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B J Laubscher – Where Mystery dwells

My son had signed on and was working his way as an A.B. working his way out to South Africa. A month before he sailed I had a dream which should have warned me.

I was standing out-side a dilapidated old-fashioned house in a street where all the houses were old and tumble-down with everything grey and horrible. No sign of life and no light.

I knew that I was waiting for my beloved son, but I did not want him to come to that house and kept saying to myself : 'Don't let him come, oh please don't let him come.' But then I heard his footsteps coming up to me, through the horrible grey light and then his beloved voice, always with a laugh in it, saying 'Well Mom here I am you see. Let's go, shall we?'

He kissed me and put his hand on the gate to open it. I'd have given anything not to have to open it. We walked with his arm round me up the dusty path to the front door which opened on its own, down the grey passage all mildewed and cobwebby to the kitchen where my mother sat in her armchair in front of the fire, just as she always sat.

"She looked at him smiled and said : 'Well lad it is time you come and look at the clock.' I cried out: 'No Momme, please let him go,' and she replied 'Leave the lad alone it is his time,'  and again she looked at the old alarm clock which always stood in our home on the mantel piece above the kitchen stove. It was exactly 8.30 p.m.

Well the dream faded. Twenty-one days later on a Tuesday evening my beloved son was killed. Can you imagine what I endured during those twenty-one days?"