been left at an oasis.)

I don't remember much about the skit, other than that I was Fatima, and the finale would have put the “Hamlet” closer to shame. The curtain was to come down on almost too many carcasses to count.  As the skit progressed, more and more victims hit the deck, including the camels. Eventually, I had to die, too.  When there was a pyramid of bodies stage center, the music crescendoed, a metal sheet rattled, and Fatima surrendered her life, falling toward the pyramid.

She staggered, pirouetted oh-so-gracefully, finally fainting away oh-so-gracefully

Except that as she collapsed the pyramid split like startle spiders, scattering over the stage.

I hit the deck with an echoing thump, as a small child cried out, “Mama, is he hurt?”

The jolt jarred out one of my bra fillers, which one of the “corpses” gallantly recovered and politely pushed back in.