The place I find myself in this dream is so familiar. It's because I've been there so many times before in similar dreams. They are very similar but never exactly the same.
The only thing that's the same is the layout of the place and the fact that I'm either always being chased by someone or something.
This time I was encountering big cats... like mountain lions and such. Only there was one beast that was so slow that it obviously couldn't catch you if it tried cause it's legs weren't even long enough to get it's chubby belly off the ground. I had an wide body that made it appear to be flat on the ground with legs that were merely inches long. It's head was broad with fangs like a bat, no neck to speak of, and ears similar to a pigs.
I was inside this enormous building that reminded me of a great Colosseum or perhaps a huge cavern with dormers constructed all along the walls. They were built out of huge stones with staircases that lead up to the many different levels, each of which had a massive balcony like overlook.
There were other people in this place, all were scrambling to get to their rooms before the beasts got too close. It was like nightfall, even though, I don't recall ever seeing light in this place in any dream I've had of it before.
I was running across the common area through obstacles and fire barrels when the cat jumped me. I don't know how I came to have my pocket knife in my right hand, but I did and it was already opened.
The cat had my left are just below the shoulder in it's massive mouth shaking me like a leaf as if it was trying to rip it from my body. I started stabbing it in the neck just behind it's left ear. I was amazed by the fact that it even penetrated the cat's skin, but with each thrust I drove the blade in to it's full length, then twisted it out instead of pulling it straight back. Two, three, maybe even four times I hacked at it's neck before it finally let go of my bloody arm and wilted to the floor.
I quickly crawled out from under it and got back to my feet while keeping a steady eye on the beast in case it should rebound and come at me again. I was both pleased and shocked to watch as it raised off the floor and staggered off into the darkness. It looked back at me only once before it faded out of sight and surprisingly enough I felt sorry for the beast.
Suddenly there was a snort behind me and I turned to find that short legged grey beast dragging it's body across the floor toward me. It raised it's stubby head off the floor and snarled at me, showing it's fangs and I reached down, grabbed it by the ears and lifted it off the floor before it had a chance to use it's posture to try to wrench it's self free.
I spun a full 360 degrees and released it to the momentum, watching it fly back at least 20 feet or so, but still far enough that I had no worries of it catching up to me, even if I merely walked away.
Once I started moving again I realized the beasts were already coming the dormers, searching for anyone that might not have made it to their rooms yet. The staircase that led up to my room was crawling with them so I tried to run to the closest floor level dormer hoping to find sanctuary.
I knocked lightly on each door I came too, hoping not to attract the attention of one of the beasts, but everyone knew the possibilities that that was likely to be the case and refused to open their door for fear that a pack of beasts would be waiting for that opportunity.
I was at the end of that row of dormers and quickly moved back to the wall where I knew there were pipes and webbing that I might be able to climb up to the roof. I made it without being spotted and struggled, with my injured arm, to climb as fast as I could to get up off the ground.
I was about halfway up the wall when I heard the large cat trying to follow me up the webbing. I paused long enough to watch it struggle upward a few feet before it fell back to the floor.
Finally I reached the top and reached for a handhold so I could pull myself up when I spotted another cat poised to leap at me. Luckily it was still far enough away that it couldn't just pounce on me that instant and I released my grip and dropped back down the wall far enough that it shouldn't be able to reach me.
It tried desperately to reach me with it's extended claws slicing the air scant inches above my head. I glance down to find there were more of them there just waiting for me to fall.... and that's when I woke up.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
If our Milky Way is hurtling through space
One has to take a moment from time to time to consider the effects of galactic positioning. Taking into effect the galaxy is in constant motion, spinning as it is moving through the void of space within the universe, there must be a time when we are near the leading edge which must be crashing through all sorts of space debris.
I've often wondered if there has ever been a scientific study done on the effects of the onslaught that must be bombarding our little solar system during that time.
Could this be the explanation of dinosaur extinction??? How large is our galaxy? How many of our years does it take for our solar system rotate back into the leading edge of the galaxy? Who can answer these questions?
I've often wondered if there has ever been a scientific study done on the effects of the onslaught that must be bombarding our little solar system during that time.
Could this be the explanation of dinosaur extinction??? How large is our galaxy? How many of our years does it take for our solar system rotate back into the leading edge of the galaxy? Who can answer these questions?
Dreamwalk into the Past
It was Thursday, November the 9th 1976, and I was scheduled to check out on leave the next day at 7 AM. All day that day I had this dreadful feeling that something was terribly wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I had experienced that feeling once before, when my Grandfather died. That time, though, I really felt that I needed to call home. This time I just couldn't seem to bring myself to call.
I tried to shake that feeling by diving into my work. That only seemed to make matters worse. I found that I couldn't concentrate on anything I was doing. I spent more time trying to correct the errors I was making than actually accomplishing anything. By the end of the day I was so disturbed I just went on to my room to pack for the trip home.
I put a stack of my favorite albums on the stereo and started sorting out the things that I knew I would need during my visit. It seemed like it took forever to get my bags packed.
At about 6 PM I turned the stack of albums over, turned the lights out and laid down on the bed. As hard as I tried not to think about could possibly be wrong at home one image after another passed before my mind's eye. The last thing I remember thinking was that I really should call home.
The next thing I knew, I was walking down what seemed to be a darkened corridor. At first, my mind was hazy and I wasn't able to think very clearly.
I was aware of the total darkness that engulfed me and the sound of my own footsteps echoing in my ears. . .
As the fog began to clear in my mind my first thought was "Where the heck am I?" I could remember everything that had taken place during the day, and the frustration of not being able to shake that feeling was still haunting me.
At one point I tried to stop walking, but found I couldn't. It was as if something else had control of my legs and was forcing me on. . . on to what I didn't know.
Fear began to slowly creep into my soul, and it became a battle to try to stay calm. The sound of my footsteps echoing started fading away. They seemed to be far off in the distance, and faintly resembled the sound of a tiny heart beating very slowly. I strained, desperately, to hear every one of those little thumps, as it was the only company I had in that span of darkness.
Just as it reached the point where the echos were so faint they were hardly audible I noticed a tiny speck of light up ahead. Even though it was only about the size of a pin head it was a relief to think it could mean the end of this darkness that surrounded me.
I wanted to quicken my pace, but found that I still had no control over my legs. They continued on at the pace that had been set for them from the beginning. I was resigned to the fact that I had to wait, patiently, for the end of the darkness.
As I watched the speck of light grow larger, many things began to run through my mind. I remembered the stories that I had heard and read about, where different people had claimed to have died and traveled up a tunnel to some brilliant light before returning to their bodies.
I began to wonder if, perhaps, I had died.
"Maybe that's the meaning behind that feeling I had all day." I thought to myself. "Maybe that's why I couldn't bring myself to call home."
Oddly enough, I found I no longer was experiencing any fear. Instead, I found myself wondering what it was going to be like. . . . this place that I was going to, in death.
As I watched the light continue to grow larger and larger, I began to notice that I could make out a shape. It was rectangular shaped, taller than it was wide, and it took me a little while to realize that it was a door. One of those big double doors with glass panels. I was puzzled to think that there might be a glass paneled door for an entrance to heaven.. or hell for that matter. That's when I began to wonder if I wasn't just dreaming.
Finally I came to stop a few feet from the door. I had control of my legs once again. I lifted first one leg and then the other, twisting my ankles as if to prove to myself they were still mine.
The thought crossed my mind that I could now turn and walk away if I wanted too, but then where would I go? Back into the darkness? Besides, something had brought me to that point and I assumed it was for a reason.
Stepping closer, I peered in through the glass doors. Inside, I saw four people in what appeared to be a waiting room. The furnishings were like those I had seen in some old movies made back in the fifties.
There seemed to be something familiar about this setting and the people inside, but I couldn't quite figure out why. So I opened the door and stepped into the short corridor. It was dimly lit by two small wall lamps over the pay phones hanging on the wall to my left. I hadn't seem payphones like that since I was just a kid. They had the three different sized slots on top for nickels dimes and quarters.
Just then a man came through a pair of swinging doors on the opposite wall of the waiting room. It was obvious by the sterile garments he was wearing that he was a doctor.
The four people quickly moved to face him in the center of the room. "How's Robert?" the two women asked simultaneously.
"That's my name." I thought to myself. "Maybe I did die, and now I'm back to re-enter my body. But who are these people?" I still couldn't make out who they were. Even though I could see their faces better I still couldn't figure out why they seemed so familiar.
"He made it through surgery and the blood transfusion." the doctor said, "But I'm afraid it's up to him now. . . and the Lord."
"What does that mean?" the younger of the two men asked. I was sure that I recognized his voice, but that man was far too young to be my dad.
"Doug." the doctor started, confirming my suspicion that this man was my dad. "The blood poisoning had spread through his entire system which had already put him in a coma before we started working on him. Even with the complete blood transfer there's no promise he will ever come out of that coma."
He turned and took the hand of the younger woman, "Pat." he said
"Mom!" I wanted to scream and my heart went out to her.
"We're doing all we know to do to bring down his fever. He's been moved to the intensive care and is still comatose. If we aren't able to bring his fever down to an acceptable level...." he pause and I could see the sadness in his expression.
At that point I knew the doctor was, in fact, talking about me. But it was me at 2 years old. Somehow I had stepped back in time to the day of my first operation. And those four people, that seemed so familiar, were my parents and grandparents. I just hadn't recognized them because of their age.
"There is a chance, isn't there, that he will be alright?" I heard my mother's voice. It was much younger sounding than I could remember, and broken by her emotions, but it was unmistakably her.
Because of all the medical problems I had gone through as a child mom and I had always been close, and it really hurt to see her in such grief. I wanted to rush out there and tell her that I was going to be fine, but I knew that even if they could see me they would probably think I was some lunatic or something. The Robert they were worried about was only two and half years old.... I was 22.
Even from the distance I could see the tear roll down the doctor's face as he leaned closer to my mom. "Pray Pat." he said, "Pray for a miracle." He patted her hand a couple of times as he pulled away then turned and walked back through the door from which he came.
My heart ached as I watched her break down and cry. And I cried with her, silently, in the darkness of the corridor. Never, in all my life, had I seen her cry like that. I felt so bad for her, and wished so that I could do something, anything to relieve her of that intense grief. But I felt pressed to remain in the shadows and watch.
I watched as my grandmother laid one hand on mom's shoulder and, raising the other towards heaven, began to pray aloud. My father just stood there, his gaze fixed on the floor in front of him, while my grandfather tried to console him.
After a few minutes of praying, my grandmother broke and told mom that she felt they should call "Brother Hobart" in Fort Worth and request prayer for little Robert. Mom wiped tears from her eyes and shook her head in approval, then they picked up their purses and walked toward the corridor I was standing in.
My first impulse was to turn and run out the door, but then I thought "What the heck? They probably won't be able to see me anyway." So I simply moved to the opposite wall and waited.
To my surprise, though, my mom looked straight at me and gasped as they stepped into the corridor. My grandmother had been digging in her purse for some change and hadn't noticed me. She glanced up at me, after hearing mom gasp, then went on to the payphones.
"Hi Pat." I said softly. It felt strange calling my mom by name.
"Hello." she replied, with a puzzled look on her face. "Do I know you?"
"Well, no, I don't think you do." I told her.
"How did you know my name?" she asked.
"I know quite a bit about you and your family." I informed her, wondering why I had even said hi to her. It was all crazy. Me standing there talking to my own mother, who wasn't but a year older than I was at the time.
"Who are you?" she asked, studying my face.
I almost blurted out my name without thinking, but stopped myself just before I did. I had to think fast and give her a name. "Bob." I finally told her "Bob Benwar."
"I don't recall ever hearing of you before." she said, "But yet you say you know a lot about me and my family. How is that possible?"
"That would be very difficult to explain right now." I told her, "But I can tell you that your son is going to be okay."
The expression on her face suddenly changed, and I saw a mixture of fear and anger in her eyes. "How can you tell me that?" she asked.
"I know what doctor Trimble said." I told her, "I heard ever word of it."
"Well then, how can you possibly expect me to believe that you know more than he does?" she asked. "I don't even know you!" She started to turn and walk away.
"Pat." I said, and she turned back to face me. "I really wish I could explain it all to you right now, but I'm afraid I don't understand it all myself." I told her. I was afraid my feeble attempt to raise her hopes was only causing more confusion in her already boggled mind.
My grandmother had started talking to Brother Hobart on the phone while my mother stood there studying my face again. She was telling him why she called and was requesting prayer. I also took advantage of the moment to look in to see what dad was doing. He had finally sat down and my grandfather was sitting beside him with his arm draped over his shoulders.
"It's funny." I heard mom say softly and I turned back to her.
"What's that?" I asked.
"I feel as though I should know you." she said.
I wondered if it could be possible she was feeling a motherly intuition about me, and became self conscious at the thought that she might figure out who I was. "That's impossible!" I thought to myself. "There is no way, in her wildest imagination, she could figure that out, much less believe it."
"There is something familiar about your face." she said, and it startled me that she would say such a thing. She must have noticed the startled look on my face for she asked "Did we go to school together?"
"No, we didn't know each other as children." I replied, not knowing what else to say.
"But...." she started then was interrupted by my grandmother asking for more change.
As mom dug some change out of her purse she kept looking up at me with an inquisitive look in her eye. I knew I was going to have to turn this conversation around somehow, but didn't know just how to do it. I'm a terrible lier.
"What the heck?" I thought to myself, "This has to be just a dream anyway." and I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet.
When mom turned back to face me I didn't give her a chance to say anything. I reached out and took her hand then laid my military ID in it.
"What's this?" she asked as she tried to hold it in the light so she could see what it was.
"It's my military identification card." I told her, then went on to say "It's the best support I have for what I'm about to tell you."
She looked at the card briefly before asking "What are you about to tell me?"
"You just asked me if we had known each other as kids." I started.. "and in a way we did, or rather you knew me as a kid."
"But you just said...." she started
"Please, just listen to what I've got to say." I pleaded.
"Okay." she replied, "Go on."
"You did know me as a child." I began again, "Or should I say you now know me as a child."
"Just what are you trying to say?" she said with a puzzled look on her face.
"My name isn't really Bob Benwar." I told her.
"So why did you tell me that it was?" she asked with a surprised look on her face.
"Because I really didn't think you would believe me if I told you the truth." I replied.
"Just who are you then?" she asked, and I could see a trace of anger returning in her expression.
"My name is on that card." I told her, and pointed to it so she could see.
She immediately dropped the card and stepped back away from me. Her expression a mixture of shock, fear and anger.
"Just who do you think you are?" she demanded, "Making such a claim as at a time like this!"
"But Pat..." I started before getting cut off by her
"How dare you!" she said in a tone of voice that began to make me fear that everyone else would soon be drawn into the picture. "How dare you try to tell me such a thing, while my son is lying on in there in a coma!"
"Wait." I told her, bending down to retrieve my card. "Please, just look at it again." I was getting frantic.
Still holding my wallet in my hand I remembered the family photo that had been taken at my grandparent's house when I was fourteen, and I quickly dug it out and started to hand it to her.
She looked up with a confused look on her face and said "This card says your birthday was May 6th 1954, the same as my son's"
"Yes it does." I said
"That can't be possible." she said, "You're as old as I am."
"Look at the date the card was issued Pat." I told her as I extended my hand that held the picture.
"It says September 23rd 1979" she said staring at the card. "That's impossible."
"That card was issued to me the day I re-enlisted for a second term in the Navy." I told her.
"But this is November 9th, 1956." she said with a blank look on her face.
"I am truly sorry for the shock I've put you into Pat." I said, shaking the photo in front of her, "But if......"
"What is that?" she asked reaching for the picture.
"It's a picture of me and my family." I said, "Taken when I was fourteen years old standing in front of my grandparents house in Winnsboro Texas."
She took the photo from my hand and I waited patiently while she studied it.
"I look so much older in this picture." she said softly. "And so does your father." she added glancing up at me briefly when she realized what she had said. But she made no effort to reword her comment.
"Who is the little girl?" she asked.
"That's my little sister." I replied.
"Her name is Kathy isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes it is." I replied, then added, "You and dad were going to name me Kathy if I had been a girl."
"That's right." she said with a smile.
"And I take it this is your brother Danny?" she asked pointing at him in the picture.
"That's right." I replied.
"There is quite a difference in your sizes." she said
"I caught up with him before I graduated from high school." I told her with a smile.
At that she just stood there, studying first the picture and then the ID card. Finally, she looked back up at me with tear filled eyes. She seemed to be having trouble gathering her thoughts into words.
"How...?" she started, then paused. I knew what she wanted to ask so I answered the best I could.
"I can't explain how or why I am here." I told her. "All I know is that I am. This could even be a dream for all I know, but if it is it sure is the most realistic one I've ever had."
At that moment the door on the other side of the room burst open and a nurse rushed into the room.
"It has to be a miracle!" she exclaimed, "He just sat up in bed and started complaining about being hungry."
She looked deep into my eyes, and tears began to stream down her face.
"Go on mom." I told her, "There's a little boy in there that needs your attention."
My grandmother had already rushed past us and was now waiting at the door urging mom to hurry up.
"Bye son." she said softly, "Take care on your way home." she added before turning to run across the room and through the door.
"Bye Mom." I said to the empty room, and I started to cry as I turned to walk out.
Just as I walked through the door, I woke up and found myself laying in my bed in the barracks. I looked over at the clock and saw that it was 5:30 AM.
"Just a dream." I thought to myself, as I sat there crying.
It wasn't until I decided to go ahead and get started on my trip home that I realized that I had my wallet in my hand. I immediately started to open it and look inside for my ID card but I stopped myself. Maybe I didn't want to prove to myself that it was just a dream.
My father was up when I drove in that morning and he met me at the door. We talked for a while before he finally went to wake mom up to let her know I was home. Shortly after that he had to head off to work.
While she and I sat drinking coffee I couldn't help studying her face and thinking about how much younger she had looked in my dream. She too seemed to be studying my face. Neither of us were talking.
Finally, she broke the silence by asking me how my trip was. I had begun to tell her of the long drive home when she interupted me.
"That's not the trip I was talking about." she said.
"I don't understand." I told her.
"You have too." she replied, and waited for a moment for me to say something more before getting up and heading for her bedroom. A moment later she returned holding something in her hand.
She laid them on the table in front of me and remained standing by my side. I sat there stairing at my ID card and that photo in total disbelief.
After the shock finally began to fade, I looked up at her and asked, "It really happened?"
"Yes son, it did." she replied. "And I thank God that it did. I don't know what I would have done during those other surgeries you had to go through, and the problems that Danny had, if you hadn't visited me that night. I just wish we'd had more time."
The tears were streaming down both our faces as I stood and wrapped my arms around her.... "Maybe it was for the best we didn't mom." I told her.
"Maybe so son." she said as she hugged me. "Maybe so."
I tried to shake that feeling by diving into my work. That only seemed to make matters worse. I found that I couldn't concentrate on anything I was doing. I spent more time trying to correct the errors I was making than actually accomplishing anything. By the end of the day I was so disturbed I just went on to my room to pack for the trip home.
I put a stack of my favorite albums on the stereo and started sorting out the things that I knew I would need during my visit. It seemed like it took forever to get my bags packed.
At about 6 PM I turned the stack of albums over, turned the lights out and laid down on the bed. As hard as I tried not to think about could possibly be wrong at home one image after another passed before my mind's eye. The last thing I remember thinking was that I really should call home.
The next thing I knew, I was walking down what seemed to be a darkened corridor. At first, my mind was hazy and I wasn't able to think very clearly.
I was aware of the total darkness that engulfed me and the sound of my own footsteps echoing in my ears. . .
As the fog began to clear in my mind my first thought was "Where the heck am I?" I could remember everything that had taken place during the day, and the frustration of not being able to shake that feeling was still haunting me.
At one point I tried to stop walking, but found I couldn't. It was as if something else had control of my legs and was forcing me on. . . on to what I didn't know.
Fear began to slowly creep into my soul, and it became a battle to try to stay calm. The sound of my footsteps echoing started fading away. They seemed to be far off in the distance, and faintly resembled the sound of a tiny heart beating very slowly. I strained, desperately, to hear every one of those little thumps, as it was the only company I had in that span of darkness.
Just as it reached the point where the echos were so faint they were hardly audible I noticed a tiny speck of light up ahead. Even though it was only about the size of a pin head it was a relief to think it could mean the end of this darkness that surrounded me.
I wanted to quicken my pace, but found that I still had no control over my legs. They continued on at the pace that had been set for them from the beginning. I was resigned to the fact that I had to wait, patiently, for the end of the darkness.
As I watched the speck of light grow larger, many things began to run through my mind. I remembered the stories that I had heard and read about, where different people had claimed to have died and traveled up a tunnel to some brilliant light before returning to their bodies.
I began to wonder if, perhaps, I had died.
"Maybe that's the meaning behind that feeling I had all day." I thought to myself. "Maybe that's why I couldn't bring myself to call home."
Oddly enough, I found I no longer was experiencing any fear. Instead, I found myself wondering what it was going to be like. . . . this place that I was going to, in death.
As I watched the light continue to grow larger and larger, I began to notice that I could make out a shape. It was rectangular shaped, taller than it was wide, and it took me a little while to realize that it was a door. One of those big double doors with glass panels. I was puzzled to think that there might be a glass paneled door for an entrance to heaven.. or hell for that matter. That's when I began to wonder if I wasn't just dreaming.
Finally I came to stop a few feet from the door. I had control of my legs once again. I lifted first one leg and then the other, twisting my ankles as if to prove to myself they were still mine.
The thought crossed my mind that I could now turn and walk away if I wanted too, but then where would I go? Back into the darkness? Besides, something had brought me to that point and I assumed it was for a reason.
Stepping closer, I peered in through the glass doors. Inside, I saw four people in what appeared to be a waiting room. The furnishings were like those I had seen in some old movies made back in the fifties.
There seemed to be something familiar about this setting and the people inside, but I couldn't quite figure out why. So I opened the door and stepped into the short corridor. It was dimly lit by two small wall lamps over the pay phones hanging on the wall to my left. I hadn't seem payphones like that since I was just a kid. They had the three different sized slots on top for nickels dimes and quarters.
Just then a man came through a pair of swinging doors on the opposite wall of the waiting room. It was obvious by the sterile garments he was wearing that he was a doctor.
The four people quickly moved to face him in the center of the room. "How's Robert?" the two women asked simultaneously.
"That's my name." I thought to myself. "Maybe I did die, and now I'm back to re-enter my body. But who are these people?" I still couldn't make out who they were. Even though I could see their faces better I still couldn't figure out why they seemed so familiar.
"He made it through surgery and the blood transfusion." the doctor said, "But I'm afraid it's up to him now. . . and the Lord."
"What does that mean?" the younger of the two men asked. I was sure that I recognized his voice, but that man was far too young to be my dad.
"Doug." the doctor started, confirming my suspicion that this man was my dad. "The blood poisoning had spread through his entire system which had already put him in a coma before we started working on him. Even with the complete blood transfer there's no promise he will ever come out of that coma."
He turned and took the hand of the younger woman, "Pat." he said
"Mom!" I wanted to scream and my heart went out to her.
"We're doing all we know to do to bring down his fever. He's been moved to the intensive care and is still comatose. If we aren't able to bring his fever down to an acceptable level...." he pause and I could see the sadness in his expression.
At that point I knew the doctor was, in fact, talking about me. But it was me at 2 years old. Somehow I had stepped back in time to the day of my first operation. And those four people, that seemed so familiar, were my parents and grandparents. I just hadn't recognized them because of their age.
"There is a chance, isn't there, that he will be alright?" I heard my mother's voice. It was much younger sounding than I could remember, and broken by her emotions, but it was unmistakably her.
Because of all the medical problems I had gone through as a child mom and I had always been close, and it really hurt to see her in such grief. I wanted to rush out there and tell her that I was going to be fine, but I knew that even if they could see me they would probably think I was some lunatic or something. The Robert they were worried about was only two and half years old.... I was 22.
Even from the distance I could see the tear roll down the doctor's face as he leaned closer to my mom. "Pray Pat." he said, "Pray for a miracle." He patted her hand a couple of times as he pulled away then turned and walked back through the door from which he came.
My heart ached as I watched her break down and cry. And I cried with her, silently, in the darkness of the corridor. Never, in all my life, had I seen her cry like that. I felt so bad for her, and wished so that I could do something, anything to relieve her of that intense grief. But I felt pressed to remain in the shadows and watch.
I watched as my grandmother laid one hand on mom's shoulder and, raising the other towards heaven, began to pray aloud. My father just stood there, his gaze fixed on the floor in front of him, while my grandfather tried to console him.
After a few minutes of praying, my grandmother broke and told mom that she felt they should call "Brother Hobart" in Fort Worth and request prayer for little Robert. Mom wiped tears from her eyes and shook her head in approval, then they picked up their purses and walked toward the corridor I was standing in.
My first impulse was to turn and run out the door, but then I thought "What the heck? They probably won't be able to see me anyway." So I simply moved to the opposite wall and waited.
To my surprise, though, my mom looked straight at me and gasped as they stepped into the corridor. My grandmother had been digging in her purse for some change and hadn't noticed me. She glanced up at me, after hearing mom gasp, then went on to the payphones.
"Hi Pat." I said softly. It felt strange calling my mom by name.
"Hello." she replied, with a puzzled look on her face. "Do I know you?"
"Well, no, I don't think you do." I told her.
"How did you know my name?" she asked.
"I know quite a bit about you and your family." I informed her, wondering why I had even said hi to her. It was all crazy. Me standing there talking to my own mother, who wasn't but a year older than I was at the time.
"Who are you?" she asked, studying my face.
I almost blurted out my name without thinking, but stopped myself just before I did. I had to think fast and give her a name. "Bob." I finally told her "Bob Benwar."
"I don't recall ever hearing of you before." she said, "But yet you say you know a lot about me and my family. How is that possible?"
"That would be very difficult to explain right now." I told her, "But I can tell you that your son is going to be okay."
The expression on her face suddenly changed, and I saw a mixture of fear and anger in her eyes. "How can you tell me that?" she asked.
"I know what doctor Trimble said." I told her, "I heard ever word of it."
"Well then, how can you possibly expect me to believe that you know more than he does?" she asked. "I don't even know you!" She started to turn and walk away.
"Pat." I said, and she turned back to face me. "I really wish I could explain it all to you right now, but I'm afraid I don't understand it all myself." I told her. I was afraid my feeble attempt to raise her hopes was only causing more confusion in her already boggled mind.
My grandmother had started talking to Brother Hobart on the phone while my mother stood there studying my face again. She was telling him why she called and was requesting prayer. I also took advantage of the moment to look in to see what dad was doing. He had finally sat down and my grandfather was sitting beside him with his arm draped over his shoulders.
"It's funny." I heard mom say softly and I turned back to her.
"What's that?" I asked.
"I feel as though I should know you." she said.
I wondered if it could be possible she was feeling a motherly intuition about me, and became self conscious at the thought that she might figure out who I was. "That's impossible!" I thought to myself. "There is no way, in her wildest imagination, she could figure that out, much less believe it."
"There is something familiar about your face." she said, and it startled me that she would say such a thing. She must have noticed the startled look on my face for she asked "Did we go to school together?"
"No, we didn't know each other as children." I replied, not knowing what else to say.
"But...." she started then was interrupted by my grandmother asking for more change.
As mom dug some change out of her purse she kept looking up at me with an inquisitive look in her eye. I knew I was going to have to turn this conversation around somehow, but didn't know just how to do it. I'm a terrible lier.
"What the heck?" I thought to myself, "This has to be just a dream anyway." and I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet.
When mom turned back to face me I didn't give her a chance to say anything. I reached out and took her hand then laid my military ID in it.
"What's this?" she asked as she tried to hold it in the light so she could see what it was.
"It's my military identification card." I told her, then went on to say "It's the best support I have for what I'm about to tell you."
She looked at the card briefly before asking "What are you about to tell me?"
"You just asked me if we had known each other as kids." I started.. "and in a way we did, or rather you knew me as a kid."
"But you just said...." she started
"Please, just listen to what I've got to say." I pleaded.
"Okay." she replied, "Go on."
"You did know me as a child." I began again, "Or should I say you now know me as a child."
"Just what are you trying to say?" she said with a puzzled look on her face.
"My name isn't really Bob Benwar." I told her.
"So why did you tell me that it was?" she asked with a surprised look on her face.
"Because I really didn't think you would believe me if I told you the truth." I replied.
"Just who are you then?" she asked, and I could see a trace of anger returning in her expression.
"My name is on that card." I told her, and pointed to it so she could see.
She immediately dropped the card and stepped back away from me. Her expression a mixture of shock, fear and anger.
"Just who do you think you are?" she demanded, "Making such a claim as at a time like this!"
"But Pat..." I started before getting cut off by her
"How dare you!" she said in a tone of voice that began to make me fear that everyone else would soon be drawn into the picture. "How dare you try to tell me such a thing, while my son is lying on in there in a coma!"
"Wait." I told her, bending down to retrieve my card. "Please, just look at it again." I was getting frantic.
Still holding my wallet in my hand I remembered the family photo that had been taken at my grandparent's house when I was fourteen, and I quickly dug it out and started to hand it to her.
She looked up with a confused look on her face and said "This card says your birthday was May 6th 1954, the same as my son's"
"Yes it does." I said
"That can't be possible." she said, "You're as old as I am."
"Look at the date the card was issued Pat." I told her as I extended my hand that held the picture.
"It says September 23rd 1979" she said staring at the card. "That's impossible."
"That card was issued to me the day I re-enlisted for a second term in the Navy." I told her.
"But this is November 9th, 1956." she said with a blank look on her face.
"I am truly sorry for the shock I've put you into Pat." I said, shaking the photo in front of her, "But if......"
"What is that?" she asked reaching for the picture.
"It's a picture of me and my family." I said, "Taken when I was fourteen years old standing in front of my grandparents house in Winnsboro Texas."
She took the photo from my hand and I waited patiently while she studied it.
"I look so much older in this picture." she said softly. "And so does your father." she added glancing up at me briefly when she realized what she had said. But she made no effort to reword her comment.
"Who is the little girl?" she asked.
"That's my little sister." I replied.
"Her name is Kathy isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes it is." I replied, then added, "You and dad were going to name me Kathy if I had been a girl."
"That's right." she said with a smile.
"And I take it this is your brother Danny?" she asked pointing at him in the picture.
"That's right." I replied.
"There is quite a difference in your sizes." she said
"I caught up with him before I graduated from high school." I told her with a smile.
At that she just stood there, studying first the picture and then the ID card. Finally, she looked back up at me with tear filled eyes. She seemed to be having trouble gathering her thoughts into words.
"How...?" she started, then paused. I knew what she wanted to ask so I answered the best I could.
"I can't explain how or why I am here." I told her. "All I know is that I am. This could even be a dream for all I know, but if it is it sure is the most realistic one I've ever had."
At that moment the door on the other side of the room burst open and a nurse rushed into the room.
"It has to be a miracle!" she exclaimed, "He just sat up in bed and started complaining about being hungry."
She looked deep into my eyes, and tears began to stream down her face.
"Go on mom." I told her, "There's a little boy in there that needs your attention."
My grandmother had already rushed past us and was now waiting at the door urging mom to hurry up.
"Bye son." she said softly, "Take care on your way home." she added before turning to run across the room and through the door.
"Bye Mom." I said to the empty room, and I started to cry as I turned to walk out.
Just as I walked through the door, I woke up and found myself laying in my bed in the barracks. I looked over at the clock and saw that it was 5:30 AM.
"Just a dream." I thought to myself, as I sat there crying.
It wasn't until I decided to go ahead and get started on my trip home that I realized that I had my wallet in my hand. I immediately started to open it and look inside for my ID card but I stopped myself. Maybe I didn't want to prove to myself that it was just a dream.
My father was up when I drove in that morning and he met me at the door. We talked for a while before he finally went to wake mom up to let her know I was home. Shortly after that he had to head off to work.
While she and I sat drinking coffee I couldn't help studying her face and thinking about how much younger she had looked in my dream. She too seemed to be studying my face. Neither of us were talking.
Finally, she broke the silence by asking me how my trip was. I had begun to tell her of the long drive home when she interupted me.
"That's not the trip I was talking about." she said.
"I don't understand." I told her.
"You have too." she replied, and waited for a moment for me to say something more before getting up and heading for her bedroom. A moment later she returned holding something in her hand.
She laid them on the table in front of me and remained standing by my side. I sat there stairing at my ID card and that photo in total disbelief.
After the shock finally began to fade, I looked up at her and asked, "It really happened?"
"Yes son, it did." she replied. "And I thank God that it did. I don't know what I would have done during those other surgeries you had to go through, and the problems that Danny had, if you hadn't visited me that night. I just wish we'd had more time."
The tears were streaming down both our faces as I stood and wrapped my arms around her.... "Maybe it was for the best we didn't mom." I told her.
"Maybe so son." she said as she hugged me. "Maybe so."
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Day the Berlin Wall Went Down
I'm sure I could research the media coverage of the Berlin Wall being torn down in order to properly put the time and date on this event that took place in my life, but then, it really wouldn't add anything to the story I'm about to tell you.
I was living in Kokomo, Indiana at the time and working for Huffy Service First. It was an assembly company with field technicians all over the United States. It was our job to go to all those retail stores that sold assembled bikes to their customers. We actually assembled anything that came in a box with instructions.
I had been working in Wabash, IN that day and was on my way home after finishing up early. It was a warm day, with a spattering of clouds in the afternoon sky as I turned south on highway 31. The traffic seemed to be a bit more than I was accustomed to driving in, but then I was heading home much earlier than usual too.
After pulling over into the left lane, in order to pass a slower driver, I found myself locked into a pack of drivers being held up by two running side by side up ahead. I was in no hurry, so the delay didn't bother me as much as getting caught running along side a tractor-trailer. The Aerostar van was being buffeted by winds bouncing off the truck.
Suddenly, it felt as though I was being lifted right off the seat of the van. But it wasn't my body being lifted... it was more like my awareness or my soul was being pulled up by some magnetic kind of force. For a brief moment it seemed like everything was a distraction from what I needed to do at that instant. I strained my neck trying to look up at the clouded sky. The music playing in the van, the wind from the window, the steering wheel in my chest, all that traffic... seemed to be blocking out what needed to be reaching me.
I distinctly remember the thought flashing through my mind..."Is this the rapture?" because there was something spiritual about the burst of emotion that accompanied this weird experience.
Then, just as suddenly, the feeling left me. The really scary part about the whole experience was that when I settled back into my seat, feeling quite perplexed by the whole thing. I found myself driving on a deserted highway. There wasn't another vehicle in sight anywhere. Now how could that be? In a matter of what appeared to be only seconds of time everyone that had been driving along with me in that packed bunch had either turned off or drove off and left me? I was still driving nearly 65 miles per hour.
I even checked the rear view mirror to see if perhaps I'd done something really radical that might have caused everyone around me to hit the ditch. There was no sign of anyone in the ditch or on the road at all behind me, and the road ahead was completely clear. I was more than just a little puzzled.
The remainder of the drive home was strange. It was almost like a dream. I finally started seeing some other cars on the highway, but there were so few. The feeling I'd experienced kept flashing through my mind leaving me wondering what it all meant.. In remembering how it made me feel, it was like a wash of emotions passing through me from somewhere else.
When I got home I tried to explain the experience to my wife and became flustered beyond words when she showed no obvious signs of understanding. Finally I walked into the living room and muted the television. The noise seemed to frustrate me even more. And sitting there with the remote in my hand I started flipping through the channels.
I stopped flipping channels when a scene popped up of a newsman standing in the dark. I knew before even unmuting the tv that this was the event that had caused my experience. "This is it!!!" I yelled, more from the excitement of making the connect than anything else.
My wife said something from the kitchen but I didn't understand her as I'd just unmuted and turned the volume up on the tv. The newsman was commenting on the reaction of the masses that had gathered to witness the momentous occasion of the Berlin Wall being taken down. When he said "You'd have had to be here to understand the wave of emotion that washed through the crowds as they started tearing down that wall..." I said aloud, "No.... you wouldn't."
As long as I live I will never truly understand why or how something like this could happen. And I've wondered many times if what happened to me that day might have happened all around the world to others who may or may not have made that connection. I would hate to think it didn't...
I was living in Kokomo, Indiana at the time and working for Huffy Service First. It was an assembly company with field technicians all over the United States. It was our job to go to all those retail stores that sold assembled bikes to their customers. We actually assembled anything that came in a box with instructions.
I had been working in Wabash, IN that day and was on my way home after finishing up early. It was a warm day, with a spattering of clouds in the afternoon sky as I turned south on highway 31. The traffic seemed to be a bit more than I was accustomed to driving in, but then I was heading home much earlier than usual too.
After pulling over into the left lane, in order to pass a slower driver, I found myself locked into a pack of drivers being held up by two running side by side up ahead. I was in no hurry, so the delay didn't bother me as much as getting caught running along side a tractor-trailer. The Aerostar van was being buffeted by winds bouncing off the truck.
Suddenly, it felt as though I was being lifted right off the seat of the van. But it wasn't my body being lifted... it was more like my awareness or my soul was being pulled up by some magnetic kind of force. For a brief moment it seemed like everything was a distraction from what I needed to do at that instant. I strained my neck trying to look up at the clouded sky. The music playing in the van, the wind from the window, the steering wheel in my chest, all that traffic... seemed to be blocking out what needed to be reaching me.
I distinctly remember the thought flashing through my mind..."Is this the rapture?" because there was something spiritual about the burst of emotion that accompanied this weird experience.
Then, just as suddenly, the feeling left me. The really scary part about the whole experience was that when I settled back into my seat, feeling quite perplexed by the whole thing. I found myself driving on a deserted highway. There wasn't another vehicle in sight anywhere. Now how could that be? In a matter of what appeared to be only seconds of time everyone that had been driving along with me in that packed bunch had either turned off or drove off and left me? I was still driving nearly 65 miles per hour.
I even checked the rear view mirror to see if perhaps I'd done something really radical that might have caused everyone around me to hit the ditch. There was no sign of anyone in the ditch or on the road at all behind me, and the road ahead was completely clear. I was more than just a little puzzled.
The remainder of the drive home was strange. It was almost like a dream. I finally started seeing some other cars on the highway, but there were so few. The feeling I'd experienced kept flashing through my mind leaving me wondering what it all meant.. In remembering how it made me feel, it was like a wash of emotions passing through me from somewhere else.
When I got home I tried to explain the experience to my wife and became flustered beyond words when she showed no obvious signs of understanding. Finally I walked into the living room and muted the television. The noise seemed to frustrate me even more. And sitting there with the remote in my hand I started flipping through the channels.
I stopped flipping channels when a scene popped up of a newsman standing in the dark. I knew before even unmuting the tv that this was the event that had caused my experience. "This is it!!!" I yelled, more from the excitement of making the connect than anything else.
My wife said something from the kitchen but I didn't understand her as I'd just unmuted and turned the volume up on the tv. The newsman was commenting on the reaction of the masses that had gathered to witness the momentous occasion of the Berlin Wall being taken down. When he said "You'd have had to be here to understand the wave of emotion that washed through the crowds as they started tearing down that wall..." I said aloud, "No.... you wouldn't."
As long as I live I will never truly understand why or how something like this could happen. And I've wondered many times if what happened to me that day might have happened all around the world to others who may or may not have made that connection. I would hate to think it didn't...
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
By the light of the howling moon
Dave was almost always there at feeding time. He just loved helping me tend to all the rabbits. My dad had built a special little barn to house these rapidly multiplying little beasts and filled it with cages and a few breeders. It didn't take long for them to actually overfill dad's little barn. On any given day we had 350 to 400 rabbits in the barn. But this really isn't the story I wanted to tell.
Dave and I had just finished feeding and watering all those rabbits, cleaning out from under the cages and hauling all the rabbit poop off to the poop dump dad had made. It was dark already and we stopped at the stock pond in the meadow behind the house. The light of the full moon directly overhead lit up the pond enough to allow us to see the turtles and Dave was throwing rocks at them. It amazed me that he could hit his target with a rock almost every time he let one go, even in the dim light.
We had just laughed about him bouncing a rock off the back of a pretty large turtle when suddenly we heard an erie howl come from the woods not far from where we were.
"Come on!" Dave said under his breath and took off running. He always could run faster than me through the woods because he was so much shorter than I was. Or at least that's what I gave credit too, he didn't have to duck as many limbs as I did. I bolted after him and followed him up through the woods heading for the foot of the mountain.
We hadn't gone far when he heard the howl again. Now, mind you, we had to be making all kinds of racket running through the woods like that. And probably should have frightened whatever it was up there howling away long before we got to it.... but we didn't.
We found it sitting in a small clearing which allowed a wide beam of moonlight through to the ground. In the middle of the light was a pure white wolf. There was a visible aura around it, like the light of the moon was reflecting off it's white coat and just lingering around it's body.
Dave and I stood, mesmerized by the image sitting so still in that clearing. Then it lifted it's head and began to howl again. To me, it was the loneliest sound I'd ever heard, and felt as though it was passing right through me. It was obviously something else to Dave, because he only stood there for a moment before dashing off in the direction of the house.
My first impulse was to take after Dave and run, but I didn't. Instead I waited until the wolf fell silent and watched as he stood and walked to the edge of the clearing. Now I don't know if it was because he walked out of the light or what, but as he passed through the edge of light he just seemed to vanish.
I stood there in total disbelief trying to catch a glimpse of him moving through the woods beyond that clearing when I heard that howl again. Only this time it was coming from much farther up the mountain to my right. There was no way it could have traveled that far in the few moments that had passed since it vanish from sight. All the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I took off running for the house.
When I got back to the stock pond I saw the wheel barrel was still sitting there so I grabbed it. Dad would have shot me if I left that out there for one of the cows to stumble over.
I found Dave sitting on the front porch alone, and when I asked him why he'd ran he just said "I can't believe you didn't!"
Dave and I had just finished feeding and watering all those rabbits, cleaning out from under the cages and hauling all the rabbit poop off to the poop dump dad had made. It was dark already and we stopped at the stock pond in the meadow behind the house. The light of the full moon directly overhead lit up the pond enough to allow us to see the turtles and Dave was throwing rocks at them. It amazed me that he could hit his target with a rock almost every time he let one go, even in the dim light.
We had just laughed about him bouncing a rock off the back of a pretty large turtle when suddenly we heard an erie howl come from the woods not far from where we were.
"Come on!" Dave said under his breath and took off running. He always could run faster than me through the woods because he was so much shorter than I was. Or at least that's what I gave credit too, he didn't have to duck as many limbs as I did. I bolted after him and followed him up through the woods heading for the foot of the mountain.
We hadn't gone far when he heard the howl again. Now, mind you, we had to be making all kinds of racket running through the woods like that. And probably should have frightened whatever it was up there howling away long before we got to it.... but we didn't.
We found it sitting in a small clearing which allowed a wide beam of moonlight through to the ground. In the middle of the light was a pure white wolf. There was a visible aura around it, like the light of the moon was reflecting off it's white coat and just lingering around it's body.
Dave and I stood, mesmerized by the image sitting so still in that clearing. Then it lifted it's head and began to howl again. To me, it was the loneliest sound I'd ever heard, and felt as though it was passing right through me. It was obviously something else to Dave, because he only stood there for a moment before dashing off in the direction of the house.
My first impulse was to take after Dave and run, but I didn't. Instead I waited until the wolf fell silent and watched as he stood and walked to the edge of the clearing. Now I don't know if it was because he walked out of the light or what, but as he passed through the edge of light he just seemed to vanish.
I stood there in total disbelief trying to catch a glimpse of him moving through the woods beyond that clearing when I heard that howl again. Only this time it was coming from much farther up the mountain to my right. There was no way it could have traveled that far in the few moments that had passed since it vanish from sight. All the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I took off running for the house.
When I got back to the stock pond I saw the wheel barrel was still sitting there so I grabbed it. Dad would have shot me if I left that out there for one of the cows to stumble over.
I found Dave sitting on the front porch alone, and when I asked him why he'd ran he just said "I can't believe you didn't!"
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Lost Time
A buddy and I were cruisin around one saturday night with barely enough money between us to buy a six pack of beer. We had half a joint of some mediocre weed, which we smoked after deciding to head out to the natural spring located in the Potato hills near Tuskahoma Oklahoma. The water bubbling up out of the ground there always tasted good and cool any time of year.
Once the joint was gone Dave popped the top on a couple of beers, handing me one. Someone had dug out the spring a long time ago and had embedded a concrete cylindar so a lid could be placed over it to keep the trash and leaves out. It was 20 feet or so from the gravel road which ran by it. But there was a spur off the road which let you pull up and park right near the spring.
I had pulled off on the spur and parked a little short of the end so we could have room to move around in front of the pickup. Dave and I were beginning to feel mild effects from the half joint we shared and sat in the pickup talking while we finished our beer.
Afterward, Dave dropped the remaining 4 beers in the spring to keep them cool while we gathered some dried branches and broke them up to make a fire. Dave was the fire builder. He would set kindling in the middle and construct a pile around it, always increasing the size of the sticks of wood leaving the largest ones to be placed on the top. In the process he would leave a small tunnel to the heart of the pile where the kindling was.
That night he had built a pile about 3 feet in diameter and almost 2 feet tall. Some of the pieces we pulled from under the leaves because they would be wet enough to slow the fire down. They would give off more smoke, but they wouldn't burn as fast. He had just got a flame going in the center of the pile and was squatting near the little tunnel he'd made pushing new dry kindling up to the flame to keep it going until it caught on and burned good.
I was feeling the call of nature and stepped around to the back of the pickup to relieve myself. I hadn't much more than started when a blinding light lit up the entire area. I remember looking up and seeing a shape hovering overhead and suddenly the light was gone and I was leaning back against the tailgate of the truck. Of course my first thought was to get myself zipped up before going to see ask Dave if he'd seen the object overhead. To my surprise I already was zipped.. That puzzled me a little but the need to check with Dave kept me moving.
I walked around the end of the truck and stopped dead in my tracks. Dave was still squating in the same place with that stick in his hand, but instead of pushing kindling up into the flame he was pushing glowing embers of an already burned out fire around. Afterthought- Had he stayed in that same position for the duration of the fire burning down so completely his pants would have most likely caught fire. At the very least his hands and face would have suffered first and second degree burns from the close proximity of the flames. There was no sign of scorching of any kind on him.
I walked up behind Dave and touched him on the shoulder and spoke his name. His reaction caught me completely by surprise. He bolted over the ed of coals and rushed out into the woods. I called out for him to stop several times before I heard the thrashing of his foot steps in the leaves come to a halt. When I heard him start moving again it was obvious he was returning to the truck. When he got close enough for me to see him he stopped for a moment to stare at the glowing embers of the fire then walked around to the passenger side of the truck and got in.
I was about to follow his lead when I remembered the beers still in the spring and grabbed them before I got into the truck. We drove back to town without uttering a word between us. I desperately wanted to ask him what he saw, but something kept me quiet. Maybe it was just the fact that he reacted the way he did. Maybe it was because I really didn't want to know. I still don't know what he saw. He never talked about it even to me.
When we got to town I pulled into the Bulldog Cafe and we seated ourselves at a table in the far corner of the dinning room. When the waitress came over I ordered a couple of cokes, more to justify our being there than anything else. Dave still hadn't said a word.
We hadn't been there long when the daughter of one of the local game wardens burst into the place. She was making her rounds, going from table to table asking the people at each table if they'd seen anything in the night sky over the potato hills.
Dave looked up at me and shook his head very slowly, as if to say "Don't say a word." When suddenly the girl went silent. We both turned to look in her direction and found her staring back at us. Instantly she started moving toward us.
"You guys saw it didn't you?" she asked before she was halfway across the room.
Dave and I stood at the same moment and started heading for the door before she reached the table.
"Wait!" her voice got louder, then just as we passed her on our way to the door she whispered...."You were there weren't you?"
I reached out and took her by the hand, and she came with us out to the truck. Dave went around to the passenger side and I signaled for her to get in on my side and slide over.
Once we were moving she started asking what we saw. She wanted to know what they did to us. How long were they there? She said she hadn't seen it arrive. She'd only spotted it as it lifted up into the air and sped away.
I drove out of town heading in the opposite direction. There was a two-fold purpose to my heading. First and foremost I did not want to go anywhere close to that spring again. Secondly, I wanted to take this girl home and drop her off. I wanted to get her out of our hair. She wanted to talk about this thing that neither Dave nor I wished to discuss at the moment.
Before we got to the lake, where she lived, I turned down a side road where we could get out and talk for a moment before taking her on home. I stopped in the middle of a bridge and we got out. I couldn't help staring into the night sky. Neither could the other two, for that matter... and suddenly she skreemed "There it is!" and pointed at a light moving through the sky.
It wasn't just a light though. It had an elongated shape which was horizontal. When she first spotted it it was moving parallel to the ground about a mile or so off the ground. Then suddenly, without changing the angle of the ship it sped away at tremendous speed at about a 50 degree angle to the ground. In an instant it was gone from sight completely.
Dave got back into the truck and yelled for us to go. We did just that. I dropped the girl at her front door and then drove Dave home before heading home myself.
I didn't sleep at all that night. I'd determined that it would probably have taken about 2 hours for that pile of wood to burn out completely. I tried to remember more but finally gave way to the fact that I just couldn't. I wanted to know what Dave had experienced but refused to force the issue with him. I never did find out and probably never will.
All I can say for sure about that night is that the fire burned completely out within a moment or two of being lit... and that light that flooded the woods where we stood only lasted a second or two.
Once the joint was gone Dave popped the top on a couple of beers, handing me one. Someone had dug out the spring a long time ago and had embedded a concrete cylindar so a lid could be placed over it to keep the trash and leaves out. It was 20 feet or so from the gravel road which ran by it. But there was a spur off the road which let you pull up and park right near the spring.
I had pulled off on the spur and parked a little short of the end so we could have room to move around in front of the pickup. Dave and I were beginning to feel mild effects from the half joint we shared and sat in the pickup talking while we finished our beer.
Afterward, Dave dropped the remaining 4 beers in the spring to keep them cool while we gathered some dried branches and broke them up to make a fire. Dave was the fire builder. He would set kindling in the middle and construct a pile around it, always increasing the size of the sticks of wood leaving the largest ones to be placed on the top. In the process he would leave a small tunnel to the heart of the pile where the kindling was.
That night he had built a pile about 3 feet in diameter and almost 2 feet tall. Some of the pieces we pulled from under the leaves because they would be wet enough to slow the fire down. They would give off more smoke, but they wouldn't burn as fast. He had just got a flame going in the center of the pile and was squatting near the little tunnel he'd made pushing new dry kindling up to the flame to keep it going until it caught on and burned good.
I was feeling the call of nature and stepped around to the back of the pickup to relieve myself. I hadn't much more than started when a blinding light lit up the entire area. I remember looking up and seeing a shape hovering overhead and suddenly the light was gone and I was leaning back against the tailgate of the truck. Of course my first thought was to get myself zipped up before going to see ask Dave if he'd seen the object overhead. To my surprise I already was zipped.. That puzzled me a little but the need to check with Dave kept me moving.
I walked around the end of the truck and stopped dead in my tracks. Dave was still squating in the same place with that stick in his hand, but instead of pushing kindling up into the flame he was pushing glowing embers of an already burned out fire around. Afterthought- Had he stayed in that same position for the duration of the fire burning down so completely his pants would have most likely caught fire. At the very least his hands and face would have suffered first and second degree burns from the close proximity of the flames. There was no sign of scorching of any kind on him.
I walked up behind Dave and touched him on the shoulder and spoke his name. His reaction caught me completely by surprise. He bolted over the ed of coals and rushed out into the woods. I called out for him to stop several times before I heard the thrashing of his foot steps in the leaves come to a halt. When I heard him start moving again it was obvious he was returning to the truck. When he got close enough for me to see him he stopped for a moment to stare at the glowing embers of the fire then walked around to the passenger side of the truck and got in.
I was about to follow his lead when I remembered the beers still in the spring and grabbed them before I got into the truck. We drove back to town without uttering a word between us. I desperately wanted to ask him what he saw, but something kept me quiet. Maybe it was just the fact that he reacted the way he did. Maybe it was because I really didn't want to know. I still don't know what he saw. He never talked about it even to me.
When we got to town I pulled into the Bulldog Cafe and we seated ourselves at a table in the far corner of the dinning room. When the waitress came over I ordered a couple of cokes, more to justify our being there than anything else. Dave still hadn't said a word.
We hadn't been there long when the daughter of one of the local game wardens burst into the place. She was making her rounds, going from table to table asking the people at each table if they'd seen anything in the night sky over the potato hills.
Dave looked up at me and shook his head very slowly, as if to say "Don't say a word." When suddenly the girl went silent. We both turned to look in her direction and found her staring back at us. Instantly she started moving toward us.
"You guys saw it didn't you?" she asked before she was halfway across the room.
Dave and I stood at the same moment and started heading for the door before she reached the table.
"Wait!" her voice got louder, then just as we passed her on our way to the door she whispered...."You were there weren't you?"
I reached out and took her by the hand, and she came with us out to the truck. Dave went around to the passenger side and I signaled for her to get in on my side and slide over.
Once we were moving she started asking what we saw. She wanted to know what they did to us. How long were they there? She said she hadn't seen it arrive. She'd only spotted it as it lifted up into the air and sped away.
I drove out of town heading in the opposite direction. There was a two-fold purpose to my heading. First and foremost I did not want to go anywhere close to that spring again. Secondly, I wanted to take this girl home and drop her off. I wanted to get her out of our hair. She wanted to talk about this thing that neither Dave nor I wished to discuss at the moment.
Before we got to the lake, where she lived, I turned down a side road where we could get out and talk for a moment before taking her on home. I stopped in the middle of a bridge and we got out. I couldn't help staring into the night sky. Neither could the other two, for that matter... and suddenly she skreemed "There it is!" and pointed at a light moving through the sky.
It wasn't just a light though. It had an elongated shape which was horizontal. When she first spotted it it was moving parallel to the ground about a mile or so off the ground. Then suddenly, without changing the angle of the ship it sped away at tremendous speed at about a 50 degree angle to the ground. In an instant it was gone from sight completely.
Dave got back into the truck and yelled for us to go. We did just that. I dropped the girl at her front door and then drove Dave home before heading home myself.
I didn't sleep at all that night. I'd determined that it would probably have taken about 2 hours for that pile of wood to burn out completely. I tried to remember more but finally gave way to the fact that I just couldn't. I wanted to know what Dave had experienced but refused to force the issue with him. I never did find out and probably never will.
All I can say for sure about that night is that the fire burned completely out within a moment or two of being lit... and that light that flooded the woods where we stood only lasted a second or two.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
A Ghostly Encounter
Sidney and I were playing basketball the day Kathy Frasier whipped into the driveway so hard she almost slid off the cattle guard. She came to a skidding halt at the end of the gravel drive pelting our legs with stones. Before I had a chance to say anything she was out of her car running toward me.
"I need you to come with me!" she blurted out as she came to an abrupt stop in front of me.
"Come with you where?" I asked, already determined I wasn't going anywhere with this crazy woman.
"I'll tell you all about it on the way." she replied and as she reached for my arm she added, "Come on, let's get going!"
"I can't just up and leave with you Kathy." I told her, "I've got things to do before dad gets home."
She turned, ran to the back door and yanked it open, then rushed inside.
"What the heck was that all about?" Sidney asked, bouncing the basketball on the ground in front of him.
"I don't have a clue." I replied
"Are you going to go with her?" he asked.
"Absolutely not!" I replied with a stern look on my face. I snatched the basketball from him, bounced it once and made a wild toss toward the hoop. The ball hit the rim and bounced right back into Sidney's hands.
Just then the back door opened and Kathy reappeared followed closely by my mom. "Bob, I want you to go with Kathy." she said adding "I'm sure you'll be back in time to do the chores your dad wanted you to do."
"Go where?" I asked again.
"Just go with her son, she needs to have someone with her." Mom said.
"Have fun." Sidney said with a laugh.
I spun around and grabbed his arm. "Oh no!" I said, "If I have to go then you have to go too." I informed him.
"No way!" he tried to pull away.
"I think that's a great idea." Kathy chimmed in, "Let's get going before it gets any later."
Sidney and I reluctantly got into the car, he in the back and I got in on the passenger side while Kathy slid under the wheel and cranked the car. She yanked the gearshift into reverse and spun in the gravel as she tromped down on the gas pedal.
It was just a good thing there wasn't any traffic coming, because she whipped back out onto the road, and jamming the transmition into drive and sped away. Mom stood there watching, shaking her head.
We were almost to Nine Pines Store before I could get her to start talking about why she wanted me to go with her.
"I went to look at a place to rent this morning." she said glancing over at me. "And I got the strangest feeling I was being watched the whole time I was there."
"And you think having a highschool kid with you is going help?" I asked with a touch of sarcasm.
"There's always strength in numbers." she said.
For most of the trip after that we rode along in silence except on a couple occassions she would start telling us about this house out in the country and how much she really wanted to live there. "It's really a nice place." she stated several times, "I was just getting this really strange feeing while I was walking around it."
"Like you were being watched." I commented each time she said that.
"I get goosebumps just thinking about it." she said once, holding her arm out so I could see there really were goosebumps covering it.
Sydney was constantly making faces and snickering at me from the back seat while we were driving.
Finally Kathy turned off the main road onto a graveled one lane driveway. She came to a skidding stop as we pulled up to a low water crossing. You have to understand, it was the middle of the summer in Oklahoma and it hadn't rained in days. And here this low water crossing had swift running water almost to overflowing.
Of course I had no idea of how deep it was, but Kathy refused to drive through it claiming that it was too deep. She claimed that when she left there a little more than an hour before it had been completely dry.
I tried to talk her into turning around and we could come back another day to look at the house.
"And let someone else rent it out from under me?" she asked. "No way, we'll walk from here."
"You mean wade?" Sidney asked.
"Yep!" she replied and got out of the car.
Sydney and I looked at each other in disbelief then got out of the car.
"If you have wallets you might want to put them in your shirt pockets." She said as she eased herself into the swift water. She quickly slipped into chest deep water.
I decided to hold my wallet over my head while wading through. Sydney, of course, never carried a wallet but he took off his new sneakers and held them up to keep them from getting wet.
About halfway across Sydney lost his footing in the current and fell, going completely underwater, shoes and all. When he popped back up you could see the disappointment on his face as he drained the water from his shoes.
"You probably wouldn't have fallen if you'd kept them on." I laughed.
We stumbled up out of the water on the other side and stood there for a few minutes letting the water drain from our cloths. Being over 6 feet tall my shirt pocket was still dry enough to put my wallet in without getting it wet.
Kathy looked down at the waterline across her chest and laughed. "It's a good thing I wore a bra today." she said
When we finally started walking down the road Kathy began telling us more about the house. She described a white picket fence and a screened in front porch that ran the full width of the house.
"There's a stairwell leading to the upstairs bedroom on the outside of the house." she said with a puzzled look on her face. "Why would anyone put the stairs outside?" she asked no one in particular.
It was well over a half mile from the low water crossing to the house and because of the bend in the road you couldn't see anything until you were almost there. The large Oak tree was the first thing we saw, then the picket fence started coming into view.
"I can feel it already." Kathy said as we rounded the bend enough to see the screened in front porch. She ran her left hand up and down her right arm, feeling the goosebumps that had popped back up.
When we reached the gate to the picket fence Sydney opened it and we strolled into the side yard to the house. We hadn't taken more than 4 or 5 steps when Sydney stopped dead in his tracks and said "I thought you told us this place was vacant."
"It is." Kathy assured him.
"Then who is that old man staring at us through that window right there?" he asked, pointing at small window on the side of the house.
Neither of us saw anyone in the window and both commented as such. But Sydney insisted there was an old man in that window and started describing him. A broad face with gray hair and big bushy eyebrows. "And he looks mad, Kathy" he said, glancing over at her.
"Where'd he go?" he asked when he looked back at the window.
"There was never anyone there, Syd." I told him.
When we started moving again Sydney walked straight up to the window he claimed the old man was looking out of and tried looking in but it was too high off the ground. I, for some reason, started walking around the back corner of the house and just as I stepped around the back corner I felt a sharp pain in my left rib cage.
The pain was so intense it dropped me to my knees. Both Kathy and Sydney came running over to me.
"What's wrong?" they both asked at the same time. I explained about the pain through clenched teeth, holding my side with both hands.
With one on each side they gripped my arms and virtually dragged me across the yard almost to the spot we were in when Sydney saw the old man in the window.
By the time they stopped so had the pain.
"If you want to leave now, we can." Kathy said, looking concerned.
My curiosity had been peaked though and I wasn't about to leave without trying to find out more about that place.
When we started moving again we all walked around to the front. There were no doors on the screened porch. Someone must have removed them long ago, cause there was no sign of them. On the porch just to the left of the steps an old wooden rocker lay on it's side against the wall and a feather mattress from a single bed drapped across it.
While we stood there Kathy admitted that it wasn't a feeling of being watched she had experienced that morning. It was a feeling of an evil presence that scared her away.
"I wanted to go up on the porch and look through the windows to see what it looked like on the inside." she told us "But I took one step up and was literally overcome with fear."
"So why did you come to get me?" I asked, feeling quite puzzled by her admission.
"Because I've known you were sensative to such things since the first time I met you." she replied.
"How do you figure that?" I asked.
"It's just a feeling I get about people." she said.
I really didn't know what to think about her claim, but I hadn't seen anything yet and was pretty sure I wouldn't. So without a word I boldly stepped up on the porch, walked past the rocker and bedding and leaned down to look through the window.
I cupped my hand over my eyes to block out the glare of the sky on the window and peered in. For a brief instant I saw the bare hardwood floors and dingy painted walls and suddenly the view changed.
Before me, sitting on a couch in the front room, was a boy who appeared to be about 8 years old. In his hands was a broom handle which he was slowly and systematically moving it back and forth in front of him. He seemed to be intently watching something in the front corner of the room (to my left). My first impression was he must be watching television, but I could hear no sound.
A woman entered the room, obviously his mother, and stopped partially turned away from me. From the reaction of the boy she must have been talking to him, but again I heard no sound coming through the window.
As it dawned on me that I was witnessing something supernatural I turned to leave the porch. When I did I found Sydney's old man sitting in that rocking chair with a shotgun in his lap. He was just staring out across the field in front of the house. I stood frozen in my tracks.
"What do you see?" Kathy yelled, I don't know how many times she had asked before I finally told her about the old man and what I had seen inside the house.
"Get off the porch!" Sydney started yelling at me repeatedly.
There was nothing I wanted more, but there he was, virtually blocking my way. There was just enough room for me to walk in front of him. I finally decided that he wasn't real. "There's no way he can hurt me." I said aloud.
"What?" Kathy asked.
"He can't hurt me." I repeated, "He's not real."
I decided to concentrate my attention on the corner post in the front yard and start moving toward it. I could still see him out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't dare stop.
When he finally passed out of my peripheral vision I couldn't help myself and turned to see if he was still there. The rocker was back on it's side covered once again with the mattress. As soon as I saw that I bolted off the porch and ran almost to that corner post before spinning around and knealing down. I don't remember ever being so frightened in my life.
Kathy and Sydney joined me and we started discussing what I saw. I told them I believed the boy was mentally handicapped because of how he was waving the broomhandle around.
We talked for a few minutes when suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
"We're being watched!" I told them and started looking around to see who might be there. I saw no one, but the feeling just got stronger and stronger. I don't know what caused me to look up at the second floor window, but there he was. And when I looked at him he smiled and started dancing around.
"It's him!" I said pointing at the window. Both Kathy and Sydney looked up and saw him in the window. Without a word we all jumped up and ran for the gate.
The next thing I knew Kathy and Sydney were yelling for me to stop. I did stop and suddenly realized I was heading for the barn. How I had gotten over the fence I didn't know. But when I stopped I swore I heard a loud rumble come from inside the barn, and there he was again, looking out at me from just inside the barn door.
I jumped back over the wooden gate and started running for the car. Behind me I could hear Sydney pleading for us to wait. As long as I had known him he had been overweight and he just could not keep up with us.
I plunged into the water and settled near the far side sitting on the concrete base, out of breath. Kathy was just coming around the bend and I could hear Sydney begging her to slow down from beyond the bend.
After Sydney caught up to us we climbed out of the water and stood by the car long enough for most of the water to drain out of our cloths. None of us said a word, we just got into the car and Kathy turned us toward home and started driving.
About a mile after we'd turned back onto the main road Kathy suddenly said "I'm thirsty." and whipped the car into a driveway leading up the hill to a house. There was an older woman sitting on the porch who simply smiled as we came to a stop and Kathy got out.
"Would you mind terribly if I asked you for a glass of water?" she asked stopping just short of stepping up on the porch.
"Not at all." the woman replied, then looked at me and Sydney still sitting in the car and added. "As a matter of fact, I just made a picture of fresh lemonaide. Would you all like a glass?"
Kathy turned and looked at us for approval then turned back. "That would be wonderful." she said.
Sydney and I got out of the car and walked over and sat on the steps. The woman came out of the house with a tray of glasses filled with iced lemonaide and served each of us a glass.
Still no one was talking. We sipped our drinks, while passing looks back and forth.
It was the woman who broke the silence when she asked. "You've been to the Anderson house, haven't you?"
"Where's the Anderson house?" Kathy asked.
"The house that's for rent about a mile back up the road." she replied.
"What makes you ask?" Kathy asked.
"Well, from the looks on all your faces." she replied, then added "they've been trying to rent that old place for years without any luck."
"Why's that?" I asked. But I already knew the answer.
She began to tell the story about the couple who'd lived there. The land had been given to the highschool sweethearts for their wedding gift. "They built that house with their bare hands." she said.
Mr. Anderson had desparately wanted a son and they tried for years and had all but given up when Mrs Anderson finally became pregnant at the age of 35. She gave birth to a healthy boy and the old man was so proud until the day came when the doctor informed them the boy was mentally retarded.
"In time it literaly drove him crazy." the woman said. "When the boy was big enough to be moved to the bedroom upstairs Mr Anderson tore out the staircase inside and built the one on the side of the house. He absolutely refused to let the boy come downstairs when he was in the house."
"During the day, when Mr. Anderson was out working in the fields his wife would go bring the boy down so he could be bathed and spend some time playing around the house before having to go back up there." she said.
"Then one day, Mr Anderson had come back to the house with a load of firewood and was in the back yard splitting wood." she shook her head. "Mrs Anderson had just let the boy out to play in the yard when he heard his father working in the back. They say he must have went running around the corner of the house and met with his father's axe right there."
"The pain in my side." I said looking at first Kathy then Sydney. They returned my gaze with a knowing look.
"He took the boy's body out into the field behind the house and buried him," she said, "and when he returned to the house he shot and killed his wife. Then he sat in that rocking chair on the front porch and killed himself."
By the time she finished her story we were all sobbing uncontrolibly. We left that ladies front porch that day and swore we'd never go back to that house again. And, with exception of telling my mother the story we never spoke of it again between us.
"I need you to come with me!" she blurted out as she came to an abrupt stop in front of me.
"Come with you where?" I asked, already determined I wasn't going anywhere with this crazy woman.
"I'll tell you all about it on the way." she replied and as she reached for my arm she added, "Come on, let's get going!"
"I can't just up and leave with you Kathy." I told her, "I've got things to do before dad gets home."
She turned, ran to the back door and yanked it open, then rushed inside.
"What the heck was that all about?" Sidney asked, bouncing the basketball on the ground in front of him.
"I don't have a clue." I replied
"Are you going to go with her?" he asked.
"Absolutely not!" I replied with a stern look on my face. I snatched the basketball from him, bounced it once and made a wild toss toward the hoop. The ball hit the rim and bounced right back into Sidney's hands.
Just then the back door opened and Kathy reappeared followed closely by my mom. "Bob, I want you to go with Kathy." she said adding "I'm sure you'll be back in time to do the chores your dad wanted you to do."
"Go where?" I asked again.
"Just go with her son, she needs to have someone with her." Mom said.
"Have fun." Sidney said with a laugh.
I spun around and grabbed his arm. "Oh no!" I said, "If I have to go then you have to go too." I informed him.
"No way!" he tried to pull away.
"I think that's a great idea." Kathy chimmed in, "Let's get going before it gets any later."
Sidney and I reluctantly got into the car, he in the back and I got in on the passenger side while Kathy slid under the wheel and cranked the car. She yanked the gearshift into reverse and spun in the gravel as she tromped down on the gas pedal.
It was just a good thing there wasn't any traffic coming, because she whipped back out onto the road, and jamming the transmition into drive and sped away. Mom stood there watching, shaking her head.
We were almost to Nine Pines Store before I could get her to start talking about why she wanted me to go with her.
"I went to look at a place to rent this morning." she said glancing over at me. "And I got the strangest feeling I was being watched the whole time I was there."
"And you think having a highschool kid with you is going help?" I asked with a touch of sarcasm.
"There's always strength in numbers." she said.
For most of the trip after that we rode along in silence except on a couple occassions she would start telling us about this house out in the country and how much she really wanted to live there. "It's really a nice place." she stated several times, "I was just getting this really strange feeing while I was walking around it."
"Like you were being watched." I commented each time she said that.
"I get goosebumps just thinking about it." she said once, holding her arm out so I could see there really were goosebumps covering it.
Sydney was constantly making faces and snickering at me from the back seat while we were driving.
Finally Kathy turned off the main road onto a graveled one lane driveway. She came to a skidding stop as we pulled up to a low water crossing. You have to understand, it was the middle of the summer in Oklahoma and it hadn't rained in days. And here this low water crossing had swift running water almost to overflowing.
Of course I had no idea of how deep it was, but Kathy refused to drive through it claiming that it was too deep. She claimed that when she left there a little more than an hour before it had been completely dry.
I tried to talk her into turning around and we could come back another day to look at the house.
"And let someone else rent it out from under me?" she asked. "No way, we'll walk from here."
"You mean wade?" Sidney asked.
"Yep!" she replied and got out of the car.
Sydney and I looked at each other in disbelief then got out of the car.
"If you have wallets you might want to put them in your shirt pockets." She said as she eased herself into the swift water. She quickly slipped into chest deep water.
I decided to hold my wallet over my head while wading through. Sydney, of course, never carried a wallet but he took off his new sneakers and held them up to keep them from getting wet.
About halfway across Sydney lost his footing in the current and fell, going completely underwater, shoes and all. When he popped back up you could see the disappointment on his face as he drained the water from his shoes.
"You probably wouldn't have fallen if you'd kept them on." I laughed.
We stumbled up out of the water on the other side and stood there for a few minutes letting the water drain from our cloths. Being over 6 feet tall my shirt pocket was still dry enough to put my wallet in without getting it wet.
Kathy looked down at the waterline across her chest and laughed. "It's a good thing I wore a bra today." she said
When we finally started walking down the road Kathy began telling us more about the house. She described a white picket fence and a screened in front porch that ran the full width of the house.
"There's a stairwell leading to the upstairs bedroom on the outside of the house." she said with a puzzled look on her face. "Why would anyone put the stairs outside?" she asked no one in particular.
It was well over a half mile from the low water crossing to the house and because of the bend in the road you couldn't see anything until you were almost there. The large Oak tree was the first thing we saw, then the picket fence started coming into view.
"I can feel it already." Kathy said as we rounded the bend enough to see the screened in front porch. She ran her left hand up and down her right arm, feeling the goosebumps that had popped back up.
When we reached the gate to the picket fence Sydney opened it and we strolled into the side yard to the house. We hadn't taken more than 4 or 5 steps when Sydney stopped dead in his tracks and said "I thought you told us this place was vacant."
"It is." Kathy assured him.
"Then who is that old man staring at us through that window right there?" he asked, pointing at small window on the side of the house.
Neither of us saw anyone in the window and both commented as such. But Sydney insisted there was an old man in that window and started describing him. A broad face with gray hair and big bushy eyebrows. "And he looks mad, Kathy" he said, glancing over at her.
"Where'd he go?" he asked when he looked back at the window.
"There was never anyone there, Syd." I told him.
When we started moving again Sydney walked straight up to the window he claimed the old man was looking out of and tried looking in but it was too high off the ground. I, for some reason, started walking around the back corner of the house and just as I stepped around the back corner I felt a sharp pain in my left rib cage.
The pain was so intense it dropped me to my knees. Both Kathy and Sydney came running over to me.
"What's wrong?" they both asked at the same time. I explained about the pain through clenched teeth, holding my side with both hands.
With one on each side they gripped my arms and virtually dragged me across the yard almost to the spot we were in when Sydney saw the old man in the window.
By the time they stopped so had the pain.
"If you want to leave now, we can." Kathy said, looking concerned.
My curiosity had been peaked though and I wasn't about to leave without trying to find out more about that place.
When we started moving again we all walked around to the front. There were no doors on the screened porch. Someone must have removed them long ago, cause there was no sign of them. On the porch just to the left of the steps an old wooden rocker lay on it's side against the wall and a feather mattress from a single bed drapped across it.
While we stood there Kathy admitted that it wasn't a feeling of being watched she had experienced that morning. It was a feeling of an evil presence that scared her away.
"I wanted to go up on the porch and look through the windows to see what it looked like on the inside." she told us "But I took one step up and was literally overcome with fear."
"So why did you come to get me?" I asked, feeling quite puzzled by her admission.
"Because I've known you were sensative to such things since the first time I met you." she replied.
"How do you figure that?" I asked.
"It's just a feeling I get about people." she said.
I really didn't know what to think about her claim, but I hadn't seen anything yet and was pretty sure I wouldn't. So without a word I boldly stepped up on the porch, walked past the rocker and bedding and leaned down to look through the window.
I cupped my hand over my eyes to block out the glare of the sky on the window and peered in. For a brief instant I saw the bare hardwood floors and dingy painted walls and suddenly the view changed.
Before me, sitting on a couch in the front room, was a boy who appeared to be about 8 years old. In his hands was a broom handle which he was slowly and systematically moving it back and forth in front of him. He seemed to be intently watching something in the front corner of the room (to my left). My first impression was he must be watching television, but I could hear no sound.
A woman entered the room, obviously his mother, and stopped partially turned away from me. From the reaction of the boy she must have been talking to him, but again I heard no sound coming through the window.
As it dawned on me that I was witnessing something supernatural I turned to leave the porch. When I did I found Sydney's old man sitting in that rocking chair with a shotgun in his lap. He was just staring out across the field in front of the house. I stood frozen in my tracks.
"What do you see?" Kathy yelled, I don't know how many times she had asked before I finally told her about the old man and what I had seen inside the house.
"Get off the porch!" Sydney started yelling at me repeatedly.
There was nothing I wanted more, but there he was, virtually blocking my way. There was just enough room for me to walk in front of him. I finally decided that he wasn't real. "There's no way he can hurt me." I said aloud.
"What?" Kathy asked.
"He can't hurt me." I repeated, "He's not real."
I decided to concentrate my attention on the corner post in the front yard and start moving toward it. I could still see him out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't dare stop.
When he finally passed out of my peripheral vision I couldn't help myself and turned to see if he was still there. The rocker was back on it's side covered once again with the mattress. As soon as I saw that I bolted off the porch and ran almost to that corner post before spinning around and knealing down. I don't remember ever being so frightened in my life.
Kathy and Sydney joined me and we started discussing what I saw. I told them I believed the boy was mentally handicapped because of how he was waving the broomhandle around.
We talked for a few minutes when suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
"We're being watched!" I told them and started looking around to see who might be there. I saw no one, but the feeling just got stronger and stronger. I don't know what caused me to look up at the second floor window, but there he was. And when I looked at him he smiled and started dancing around.
"It's him!" I said pointing at the window. Both Kathy and Sydney looked up and saw him in the window. Without a word we all jumped up and ran for the gate.
The next thing I knew Kathy and Sydney were yelling for me to stop. I did stop and suddenly realized I was heading for the barn. How I had gotten over the fence I didn't know. But when I stopped I swore I heard a loud rumble come from inside the barn, and there he was again, looking out at me from just inside the barn door.
I jumped back over the wooden gate and started running for the car. Behind me I could hear Sydney pleading for us to wait. As long as I had known him he had been overweight and he just could not keep up with us.
I plunged into the water and settled near the far side sitting on the concrete base, out of breath. Kathy was just coming around the bend and I could hear Sydney begging her to slow down from beyond the bend.
After Sydney caught up to us we climbed out of the water and stood by the car long enough for most of the water to drain out of our cloths. None of us said a word, we just got into the car and Kathy turned us toward home and started driving.
About a mile after we'd turned back onto the main road Kathy suddenly said "I'm thirsty." and whipped the car into a driveway leading up the hill to a house. There was an older woman sitting on the porch who simply smiled as we came to a stop and Kathy got out.
"Would you mind terribly if I asked you for a glass of water?" she asked stopping just short of stepping up on the porch.
"Not at all." the woman replied, then looked at me and Sydney still sitting in the car and added. "As a matter of fact, I just made a picture of fresh lemonaide. Would you all like a glass?"
Kathy turned and looked at us for approval then turned back. "That would be wonderful." she said.
Sydney and I got out of the car and walked over and sat on the steps. The woman came out of the house with a tray of glasses filled with iced lemonaide and served each of us a glass.
Still no one was talking. We sipped our drinks, while passing looks back and forth.
It was the woman who broke the silence when she asked. "You've been to the Anderson house, haven't you?"
"Where's the Anderson house?" Kathy asked.
"The house that's for rent about a mile back up the road." she replied.
"What makes you ask?" Kathy asked.
"Well, from the looks on all your faces." she replied, then added "they've been trying to rent that old place for years without any luck."
"Why's that?" I asked. But I already knew the answer.
She began to tell the story about the couple who'd lived there. The land had been given to the highschool sweethearts for their wedding gift. "They built that house with their bare hands." she said.
Mr. Anderson had desparately wanted a son and they tried for years and had all but given up when Mrs Anderson finally became pregnant at the age of 35. She gave birth to a healthy boy and the old man was so proud until the day came when the doctor informed them the boy was mentally retarded.
"In time it literaly drove him crazy." the woman said. "When the boy was big enough to be moved to the bedroom upstairs Mr Anderson tore out the staircase inside and built the one on the side of the house. He absolutely refused to let the boy come downstairs when he was in the house."
"During the day, when Mr. Anderson was out working in the fields his wife would go bring the boy down so he could be bathed and spend some time playing around the house before having to go back up there." she said.
"Then one day, Mr Anderson had come back to the house with a load of firewood and was in the back yard splitting wood." she shook her head. "Mrs Anderson had just let the boy out to play in the yard when he heard his father working in the back. They say he must have went running around the corner of the house and met with his father's axe right there."
"The pain in my side." I said looking at first Kathy then Sydney. They returned my gaze with a knowing look.
"He took the boy's body out into the field behind the house and buried him," she said, "and when he returned to the house he shot and killed his wife. Then he sat in that rocking chair on the front porch and killed himself."
By the time she finished her story we were all sobbing uncontrolibly. We left that ladies front porch that day and swore we'd never go back to that house again. And, with exception of telling my mother the story we never spoke of it again between us.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Why me?
I don't know about everyone who's had the unique pleasure of experiencing the presence of a ghost or lost time after being engulfed in light while standing in the woods. Oh, there's more to tell about than just those two instances, and it will take me some time to open up all those doors. But as the title of this post implies, I have to wonder why I've been chosen as the lucky one to have these experiences. I have known people through out my lifetime that have had similar experiences, but I've also known a lot more that claim they've never had any.
I know people, in general, are afraid of what others will think of them if they open up about unexplainable things that have taken place in their lives. They don't want to be tagged as crazy. They are part of the reason I've started this blog. I want them to have a place where they can discuss their experiences without fear of being judged.
Personally, I've had several ghostly experiences, one truly dramatic and unforgettable one. I've lost time after being shrouded in brilliant light in the hills of southeastern Oklahoma. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, as a child living in country northeast of Dallas, TX, and seeing beings looking in at me through my bedroom window. At that time I thought they were wearing sunshades. I wasn't until much later in life when I was walking through a bookstore and saw the cover of a book called "Communion" that I realized those weren't shades... they were their eyes.
I've had dreams in which I was shown how to build things, which I dismissed even though some of those dreams were repeated many times, only to stumble across someone else's story years later which told of dreams and instructions... and they did build it... just like the one in my dream....
In the time I have left to meander around this old ball of dirt I would like to learn more about as many of these things as possible. I want to understand why I'm still here after coming so close to death so many times... I want to know why I feel so certain that the reality we so readily accept is only the tip of the iceburg.
I know people, in general, are afraid of what others will think of them if they open up about unexplainable things that have taken place in their lives. They don't want to be tagged as crazy. They are part of the reason I've started this blog. I want them to have a place where they can discuss their experiences without fear of being judged.
Personally, I've had several ghostly experiences, one truly dramatic and unforgettable one. I've lost time after being shrouded in brilliant light in the hills of southeastern Oklahoma. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, as a child living in country northeast of Dallas, TX, and seeing beings looking in at me through my bedroom window. At that time I thought they were wearing sunshades. I wasn't until much later in life when I was walking through a bookstore and saw the cover of a book called "Communion" that I realized those weren't shades... they were their eyes.
I've had dreams in which I was shown how to build things, which I dismissed even though some of those dreams were repeated many times, only to stumble across someone else's story years later which told of dreams and instructions... and they did build it... just like the one in my dream....
In the time I have left to meander around this old ball of dirt I would like to learn more about as many of these things as possible. I want to understand why I'm still here after coming so close to death so many times... I want to know why I feel so certain that the reality we so readily accept is only the tip of the iceburg.
The Question Is. . .
I'd be willing to bet that almost everyone has, at some time in their life, had an experience which they couldn't readily explain without delving into the supernatural. If they haven't, I'd be willing to bet they are either extremely young or so naive they typically accept events regardless of their nature.
I truly hope to draw to this site some open minded people who have experiences to share. With the aid of the internet's annonymity I'm looking forward to the development of some controversioan discussions.
As soon as I get some rest I will start this blogspot off with an experience of my own.
I truly hope to draw to this site some open minded people who have experiences to share. With the aid of the internet's annonymity I'm looking forward to the development of some controversioan discussions.
As soon as I get some rest I will start this blogspot off with an experience of my own.
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