This evening I drove out to the college through the rain, through the wet darkness that seemed to suck away at the headlights until it’s almost impossible to see.

I found a parking place in the lot behind the auditorium, and I walked down the hill to a door in the side of one of a handful of old brick buildings. There were wet leaves all over the sidewalk.

Inside the building, there is a room.

I drove all that way because I have a key to this room. Once a week, in the evenings, I unlock the door and prop the door open, and I turn on the lights, and sometimes I open the windows.

And when people start to show up, I greet them. Say hello to the familiar faces, welcome the new ones. I have to wear a certain personality in order to do this well, which isn’t easy, but I suppose it’s good practice.

We get a scraggly bunch of students, one or two faculty members. Some of them have started to show up more regularly. It’s encouraging to see.

This week, we talk about the history of the electric chair, state sanctioned executions, depictions of death in the media, the attack on the world trade center, eugenics, prisons, the Holocaust, the medicalization of the death penalty, the Milgram experiments, a book called The Agent of Death, and the fact that veterinarians have the highest rate of suicide among the medical professions.

Considering the darkness of the subject matter, the tone of the conversation is remarkably open, curious, considerate, kind, and solid. When we talk about death, we remember that one day we are all going to be gone. Sometimes, in the right context, that can bring out a certain goodness in people.

But there’s also a creepy feeling, left over, after the conversation is over. It’s enough to make me scan the empty room an extra time before turning out the lights and locking the door behind me. It’s enough to make me look back over my shoulder, once, as I walk across rainy darkness and wet leaves on the pavement.

I’m not one for looking over my shoulder in the dark. I’m probably the scariest thing out there.

But it is October, and the veil is thin.

I hope it’s a good night.