Poison And Its Antidote
The wealthy socialite was about to be hit with a nuclear explosion
of considerable magnitude -- one which couldn’t readily be converted
into tons of dynamite because the force would be emotional and
spiritual, rather than physical. Tired from a long day of politicking,
making business deals, and attending various gala events, he had
trudged wearily up the stairs to his bedroom.
He had been looking forward to taking a hot shower and, then,
collapsing into bed. Presumably, his wife had retired quite a few
hours earlier, especially since she had not been feeling well.
The door to the bedroom was closed which, in and of itself, was
out of the ordinary. Normally, his wife left the door open for him,
except on those rare occasions when, for whatever reason, he went to
sleep before she did.
He quickly dismissed the anomaly and turned the knob. The
door opened, revealing a darkened room.
A sense of anxiety grabbed hold of the man’s consciousness, and
his stomach muscles tightened in response. Here was another oddity,
for, usually, his wife kept the bathroom light on, with the door
partially opened, and this gave off just enough illumination to permit
him to be able to navigate his way about in the bedroom’s semi-
darkness without having to turn on a light which might disturb her.
He didn’t want to turn on the overhead light since it was possible
that because his wife had not been feeling well, she simply had
forgotten the routine and went to sleep. If this were the case, he really
didn’t want to risk waking her.
Slowly, like a blind person, and trying to recall the layout of the
room, he went deeper into the darkness with his hands extended
before him. He felt around for a few pieces of familiar furniture
which would allow him to orient himself in the room.
Eventually, he worked his way over to the bathroom door,
opened it, and reached in, along the wall, searching for the switch.
Finding it, he turned the switch and a dim light began to shine in the
bathroom.
He fooled with the switch a bit more to increase the degree of
illumination slightly, and turned around to see the bedroom behind
him. The explosion caught him full force.
There on the bed was his wife with another man, both fast asleep.
His wife’s arm was draped over the man’s shoulder in an affectionate
way.
The husband inched closer to the bed trying to determine the
identity of the interloper. In order to better view the man, the
husband took out his glasses, and after he had put them on, and
inched still closer to the bed, he was shocked to discover the man was
his favorite servant.
Anger shot up his spine like a hit of heroin and poured forth like
a volcanic eruption in his mind. He shook the sleeping man, yelling:
“Get up, you ungrateful wretch ... you worthless piece of human
refuse.”
The man on the bed began to unwrap himself from the cocoon of
sleep in which he had been enclosed, but his wife was instantly
startled awake by her husband’s yelling. Seeing that his wife was now
awake, her husband pointed a finger shaking with outrage at her, but
all he could manage was: “How could you? How could you do this to
me?” and he began to cry as he slumped into a chair by the bed.
His wife rushed over to him, put one arm on his shoulder and
used her other hand to try to pry his head upward so that she could
see his eyes. Her husband shook his shoulder, dislodging his wife’s
arm that had been resting there, and he resisted the pressure from
his wife’s hand on his jaw.
His wife said: “It’s not what you think, dear.”
She glanced over at the bed and a look of perplexity washed
across her face. She said: “I don’t know why our servant is in the
bed, but, nothing improper has happened. I swear to you.”
The husband finally looked at her, his nostrils flaring, and his
eyes glaring. “A smirk of disdain twisted his lips before he retorted
with considerable sarcasm: “Isn’t that what they all say -- ‘Oh, its
not what you think, dear’, or, ‘Baby, nothing happened,” or, ‘Honey,
I know it looks bad and I can’t really explain it, but I swear to you
I’m innocent.’”
Sarcasm was replaced with its near cousin, anger, and he
continued on: “Do you really take me to be such a fool that I would
come into my house and find my wife in bed with our servant, with
her arm draped around him, and believe that nothing went on
between the two of you?” The spittle of outrage spewed from his
mouth as he finished his charge in the form of a rhetorical question.”
By this time, the servant was fully awake. The man’s eyes still
registered residues of sleep, but more than anything they expressed
fear and confusion.
The servant said: “I assure you, sir. Nothing went on, nor has it
been going on, between her and I. Please,” he implored, “let me tell
you what happened ... at least as much as I know.”
The husband turned his attention to the servant, and he replied
with contempt dripping from his every word: “Yeah, why don’t you
tell us what REALLY happened. Your account might be the most
entertainment I’ve had all day,” and he turned away from the
servant, cradaling his head with his hands.”
The servant stuttered as he began to tell his story while the
husband stared blankly at the floor. “I, I, I cccome from ppoverty. I,
I hhhave been pppoor all my life.” The man seemed to be desperately
seeking for something more to say.
The servant was about to go on when the husband’s head shot up
and said: “Don’t you dare try to use your impoverished upbringing
as an excuse for immorality. I pay you good money, and its not my
problem that you don’t know how to make that paycheck grow
through proper investments.”
The servant shook his head back and forth and said, several
times: “No, that’s not it, that’s not it.” He struggled to find the right
words: “I just wanted to give you a sort of reference point so you
might understand what and how I was thinking.”
The husband waved his hand at the servant in a dismissive way
and went back to inspecting the floor. He sighed deeply.
The servant continued on: “I had just finished my duties for the
day, it was early evening, the light of day was beginning to fade, and
I was both tired and feeling sorry for myself.
“I came upstairs to put some fresh towels in the bathroom, and
after I did that, I walked past the bed and thought – what a beautiful,
elegant, expensive bed with its satin sheets and space-age, spring
technology, and its ornate headboard. The bed must cost thousands
and thousands of dollars, and I will never sleep in such a bed.
“I thought to myself – ‘why not lie down and see what real
luxury feels like ... just for a few minutes?’ And, since the mistress of
the house was occupied with some guests downstairs, I felt like taking
this, possibly, unique opportunity to sample something of a rich
man’s life, and, consequently, I lay down and pulled the sheets over
me, but instead of just resting for a few minutes, I fell sound asleep,
and that’s all I remember until you woke me up.”
The husband looked over at the servant and gave him a quick
once over. The man was, in fact, dressed in his usual servant’s attire,
but, maybe, the servant had dressed after his little tete-a-tete with the
wife and, then, fallen back asleep.
The husband shrugged his shoulders and said: “Your story is
plausible, but what you say could easily be countered by other
possibilities which also are consistent with the available evidence.”
He turned to his wife and said: “So, what’s your spin on things?”
Disappointment appeared on her face. “I don’t have a spin on
things,” she said defensively – a little too defensively for the
husband’s liking, apparently, for a certain wariness crept into his
expression.
She tried to block out her husband’s sense of accusation and
proceed to her account of events. She began with: “As you know, I
wasn’t feeling well. After some friends left, I just sort of fell asleep on
the couch downstairs, probably one of the effects of the medicine I
am taking.
“I awoke about an hour later, was kind of groggy, and decided
to go to bed properly. I stumbled upstairs and since the room was
dark and the door was open, I assumed you already had gone to bed
but had been too tired to turn on the bathroom light.
“So, I closed the bedroom door, and undressed in the dark, as
well as put on my pajamas, which were draped over the chair by my
side of the bed. I left the light off because I didn’t want to disturb
you.
“When, I got into bed, I thought the body already there was
yours, and, so I draped my arm over the shoulder of the man who
was lying there – which in the present case turned out to be our
servant.” As she finished her account, she moved her shoulders and
arms in a way which seemed to indicate – ‘you see, there ‘s nothing
to it.’
The husband looked back and forth between his wife and the
servant. On the surface, their stories appeared to corroborate one
another and everything seemed innocent enough, but, still, there were
some nagging doubts which were whirling about within him.
Many of his friends were experiencing problems of infidelity. It
was like an epidemic, and his wife was friends with many of the
people who were playing musical beds.
Furthermore, he never liked the way his wife always had been
warm and friendly with the servants – far too warm and friendly, at
times, he often felt. Not only did he consider it improper, but her
friendliness with the servants – especially the male ones – had been
causing talk at the Club.
He often was away from home. She had complained just last
week about how lonely she was ... maybe he even was the blame for
putting his wife in temptation’s way.
Then, there was the servant. The husband always had liked the
man because of the servant’s great flair for humor, but he also was
young, charming, handsome, and Latino, and everyone knew about
the hot, passionate blood which ran through their veins.
In addition, one of his friends had been trying to give him the
heads up a few days ago concerning this very same man. His friend
had heard certain amorous rumors about the guy and claimed the
servant enjoyed a considerable reputation as a lady’s man around
town and, apparently, on more than one occasion, the servant had
violent encounters with aggrieved husbands.
He looked over at his wife. She had been a good wife, but he
knew that although she cared for him, she didn’t really love him.
There union had been more of a corporate merger than a marriage.
In strictest confidentiality, a friend of his wife’s once had
disclosed to him the story of a passionate romance from his wife’s
youth. She had fallen in love with a boy from the wrong side of the
tracks -- a Latino kid it seems -- and her parents had put an abrupt
end to the relationship.
According to his wife’s friend, she never quite recovered from
that romance. And, indeed, there always had been a subtle sense of
sadness about her for as long as he had known her.
He suddenly remembered his wife once had said that this servant
-- the one who was sitting on the bed ... the one with whom she often
was so friendly -- reminded her of someone she once knew. He vividly
recalled, quite vividly, that there had been a strong current of
melancholy in her voice when his wife had told him this and how, at
the time, he had found the presence of that current somehow
strangely disquieting.
The husband was caught between, on the one hand, the available
evidence – that is, the stories of his wife and the servant, and, on the
other hand, his doubts. He had a decision to make.
Should he have faith in the accounts of his wife and the servant,
or should he go with all the doubts, anxieties, and concerns which
had arisen within him as he added pieces to the puzzle based on other
information and experiences which were in his memory banks and
on which he could draw in trying to arrive at a judgment on the
situation? Was his wife innocent of any wrong doing just as she and
the servant had said, or were they having an affair? He could build
a plausible case for either possibility.
Were his many doubts and anxieties concerning his wife and the
servant a poison, and his faith in each of them, the antidote. Or, was
it the other way around? Much of spiritual life is like this.
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