Claiborn, a mute actor whose brush with fame came on the vaudeville stage, was living in exile. A bulbous node had formed on his neck that grew with each passing day — red, sore and throbbing. He’d been laughed off the stage, forced to find provision like a helpless newborn torn from the breast. He could not use his voice, not even for a single grunt. His nourishment came from milk and the broth of an oxtail soup, the only sustenance capable of making passage through the sometimes downhill, otherwise contorted, path of his esophagus.

Claiborn sat on the step of his tiny shack. His fingers traced the swollen mass, a geographical spectacle, an external eruption of something deep inside, pushing its way into the world as if to spite him. He wrapped his fingers around it and, with his whole hand, squeezed. At the base of his skull flashed a searing pain so pure he could hear it. Then something gave.

It was dark when Claiborn awoke. A sound, like singing, chimed in the distance. A faint choir of voices drifted on the breeze. He raised his palm to the spot on his neck. The music stopped. When he removed his hand, the strains continued.

“Surely not,” he thought.

His spine recoiled at the horrifying, delightful reality. Off and on, he muffled the affliction, wondering who would believe him, what explanation he might offer.

But for now, for a short time more, Claiborn lay back and listened as the hymn beckoned sweetly, “When I wake up in glory.”