Are Rod Serling's "Nightmare As A Child" and "Miriam," by Truman Capote, The Same Story????????????

                                Back when I was doing my post on "Among The Paths To Eden," I came across references to "Miriam," and sought it out.  I have just read it online, and its similarity to Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" episode, "Nightmare As A Child," was so striking, it set me to wondering.

                                  And I am still not completely certain. But consider.

                                 "Nightmare' concerns a spinster named Helen Furley (Janice Rule), into whose life comes a macabre child named Markie, played by Terry Burnham, (not Patty McCormack, though the resemblance is striking) who played the young Sandra Dee in the 1959 "Imitation Of Life."

                                  "Miriam" concerns a widow, Mrs. H.T. Miller, living a widowed existence in the Manhattan of another--maybe Forties or Fifties--era, in an apartment near the East River.  Which is one of the areas I fantasized about living in Manhattan, when I was a child.

                                   Anyway, the woman is intruded upon, first outside, then at home, by a little girl called Miriam, who, if filmed around the same time, Burnham could very well have played.

                                    "Miriam" has the detail Capote is famous for; Miller locks eyes with an old man one day, while strolling by herself.  It was clear to me Miriam had visited him, and he knew Mrs. Miller was now being visited.  But to what end?  And why has Miriam stopped with the old man????

                                      Helen, in 'Nightmare,' is haunted by an adult man, who keeps trailing after her, seeking her out, but she cannot figure why.

                                      Until she does.  She learns through Markie, that the child is her younger self.  She witnessed a man murdering her mother as a child, and now that man has come back to kill the grown up Markie, (Helen 's nickname) but the child is here to protect her, and she does.

                                        "Miriam's" purpose is far more vague.  Only Mrs. Miller sees her.  It has been posed she is a harbinger of Death.  However I disagree.

                                           Both Markie and Miriam are manifestations of the lead characters' minds.  In both cases, they have emerged as protection ; for Helen, from death, for Mrs. Miller, from the insanity of widowed loneliness, though she is so far gone, at this point, unable to accept Miriam, she is unaware of her deep seated, sad need for companionship. In time, I think she will come to accept Miriam.  The delusion will keep her alive.

                                        "Miriam" came first.   Capote's story was first published in the June, 1945 issue, of "Madamoiselle" magazine.  Serling's story came fifteen years later, broadcast on his program on April 29, 1960.

                                           Are they the same story?  Not exactly, but the similarities are strong.  Was Serling influenced by the Capote story?  It is highly possible that he read it.  Maybe "Nightmare' was directly influenced by it.

                                           Or--and this I tend more to believe--was it just a supernatural coincidence of two minds thinking alike, while still apart????????????????????????

                                             Think about it, dolls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!