Part 15 – Sam Visits Mr. Im again: will they click?

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Adolf Hitler - Thomas Paine - Euripides, George Orwell - Sigmund Freud - Noam Chomsky - Robert Heimlein - Paulo Freire, Mahatma Gandhi - Charles de Gaulle - J K Rowling, Mr Im, Phaedrus - Abraham Lincoln - Friedrich Nietzsche, Power and fear, sadly unaware, Sam's third visit, the exercise of power, Thomas Hobbes

Part 15 – Sam visits Mr. Im again: Will they click?

Sam’s reaction to “Being Unaware of the Exercise of Power’ (element 7 in Part 14 of this series) caught him completely by surprise. When reading Mr. Im’s previous materials Sam had not thought of its application to other people’s lives. He had been focused on his own growing awareness of the elements of power, and how it tied into the existence of fear – his fears.

But, with the last material from Mr. Im, Sam’s eyes were opened to other people, and their fears. “Part 14 – Sadly Unaware” concluded with Neil Diamond’s song, Win the World, which hauntingly described a wife trying to gain her husband’s attention by wearing a eye-catching red dress.   Although a beautiful song, it left Sam dejected, and to some degree even lonesome, wondering if Sherry ever had any of the sorrowful frustrations expressed in the lyrics. The song had taken the theme of power into intimate personal relationships. It made sense to Sam, but it was also very painful. Did Sherry have fears she never talked about? Sam’s mental eyes were opening; it shook him.

During the weeks that Sam had been receiving Mr. Im’s materials, he was not only changing, but was also aware of it. True, although still very conscious of the fear factor, Sam was also becoming more aware of his part in his fears. He was increasingly recognizing his natural tendency to blame other people for his fear. To take responsibility, any responsibility, for his fears had been counter-intuitive. After all, it was others who were the “power brokers”, who were threatening, who controlled items that Sam wanted, etc. Now, however, Sam was realizing that his wants, his desires, his values (and he had plenty of all of those), were setting him up for fear. Others might have the items, but Sam had the needs. And, the needs were, as Sam was coming to understand, more critical than the items that Sam wanted.

He concluded that it was time to personally contact Mr. Im. On one hand, he wanted to personally thank Mr. Im. Furthermore, he also had some questions, questions that were not on his mind when he had his earlier visits with Mr. Im. So, Sam called, and got through immediately. Mr. Im’s cheerful voice greeted Sam, and they made arrangements to meet the following Monday.   That would give Sam time to read the materials again, as well as to sketch out some of his questions.

During Sam’s drive to Mr. Im’s home on Monday, his nervousness increased. It surprised him. He didn’t remember when was the last time he had become nervous about meeting up with someone. Sam normally envisioned himself as a “take charge” fellow. He knew what to do in new situations.   He didn’t get nervous. No one knowing Sam would refer to him as being easily flustered. He knew what to say. He knew how to answer. He knew how to give orders. But, when with Mr. Im, for some reason Sam’s self confidence was slipping through the sieve. In his heart, he knew that he was the novice. Mr. Im, however, was the real deal, a man who had no need for pretentiousness.

As he got out of his car, and approached the small porch, the front door opened, and Mr. Im had a warm smile that made Sam feel immediately comfortable deep inside. Sam wondered if Mr Im might have some of that delicious apple pie with ice cream, or some of those rich dark chocolate chip cookies with cold milk, or something else. The fragrance as Sam entered the house gave away the answer: It was the pie and the ice cream!

After small talk, which Mr. Im was able to do with graciousness and genuine interest, the conversation turned, easily, to Sam’s initiative of wanting to pay a visit to Mr. Im. Sam hardly realized that suddenly he was freely expressing his inner self to this gentleman with whom he had talked only two other times. Mr. Im simply had the knack of making Sam comfortable. He asked questions that probed Sam’s mind, emotions, appreciations, and fears. Yes, and Sam’s fears. It happened so easily that Sam hardly was conscious of the freedom of their conversation.

After a while of free flowing conversation about the topics covered in the seven elements embedded in the exercise of power, Mr. Im started moving the topic beyond what had been covered in the installments he had mailed Sam over the past weeks.

“Sam, what I have explained in the installments you have received is not my invention, although I do take responsibility for how they have been presented. You can find the thoughts in a variety of sources. For example, here are several pages that I have entitled simply Some quotes about Power. They quotes are quite varied, as are also the authors. Feel free to take some minutes to glance through the pages; I will get some more pie and ice cream, ok?”

The material (Some quotes about Power) quickly pointed to some of the scope on the topic. This is what Sam was holding in his hand and reviewing. As he began to look it over, he quickly concluded that the scope was very broad. He also saw some familiar names, but many were unknown to Sam.

Some Quotes about Power

• Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. (Abraham Lincoln)
• All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
• Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases. (John Adams)
• Knowledge is power. (Francis Bacon)
• Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. (Lord Acton)
• Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best. (Edward Abbey)
• The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future. (Eric Hoffer)
• Not necessity, not desire – no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything – health, food, a place to live, entertainment – they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
• Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. (Frederick Douglass)
• Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. (George Washington)
• You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
• The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while. (Albert Einstein)
• Power is the great aphrodisiac. (Henry A. Kissinger)
• Never forget that the most powerful force on earth is love. (Nelson Rockefeller)
• An alliance with a powerful person is never safe. (Phaedrus)
• Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God. (Arnold J. Toynbee)
• Force always attracts men of low morality. (Albert Einstein)
• What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do. (Aristotle)
• Silence is the ultimate weapon of power. (Charles de Gaulle)
• Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey. (Denis Diderot)
• “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” (Oscar Wild)
• “The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.” (Roseane Barr)
• The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”   (Mahatma Gandhi)
•  “I met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, ‘There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Who’s in charge?”  (Elizabeth Gilbert) in Eat, Pray, Love)
•  “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”   (Margaret Thatcher)
• “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” (Plato)
• “Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.”  (John Steinbeck)
• “Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains.”  (Libby Bray)
• “It is not truth that matters, but victory.” (Adolf Hitler)
•  “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ” (Paulo Freire)
•  “You should never ask anyone for anything. Never- and especially from those who are more powerful than yourself.” (Mikhail Bulgakov)
•  “For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.” (Noam Chomsky)
• “When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.” (Michael Ende)
• “Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” (Robert A. Heinlein)
• “It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.” (Sigmund Freud)
• “The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?” (George Orwell)
• “Power was my weakness and my temptation.” (J K Rowling)
• “Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.” (Charles de Gaulle)
• “Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.”  (Mahatma Gandhi)
• “When one with honeyed words but evil mind Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”  (Euripides)
• “That’s what we all want, isn’t it? Power without price.” (Kelley Armstrong)
• All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”  (Thomas Paine)
• “Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.”  (Elle Wiesel)
• “The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.”  (Adolf Hitler)
• Knowledge is power.” (Thomas Hobbes)

Mr. Im gave Sam as much time as he wanted to look over the pages of quotes about power.   When he was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the material, he looked up to Mr. Im with a “Wow. This is not what I was expecting to get this afternoon. And, I am going to need some time to re-read this and do a lot of reflecting.”

“I understand, Sam. I have been working on this topic for a number of years. I agree that it is definitely a “Wow” issue. But, it is also super important, both on a personal level, as you have already realized, and also on a social and cultural level.

“The many people who have taught about power, and have written about it, point to how nuanced the topic can become. Interestingly, the ideological and philosophical backgrounds of the authors of these quotations also point to the topic not being esoteric. Nor is the topic a secret knowledge that only those who have been initiated into some secret sect or organization can obtain. In my case, I value the insights regardless of the source.

“I also want to mention, and do so with no hesitancy, that I also am a Christian. My ultimate allegiance belongs to Jesus, and I turn to the stories of His life as well as to his teaching material. I want to be as sure as I can be to understand his teaching and his behavior. I want to see how he handled various scenarios. In doing that, I see that the exercise of power and the experience of fear are common topics. Jesus teaches about them. Jesus lives through situations that are commonly associated with power and fear.”

“I hope all this has not put you ill at ease, Sam.”

“Not at all, Mr. Im. But, I do admit that the visit has caught me by surprise. I think I still have much to learn and to absorb. Will you be able to help me understand even further these issues of fear and power?

“If I can be of help, Sam, I will do what I can.”

C O M M E N T S     W E L C O M E

Part 12 – Forging ahead with Mr. Im’s study of fear and power

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being deprived of what we think we need, being the author of our value system, consumeristic society, creating desires for my "product" or "utility", having power and creating fear, Marketing 101, Mr Im, our vacillating scale of values

 Part 12 – Forging ahead. . . fear and power

The elements involved in the use of power, as Mr. Im laid them out in Part 11 (the previous entry for the readers of this presentation) rocked Sam quite unexpectedly. He caught himself pondering his relationship with his wife, Sherry. He wondered how she would describe him in terms of power. Was there anything about Sam that was causing fear in her, or that perhaps could cause fear in her? He hoped not. But, he was beginning to realize that this fear issue was both more nuanced and much deeper than he had ever imagined up until now. And, he was suspicious that it would increase as Mr. Im’s material continued arriving. As for Sherry, Sam wanted to know if fear was present in her mind. At the same time, Sam knew he would be very embarrassed if Sherry were fearful to any degree, and certainly fearful of him.

As for his relationship with Jac, his co-worker in “the firm”, as they referred to it (only between the two of them, for obvious reasons) Sam didn’t give much thought. Sam was quite convinced that Jac would agree with Sam that the two of them treated each others, and thought of each other, as equals; there would be little more to say about it.

His mind returned to Sherry. Could Sam’s inner vacillating scale of values be so strong that it played a role in how he treated Sherry? Could the same thing be happening in her mind as well? It did make sense when he read Mr. Im’s description. He needed to work with that concept quite a bit. He might vacillate much more than he had ever consciously considered.

It had only been three days ago that Sam had read the previous section. Then, Mr. Im’s next installment arrived! On the first page was a sticky note: “I hope all this is giving you feed for thought, Sam. Are you beginning to investigate your fear/s differently? I hope so. This document will help your ongoing investigation.”

With that brief word from Mr. Im, Sam began reading.

 Element No. 5: Gaining power by changing the other person’s value system

One way to gain power over another person is to insert into their value system a desire for something over which you have control.   This is not a new or novel procedure; it is happening all over the world. It is happening in our time in a consumer driven societies and cultures. Once the other person, or group of people, develops a desire for what you are making available, you will have a certain level of control in their lives. Let me put that in personal terms. If someone wants to control me to some degree, they can do so by creating in me a “like” or a desire for a particular item or behavior. If they can elevate the value of that item/behavior in my value system, they will have control over all of my lesser valued items. I will be prepared to surrender the lesser valued items to “buy” or in some other way, obtain what will satisfy the higher valued needs.

Allow me to turn to an example to illustrate this element # 5. On one hand, since I do not smoke nor use tobacco in any other form, I am not under the power of those who control my access to tobacco. They can not force me to do anything by threatening to withhold from me their tobacco product. But, let’s say that they want to control me, or want to control some of my disposable income. In such a case as this, how can they gain control over me?

Their first step is to somehow create in me the desire to have tobacco in some form (preferably the form in which they marked the tobacco). This is where marketing enters the scenario. Once the desire to use tobacco is implanted in me and becomes part of my value system, the tobacco vendors will have power over me by either granting me access to the tobacco or restricting my access to the tobacco. They will have power over any item in my value system that I value less than I value the tobacco, the new substance they introduced (in whatever form it happened to be). The point is that power can be gained by creating new felt needs in those over whom you want to exercise power.

The illustration just used is not complicated; but it does need to be enlarged just a little. The example as presented, has been simplified by excluding a need I may have to obtain tobacco for another person. In that case, I have put myself under the power of the other person, not the tobacco vendor. To extend the illustration to cover this scenario doesn’t change the principle being illustrated. It does, however, demonstrate the danger of over simplifying what is involved in the exercise of power.

You might be saying, “All of this appears to be basic Marketing 101”. You are correct. But, notice the corollary – Marketing is an example of how the exercise of power has infiltrated the consumeristic society. (Please note that the exercise of power preceded the existence of consumerism) In any case, it is not a compliment to our society to point out the link between consumerism and the exercise of power!

Permit me to point out that it is our call as to the place that various items occupy in our value system. It is our decision. Furthermore, whatever is in our value system is an open door to whomever or Whomever can satisfy that need.

So, what is fear? It is the psychological/spiritual/mental state of being, or potentially being, deprived of something (a value system item) that we think we need. The greater the sense of need, the greater the fear when we are threatened with the need not being satisfied.

 

 

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8. Follow up visit with Mr. Im

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a house in flux, around the block many times, chocolate chip cookies and cold milk, Communicate by implication - not by declaration, fear and love, Give me several days, Minnesota nice, Mr Im, no return number, three days later, what do we need to talk about?

8. Follow up visit with Mr. Im

A week passed without Mr. Im contacting Sam. Sam was not surprised; they had not made arrangements for a follow-up conversation or visit when concluding their first time together. That was when Sam went to the house where he had left the note saying, “At first I wanted them to like me; now I want them to fear me.”

Additionally, Mr. Im hadn’t given Sam a phone number where he could be reached. That had to be intentional, thought Sam, although he did not take it personally. That didn’t, however, lessen Sam’s desire to touch base with Mr. Im, especially in light of the growing number of questions he had.

During their first conversation, Mr. Im’s had provided only a sketch about his specific employment. It was way too slim for Sam to track him down without leaving traces of himself in this era electronic information gathering. So, Sam resorted to the “old fashion” way of communication – mailing a simple note with no return address, sent to the house where Sam had deposited the original “note” about “like me versus fear me.”

Three days later, Mr. Im called, and graciously told Sam to feel free to stop by the coming Thursday afternoon. “Great”, Mr. Im, “I am looking forward to it.” But Sam also realized that Mr. Im had called from a non-trackable phone number!

Mr. Im greeted Sam at the door with the same warm openness he had shown on their first visit. This time, Mr. Im served, not apple pie with ice cream, but big chocolate chip cookies with cold milk, another of Sam’s favorites, going way back to his childhood. Again, how did Mr. Im know that?   Mr. Im had discreetly communicated his awareness of Sam’s personal life. It was uncanny. Sam couldn’t help but catch the implications.

Although from the outside, the house looked the same as before, the great room now opened from the east side of the interior, and the kitchen and dining area was on the west side. What had been the office / bedroom suite was now at the back of the house.   And, Sam realized that the windows were in different places! The resulting interior layout, however, seemed as natural as the former one had, and Mr. Im didn’t even allude to the change. Could this change have been done for Sam’s sake, to make an unstated point?

“Sam, I am glad you feel confident enough to want to visit with me again. How have the past several weeks been for you? And, how is Sherry?   And, by the way, have you delivered any notes to anyone else?”

“I’ve been doing fine, Mr. Im, I think. Sherry is fine, cheerful as always. Still has no idea I am in contact with you, nor would she have any reason to imagine why, in any case.

“Tell me, Sam, how I can be of help to you. I expect that you had something particular in mind for wanting us to get together. I may have an idea, but I would like to hear it from you. So, what do we need to talk about? How can I help?”

With that, Mr. Im had opened wide the door for Sam’s thoughts and questions. Sam needed no more encouragement. And, he was really pleased that Mr. Im was genuinely interested.

“I admit that the little note I left on your desk could have been saying a lot more, by implication and innuendo, than I had when first reading it. Some of the various possible meanings never occurred to me at the time. But, I can see them now, especially the one about ‘communicating by implication, not by declaration.

“I keep going back what seems obvious in the little message, ‘I wanted them to like me. Now I want them to fear me.”   It seems clear to me that the person who wrote the note thinks that fear is more productive than is love, or ‘like’.

“I was raised to believe that love is the strongest motivation, to believe that being nice to someone is more likely to make things go well than being mean to someone. I grew up in a little town in the western rural part of our state where ‘Minnesota nice’ was not just a slogan, but considered a virtue, the way to keep things running smoothly.

“Even though my work sometimes puts me in rough situations, where rough and mean solutions seem to be the most productive, I find that the note goes directly the opposite direction. It seems to be saying that creating fear in the other person is the way to get results.

“Mr. Im, you are a wise man. I can tell you have been around the block many times. You know how things really work. What is it? Fear? Love? When cutting to the chase, should I want people to love me, or to fear me? Am I going to get better and more predictable results if they fear me, or if they love me?”

Sam felt relieved to have finally expressed to someone else the dilemma he had been feeling inside for a while. He sure hoped that Mr. Im could give him some ideas, some direction, and some counsel. A picture of Sam’s life quickly flashed through his mind. He didn’t know how many more years he had. He wanted to live them well. He didn’t want to finish them with regret

“Sam,” said Mr. Im, “you have asked a good question, a good series of questions. I will be happy to work with you. You will need to be patient as we think through the fear-love topic. In a way, it is not complicated, but it is quite radical in its scope. As we get into it, you will see that other concepts have a role in the fear-love issue. If we skip over them, we will lose our way. So, you will have to be patient and steadfast.

“I want us to begin by reading some material I will make available to you.   I will give it to you in sections. It will have connections to a variety of areas, such as psychology, religion, history, politics, deviate behavior, and ethics, to name several.

“So, give me several days to put the material in the form that I think will best work for us, ok?”

Sam was relieved. His questions didn’t seem silly for Mr. Im. Mr. Im was willing to help him get an understanding about fear and love. What all would he learn? He would soon start finding out.

 

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Who is this Mr. Im??

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a time to get even with you?, a vast underlying body of comprehensive knowledge, gracious in demeanor, Mr Im, no hint of reproach, recognizing his own inferiority, strong attachment toward his brother and sister

part 6 – Who is this Mr. Im?

The fear factor, real enough to Sam, didn’t create any reaction in Mr. Im. And yes, that was his name, not a pseudonym. Sam had asked earlier. When Sam asked about the surname, which was entirely foreign to Sam, Mr. Im explained that his parents were originally born and raised in the area which at that time was called Indochina. Their surname was Imito, which was simplified once they migrated to the US. So now, his host was Mr. Im.

Although Mr Im, himself, was born in the US, he described himself as being bi-cultural, and appreciated the values of both his family heritage as well as those of his birth country. He was, as far as he could tell, completely comfortable in both cultures. At this point, both of his parents had passed, but he did have several siblings who lived on the West Coast. He periodically visited them, and Sam detected that Mr Im had strong sentimental attachment toward his brother and sister.

Gracious in demeanor, polite, a most pleasant host, Mr. Im drew Sam emotionally closer. On one hand, Sam was feeling more and more like a school child, diminished, but not resentful, as he compared himself to Mr Im. Mr Im would answer Sam’s questions completely. Sometimes, Sam would ask for further clarification, and he got it with no hesitation. It was as if Mr Im’s responses were just the skimming off the top of a vast underlying body of comprehensive knowledge and understanding.

At the same time, Sam found himself wondering why this gracious man was so willing to spend time with him. After all, Sam was the one who had broken into his house after pumping sleeping gas into it. He was the one who had left a threatening note, of sorts, on the man’s desk. Yet, there was no hint of reproach toward Sam. There was not even a hint of “it is time to get even with you” in anything Mr. Im said, implied, or insinuated.

Sam was simply drawn toward Mr Im while simultaneously recognizing his own inferiority. He was mixed up. He wanted to stay, but he knew he had to leave. Would he ever meet Mr Im again?   He already knew that his mind would be hopelessly churning from the moment he got into his car.   He was wrong; it began even earlier – as soon as his foot touched the porch floor and the door closed behind him.

 

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Meeting Mr. Im

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"Come in" Sam, a shaky and trembling voice, appearances can be mistaken, chocolate mint ice cream, Mr Im, Sam realized that there were no witnesses, Sam's fear jumped another notch, we are making progress - aren't we?, what is going on?

part 5:  Meeting Mr. Im

In a way similar to Sam’s inexplicable (at least it was inexplicable to Sam) once again interest in reading, and the resulting knowledge that was taking him beyond his vocational responsibilities, he was also being drawn to the house where this whole story began. The house where Sam and Jac had delivered the “note” that said, “I once wanted them to like me. Now I want them to fear me.” The house and the note seemed joined at the hip; at least for Sam such was the case. Sam had not seen any similar inclinations in Jac.

As a result, growing in Sam’s mind, almost as if it had a life of its own, was a deep longing to return to the house. Why? Sam had no explanation, no more than he had an explanation as to why he liked fruit cake, but didn’t like chocolate mint ice cream. All he knew was that he needed to return to the house, in the daylight. It was an impulse, but not one that Sam had ever felt before. He hoped that the visit would accomplish something, but just what, he had no idea.

Due to Jac never showing any interest in the initial event, Sam didn’t invite him to go along. Rather, he told Sam that he had an errand to run for Sherry, and that he didn’t know how long he would be gone. Jac showed no concern about Sam’s reason for absenting himself from the office.

Sam’s excellent memory, which served him well in his line of work, didn’t fail him this time either. He drove straight to the house, even though it was forty miles away, through various residential areas. Getting out of the car, he carried himself with confidence (a trait that well served him in his line of work) from the car to the entry way of the house, and rang the door bell. Would anyone be there? He rang the bell again. As the door opened, the gentleman immediately said, simply, “Come in, Sam.”

The greeting stunned Sam. How could the man know Sam’s name? How could he act as if he expected Sam to come to the door, acting as if they had been together only an hour ago over a cup of coffee in Starbucks?

“Come in, Sam, I knew you were coming.” Sam’s astonishment became even more noticeable.

“I just took the apple pie out of the oven an hour ago. I know you like it with ice-cream, but not chocolate mint ice-cream, of course.   And a cup of coffee. With cream and no sugar, right? It’s alright if I join you, isn’t it?   Sorry that Jac couldn’t come with you, but I understand his reticence about these things.” Sam was dumbfounded.

As they sat with the pie, ice-cream, and coffee, the fellow began to ask questions about some of Sam’s projects, relationships with particular fellow employees, some specific glitches Sam was having with his computer, and his upcoming vacation plans. With each new thread in the conversation, Sam’s uncertainty and unease increased exponentially. “What is going on?” ran unchecked through Sam’s mind.

Suddenly, the fellow said, “Sam, although I know who you are and where you work, who your superiors are and what you think about them, and of course what they think about you, how much you earn, how long you have been at the job, and how competent you are in your assignments – I think you have no idea who I am. Correct?”

“When you came into this house several weeks ago with a note, you didn’t see my face, did you? In fact, I might not have even been there. You saw no movement on the bed, right? Appearances can be mistaken, eh?”

Sam was speechless; as he had been for a while. This house visit, this encounter with the fellow he thought had been in the bed when he left the note on the desk – none of this was expected. In fact, none of it fit into Sam’s working view of reality.

Sam wanted to ask questions. He didn’t know how to start. He didn’t know what questions would be appropriate. He didn’t know if he could even have follow-up questions to keep the conversation going. What Sam was feeling was very different than what he felt when getting out of his car and walking up to the door. At this point, Sam was afraid. He was feeling the fear of being in the presence of someone who knew so much about him. Sam couldn’t help but wonder how much more the man knew, but had not bothered to mention. But, Sam knew that not mentioning it didn’t mean the fellow did not know.

With what Sam thought was a very shaky and trembling voice, he asked the man, “Sir, can I ask some questions?” “Certainly, but be aware that my answers to some of your questions may leave you even more puzzled than you were before asking. But, fire away.”

“What is your name? Is this your house? Do you have any other place you also call home? Do you have family?”

With these questions, Sam had been shying away from other questions like, “Where do you work? How do you know so much about me? Who is your boss? Now that I know some things I never knew, what’s going to happen to me?”

Quietly and calmly, the fellow responded to the last question, the one Sam had been afraid to ask. “Ah”, he said very slowly. “Do I detect a some fear, some apprehension, some nervousness? We are making progress, aren’t we?”

The entire time Sam was there, from his arrival and his walk to the house’ entry, no cars had passed the house. Once in the house, he never heard any vehicle sounds, nor of course, any sound of helicopters over head as they sometimes did to check out the high power lines supported by their steel girder towers. Sam realized that no witnesses were present, unless . . . .

And, Sam’s fear jumped another notch.

 

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