Seeing Red

Seeing Red

Have you ever walked down a crowded street and suddenly felt a shiver of fear as someone passed you? Did you turn around to see what caused that sensation? Was it the negative energy surrounding that person you felt? As it invaded your own energy, it alerted you, but did you do anything about it?

Not much you could do, was there? Signal a police officer and say, “That man has an evil aura!” See where that lands you. I can recall at least three specific occasions when this happened to me. They were so vivid I could probably describe the weather, what I wore that day, and the exact location of the incidents. I admit I’d have to close my eyes and spend a little time on the recollections.

In a crowded city where crimes occur every day, there’s no way to follow up on that feeling. How would you know if it was perpetrated by “your” stranger? Most crimes never make it onto the news outlets anyway.

Once I worked with a man in a show in New York and while we waited in the wings for our cues to go on, I had a sudden compulsion to say, “I know about you.” I don’t know where the thought came from, nor why I said it, but his reaction was astonishing. He blanched and said in a hoarse whisper, “What do you know? How? How did you find out?”

He carefully avoided me for the rest of the run of that show. His acting was fine, and he never did anything to draw undue attention to himself, at least no more than any other actor might do.

There were one or two other ESP incidents throughout my life; one in particular was, again, among actors when we were joking about being psychic. A woman next to me put her hand in mine and said, “Can you read my palm?”

Jokingly, I held her hand in my open palm and then passed my other hand over it, playing up the role of medium, when I was overcome by a dark shadow and saw her in a car accident. I dropped her hand, and said, “I can’t really do this.” She knew right away I had sensed something, but I dropped the subject and left the party early.

Three days later, on my way home from the grocery store I felt compelled to stop at her house. She was not a friend of mine; I had never been to her house. I only knew where it was because we all had contact sheets for one another. When I got there an older woman answered the door. It was Rachel’s mother, who had come in from out of state. I said I was there to see Rachel. Mother said, “I’ll see if she wants to come out. She’s resting.”

As it was early afternoon, I asked, “Is she sick?”

“No, she was in a car accident on the bridge the other night (Mid-Hudson Bridge) after a cast party.”

Our paths did not cross again for nearly two years when once again I felt a compulsion to stop at her house. And, as before, her mother answered the door. And again, she said she’d see if Rachel was up for visitors. It turned out Rachel’s five-year-old daughter had died the night before of a sudden brain infection. We spent hours talking about past lives and connections. I have never seen Rachel since that day, and so hope that means there were no more traumas in her life.

This week, at my writing group, a new person entered the library meeting room. I asked if he was looking for the writing group and he said yes and took a seat. When asked to introduce himself, he went to great lengths to explain why he didn’t like another group he joined and so he thought he’d try ours, to see if we were any better at critiquing. As he shuffled papers in his hand to show that he writes short pieces, I watched his hands turn red—bright blood red right up to his wrists. I blinked, looked at other members in the room to see if my eyes had gone funny, but didn’t see any other discolorations. I looked back at his hands and once again, saw the red. As he spoke the red faded.

I told the person sitting next to me about it and she said, “He’s a writer; he uses his hands and he’s obviously angry.” That’s what I saw.

Now I have to take all these incidents, plus several I haven’t mentioned and put them together in a book. Title: Seeing Red.

Veronica Helen Hart is the award winning author of nine published novels (Champagne Book Group), several plays, and one multi-award winning musical. She is a Regional Director for the Florida Writers Association, a member of Sisters in Crime, and Daytona Area Writers. Visit her website at: uppitywomanpress.com.