Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode # 73: That Somber Night of Halloween

 Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life…. or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

           

Episode #73. That Somber Night of Halloween

 

Nickie always looked delirious and complained that she’d been constantly hearing the cold, weird sound of whistle in her head, especially when the last day of October came closer every year. So sadly, Nickie’s father happened to die from stroke on the night of Halloween a couple of years before Nickie came to my office. Throughout the year and a half of our weekly therapy sessions, she had never said her mind was clear or became pristine without any shade of darkness like before. The last day of our meeting, she handed me a piece of poem written by herself.  

 

 Grim Ghosts’ Nightout in October

by Nickie Thompson

 

Again, I hear this whistle tonight.

It cuts and hurts my heart and pushes me to sink in deep mire.

The sound resembles a clamor from the tomb full of fright.

I become enclosed by the noise in dire.

 

 

Even little trick-or-treaters’ costumes in the streets are no fun to me.

Rest assured, their door-to-door trips will soon be over.

Fancy prestidigitations of magicians at a local shopping mall feels like no more than a booster for the Halloween shopping spree.

Hate to see the grim ghosts in between the trees and clouds like a rover.

 

 

Where is the soul of my own father?

I find myself looking for his lost soul somewhere up there with the empyrean angels.

Though this earsplitting whistle keeps vexing me to smother,

I pretend to hear some happy shivaree or holy gospels.

 

 

They call me an infidel, but I don’t believe in God’s blessing.

I just wish to know why He took my father so suddenly

 and what’s with all this nerve-wrecking sound I hear that keeps

transgressing

I would make a Faustian deal with God to get an answer in my prayers so lonely.

 

 

 (*Picture Source: https://wallpaperaccess.com/halloween-1920x1080  &  https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/435986/capturing-the-sound-of-depression-in-the-human-voice)

 

Expressions

 

1.   pristine: in its original/ unspoiled condition

 

2.   to sink in deep mire: to be struggling in a hopeless situation

 

3.   in dire: causing great fear and worry

 

4.   rest assured (that ….): one can be sure/ certain/. Confident that…

 

5.   prestidigitation: magic tricks/ maneuvering by hands for entertainment

 

6.   to rover: wanderer

 

7.   empyrean: the highest heaven

 

8.   shivaree: a noisy mock serenade performed by a group of people to celebrate a marriage or mock an unpopular person

 

9.   Faustian: relating to or resembling Faust, a German astronomer and necromancer reputed to have sold his soul to the Devil