Sleepy Hollow

I turned around and noticed the sun dipping below the horizon. I checked my watch in the vanishing light. It was almost 6pm. The sign said clearly that all the gates would be closed at sunset. Great, I thought! I had spent too much time lingering around the literary corner of Sleepy Hollow pondering over the graves of Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott.

I yelled to my friend and we both got in the car. We headed for the main entrance but the gate was locked. I began to sweat. I swerved to another gate and found that it was also locked.

"Why do these things always happen when I'm with you?" my faithful friend opined. I didn't reply because I was too busy praying under my breath. "Dear God, please let us get out of here! I promise I won't visit anymore graveyards for a long time."

My imagination was already taking over and I wondered what it would be like to be locked in a cemetery overnight. With a name like Sleepy Hollow I expected to be decapitated by the Headless Horseman before morning's light. In a flash my fear was no longer based on a character from a Washington Irving's novel but on Tolkien's Black Riders...

NAZGUL

Deaf to laughter, blind to cheer
Famine’s hunger, drunk on fear

Hell’s own offspring, living undead
Pursuing the nine, mission of dread

Clothed in darkness, shivers up the spine
Deeds of evil, poisoned wine

Made of nightmares haunting our dreams
Extinguished light, phantom teams

Shrieking menace, forever fell
Vacant goodness, putrid well

Hideous cries, consuming hate
Sauron crushed, death thy fate

A shiver ran down my spine. A rising hysteria took hold of me and I wanted to scream aloud, "We're going to die!" Now my fancy filled in nine back riders trying to overtake my car.

"Oh good!" my friend's calm voice penetrated my momentary insanity, "The last gate is open!" I left Sleepy Hollow with deep gratitude and trembling heart. It was enough of a close call to extinguish any desire to visit old graveyards for at least the next few years.