PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORK: Please do not download
or post these without permission! Thanks! --Cara


THE BECKONING VOICE (c) --FATE magazine:
                                 Vol. 37
                                 No. 9
                                 Issue 414
                                 September 1984


My memory still lingers on the rainy, dreary night
when my grandfather sat by a flickering fire telling
about his narrow escape from death. Years have passed
and he died an old man, but his brief experience with
near-death haunts me.


In his early years, my grandfather was a coal miner.
Living in the South during the 20s and working in the
mines was a grueling, distressing existence. They did
what they called drift mining. The mines were entered
at a level angle due to the many sloping hills surrounding
the mining site. But the mine shaft led to deeper, darker
caverns of narrow corridors. Being confined in such an
oppressing environment seemed the worst aspect of the job
to my grandfather. So each day at lunch break he would
quietly slip from the suffocation of stale, acrid air
and sit outside the mine entrance.


One day in early spring of 1927, he began his excursion
to his special lunch escape. Unfortunately, as he 
discovered, it was raining -- just a light, misty shower
but too wet to sit outside in. Disappointed, he slowly
turned and selected a comfortable spot just inside the
doorway. At least he could see and smell the freshness of
the spring shower as he enjoyed his lunch.


He opened the battered lunchbox and reached for his 
familiar home-cooked meal as he listened to the hushed
whisper of rain falling amid the echoing noises drifting
up from the mine corridors. Suddenly he had an eerie
feeling inside him; he felt the stir of vague inner
fear. And he became aware that the rain had ceased; the
abrasive corridor noises had retreated into a distant
murmur; he was engulfed in an awesome silence. Time
seemed suspended. Then unbelievably, he heard a distinct
voice call his name, "Walter! Walter!"


He was surprised and, thinking someone was calling to him
from outdoors, he felt compelled to step out. Once outside
he looked around in bewilderment for although the voice
had been so clear and real, there was no one to be found.


Standing with his back to the mine, he felt greatly confused.
And at that precise moment he heard the tearing, crashing 
sound of rock falling inside the mine. He turned abruptly
and there, in the exact spot where he had sat, was a huge
chunk of rock flattening his uneaten lunch.


The mysterious beckoning voice had saved my grandfather's
young life and given him many more years on earth!