I was sitting and eating at a table in a school cafeteria which resembled Penland cafeteria. I had recently started classes at Baylor Law School, and Penland was one of the campus cafeterias for which I had a meal ticket. I ate here often.

As I quietly partook of my meal, I overheard four fellows talking at the table directly behind me. One of the four, seated at the end of his table, was discussing the history of electricity and electrical signals. He maintained that since the time when men had first learned to send electrical signals to each other, the signals had been used as means of communication. He also explained that electricity must first be converted into an impulse before it could become a signal. As he recited a mathematical formula, I became thoroughly engrossed by what he was saying. I thought he must be an extremely intelligent person – obviously well-versed in the subject of physics and electricity.

When the other three fellows began asking him questions, I wanted to talk with him myself. Since I had the feeling all the fellows knew I was listening, I thought about simply approaching the fellow and telling him what an intelligent person I deemed him to be. But instead, I stayed put and said nothing.

The fellow's manner of speaking gave his subject a metaphysical tone and finally the subject of God arose. One fellow said God knew what messages were being sent through the electrical signals. Someone else mentioned animals, and said God would even know about pigs.

For some reason, I found these statements to be quite alarming. I was so bothered by what had been said, I felt as if I needed to get away and clear my mind. Trying to master my thoughts, I picked up my tray and rose from the table. I walked away, shambling quite a distance down the side of the cafeteria, headed for the rear of the room. I seemed confused. Inattentive to where I was walking, I finally bumped clumsily into a door, and collapsed to the floor just inside the doorway, barely catching myself from tumbling down a flight of stairs. I had dropped my tray and made so much noise, I was sure the students in the cafeteria had heard me. Embarrassed and stunned, I simply lay on the floor for a couple minutes. Finally I pulled myself together and picked up the tray. I stood up and stepped back through the door into the cafeteria, where I was immediately greeted by a round of derisive cheers, the way the students sometimes jeeringly shouted acclaim for someone who had dropped a tray of food in the cafeteria. I just raised my hand toward my head in a salute, and waved at them.

I began walking again toward the back of the cafeteria until I reached a door at the rear. I opened the door, stepped through, and saw a fellow standing at the other end of the room into which I had entered. He appeared to be working here and he hollered to me, "Oh no, you can't come in here. You can't come in here."

I called back that I simply wanted a towel to wipe some muck off my hands, from where I had fallen down with my tray and spilled something on me. He finally acquiesced and yelled back that he had some towels and that I could walk down to where he was if I wanted one. But I didn't want to walk all the way to the end of the room and I replied, "Well, you could just get them for me."

He said, "Well, you can just come and get them."

I argued with him that what he was saying was ridiculous. He didn't even want me in this room in the first place. Yet he wanted me to walk all the way across the room for a towel, when he could just bring it to me. He didn't move. He just stood there, staring at me.

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