I flew down the front step my curly locks bouncing with the hasty rhythm of my gait. When I got to the silver Jetta waiting on the curb for me Lucky was staring at me with a smeared expression of frustrated anticipation. “Dude you could be a little punctual from time to time, yeah?” He was right, I had spent too much time on my early morning projects and had lost track of the hours.
“Sorry, man, but the dream world calls, y’know?”“Whatever” he groaned, and he slapped the car in drive and squealed out of the lot.
He was always a bit uncomfortable with my discussions into the dream world, psychic and paranormal phenomena, etc. He was dead set that “visions” and “spirits” were simply the result of psychological disorders projecting hallucinations from the sheer boredom of living pathetic lives, which he thought all claimants of visionary experiences were. I sometimes prodded him with questions, but usually left him alone. Telling him anything about the wild adventures I had had on the astral plane would only worsen his distaste for such experience, and rob my own experience of intensity. He was like that, a true skeptic, always looking for a reason to remain skeptical. I knew he would always find one. That was the nature of such mysteries, they have a way of remaining mysterious. Elusive and disciplined, they will not show their head unless they know it is the right time.
I laid my head back into the seat and closed my eyes, trying to glean from this morning’s astral projection the most important lessons it had to impart. I remembered a huge tree that had been hollowed out, and the strange looking people inside had come out to greet me with inquisitive looks, almost as if they had never seen one of me before…
“Hey where ya goin’?” I suddenly belched, as I noticed Lucky taking a left turn on Dahlia St, where we usually take a right.
“Thanks to you, I’ve got to take the short cut, bud. If we’re late one more time, Lipps is gonna fire us for sure.”
His “shortcut” was down a seldom used dirt road, decrepit and full of potholes. One side of the road was completely overgrown with thick forest and lush undergrowth, while the other side undulated between grassy hills and rocky cliffs, dropping off some 100 or so feet. A road like this demanded slow passage, but in his haste Lucky was taking it at about 40 mph. The little Volkswagen jostled and jolted us around in the cab like tic-tacs.
“Hey, you gonna slow down, or are you tryin' to toss us both out the window?” I shouted over the crunch of the car’s body absorbing the shock of potholes 8 inches deep. “I think you just lost a fender back there!”
“We’re fine, just hold on tight!” and he cranked it up to 50 mph. I looked at the time on the console; it was 9:47.
“Hey, we’ve still got over ten minutes, slow down! We’ll get there in plenty of time. It’s only about three to four minutes away, and that’s at normal speed!”
“Yeah, but I haven’t eaten anything yet, I’ve got to hit the vending machine before I hit the floor.”
I rolled my eyes and breathed out an exasperated sigh. I don’t know how he could consider that garbage food, it’s really more petrochemicals than anything. Yet another reason, I suspected silently, he couldn’t wrap his mind around anything but material phenomena. He didn’t feed his mind a single nutrient throughout the day!
As we rounded the last sharp turn on this precarious dirt road, our vision met a wall. Towering before us, black as night, a freight truck had jackknifed and was lying across the length of the road, 40 feet in front of us. With the wheel still turned, Lucky slammed the brakes, sending the little Jetta spinning, tail first, towards the edge of the cliff on our left. We looked at each other, stark white with terror and nodded a mix of goodbye and mutual respect, and the world went white.
I came to in a white haze.
“We are so happy to see you both!” echoed through my misty white field of vision.
“Hello?!” I cried, groping around myself. There was nothing to grab hold of, yet I felt safe and stationary.
“Hello!” I heard Lucky bellow from somewhere near me. “Is that you, Steve?”
“Yeah man, I’m right here! You okay?”
“We are so happy to see you both” Again the hollow, echoing voice proclaimed.
“Who is that? You hear that, man?”
“Yeah, Lucky, I hear it.” My vision cleared up, as if a misty haze had just dissipated before us. I was in a large hallway, crystalline in structure. Gilded trusses arched over our heads in apices of colorfully lit geometrical shapes, bending and morphing so as not to retain the same shape for more than a second. To my left was Lucky, slowly opening up from his fetal position, uncurling like a pill bug in these bright new environs.
“We have been waiting for you; we would very much like to speak with you!” The voice was calm, confident, feminine and beautiful. I turned to look at my friend, who shot me a look of apology, maybe for all the times he called me delusional, maybe to himself for thinking me delusional.
“Please, come closer. There is much we must tell you! You are travelers along the lines of time, and have found the abode of the ancestors!”
“Why are we here?” I queried, a bit hesitant to ask.
“You are here because you have found your way”
“Am I dead?” Lucky sobbed, unable to control his emotional state.
“You can never die. Your essence is eternal, as is ours. You are merely on the threshold of the Bridge, where you may choose to cross, or choose to return.”
I slowly turned my head toward Lucky, who was doing the same towards me. Neither of us was ready to cross that bridge. Before we could speak, the soft voice proclaimed, “Your choice has been made. Go in peace, and we will see you again. Live, love and learn!” Once again, before either of us could protest, the world went white.
We both woke up in the cab of Lucky’s silver 1992 Volkswagen Jetta to the sound of a car horn behind us. We looked around and observed our position on the seldom used dirt road riddled with potholes. Behind us was a blue Jeep Cherokee, whose driver was getting impatient, as we were not moving. The engine of the Jetta was idling smoothly and the clock on the console read 9:48. There was no jackknifed truck anywhere to be found. Lucky slowly eased the shifter to drive, and we drove off silently, only the crunch of the gravel under the wheels pronouncing the reality of our presence.
We arrived at the large factory building parking lot and exited the vehicle. I looked at my friend on our way into the building. He was obviously working this experience around in his head.
“Well, what do you think about that? Your very first paranormal experience!” I exclaimed.
“What are you talking about? I must’ve passed out at the wheel, that’s all!” was his retort.
I was a bit shocked, but just accepted it. “Whatever, dude. Go get your junk food. I’ll see ya on the floor.”
