The Evil Table, or Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Act I
Picture, if you will, the 1960's. A young married couple are raising their four nieces and nephews out of Christian love. They are poor, from Appalachia, and are living in Florida. It is a grand time to be a kid, to be ANYBODY, in Cocoa Beach, FL. He works at the Cape, doing electronic stuff for the Saturn V rocket systems which send humanity to the heavens. She is a full-time mom and sunbather.

They need a new dining room table.

They can't fit all six of them around the little round kitchen table. So they go to the second-hand store. Goodwill or Salvation Army, those details are lost now to time.

Eventually they find it. A beautiful hardwood table with leaves for expansion. It is exceptionally well-made, with tasteful, never-out-of-date turnery and decoration.

It is, however, exceptionally dirty; it's almost black.

With soot.


Act II
Fast forward now to the 70's. The couple are now in suburban Atlanta. They have two children of their own now, the nieces and nephews having married and started their own lives, more or less. Life is good in the burbs. There's a swimming pool, 2.5 bathrooms, all the neighbors are friends. But....

Tragedy strikes!

November, 1978. Mom takes her 5-year old boy and 2-year old girl to the mall to see Santa. How perfect! How delightful! How domestic!
Upon finishing whispering their hearts' desires into the ear of what was surely a rampant alcoholic of a white-bearded man, a breathless neighbor approaches the precious family.

Your house has burned to the ground. Come with me right now. No, there's nothing left.

Not quite nothing. The boy gets some toys back from the insurance-appointed cleaners, although they will always have the smell of tears and dashed dreams. That, and all his Superfriends are roughly the color of Wes Studi. Two stuffed animals survive. No clothes. Even the fish are dead, boiled to a crisp in their tank.



Act III
Now we go to the mid-1980's. In his parent's former residence the Husband has made a nice little vacation home. When the family goes to Appalachia to visit the kinfolk, they have their own place to stay, now that the kids' grandparents have moved in with auntie. Sadly, the pipes one winter burst asunder, warping the old hardwood floors to oblivion. They sell the old house to the man next door.

The place burns to the ground the day the sale is finalized.


Act IV
Just a few short years later, auntie who is caring for the kids' grandparents goes on an outing, taking the retirees with her. Upon returning she is startled to find that her house

has also gone up in flames. Only bricks are left. Even the television has melted like hot butter on a griddle.


Act V
The dawn of the 21st century. Those kids are now grownups, and the girl who was only 2 when Santa brought her despair and sackcloth for Christmas lo these many years ago has herself married. She finds a nice boy, sweet as can be, smart, funny. They have a fairy-tale wedding in a gorgeous church, have a stunning honeymoon in Madeira. Once home they resume business as usual. Husband comes home to find

there has been a kitchen fire. Smoke everywhere. Doggies are gasping, parakeets are doing an interpretation of a canary in a mine shaft. Smoke damage is extensive, they have to move out for months waiting on the repairs, the cleanings, the replacements, the sleepless nights, the installation of a security system.



Finis
Sometimes, my poppets, life is beyond explanation. Or perhaps that explanation is just too horrific, too improbable, too creepy to be borne. So we rationalize: Wow, what rotten luck for your family! Dude, that's kinda weird! Creepy!

The truth? Some of you know it in your hearts:

The table was in every house that burned. All of them. In the dining room, in the attic, in the kitchen.

We've considered getting rid of it, but would that stop it's evil power? We've considered burning it, but clearly it won't burn. It's come through all the "accidents" unscathed. We've considered burying it, Jumanji-style, but then it would only sprout more trees to produce more evil tables.

Anyone want a beautiful dining room table?