Bobby had me ride with him to the store where he worked, and then told me to take the bike to go pick up my little brother.   I don’t know why he wanted me to take the bike, since I had my own car and anyway that damned bike was huge, just like Bobby.   I couldn’t even reach the ground with both feet on that thing.   But I didn’t usually argue with Bobby.   He was a big, gorgeous Hawaiian guy and under that toughness he was a real sweetie at heart.   Anyhow, he waved ’bye to me and I struggled my way with the bike to go pick up my kid brother Pete, who was coming in on the late morning bus to visit.

“What do you wanna do ?” I asked Pete.

“Well, can we go to the mall ?   It’s almost Kathy’s birthday.”   Kathy is Pete’s wife, and she’s pretty wonderful in my book.

“Sure,” I said.   He hopped on behind me, and off we went.

The mall was huge, the latest thing in American shopping.    It made the malls of the 90’s seem pretty pedestrian.   The lobby itself between the two sides of shops was probably as big as a football field.   I didn’t want to park the bike outside, so we wheeled it on into the mid-mall parking, right there in the middle of the lobby.   Most people left their bicycles there, but no one would hassle us for bringing in the monster.

Damn !   Where was that lock ?   I didn’t feel comfortable just leaving the bike there without locking it up.   Not that there weren’t mall cops around, but this wasn’t necessarily the best of neighborhoods, and low-lifes from all over the place came to hang out in the mall.   Some things just never change.   Bobby loved that bike and I don’t know what he’d do if anything happened to it.    Pete went off down the mall to find the music store, and I headed over to the sports store hoping to find something I could use to lock up Bobby’s bike.

Damn, again !   There I was back at the bike, and this thing I’d gotten from the store wasn’t nearly long enough or strong enough to even bother trying to use.   I saw Pete coming back with a package under his arm, and yelled out to him to go nick one of the ropes I saw hanging across the lobby at a storefront under construction.   Pete headed over and climbed up the plywood enclosure, grabbing the loose end of a rope that seemed to be just hanging there.   It was one of those great, big, hemp-type ropes.   He yanked on it, and—

Holy cow !   All the lights went out !   That rope wasn’t just some loose rope !   A collective shout went up from the people shopping, and most of them made a bee-line out the doors.

“Pete !” I yelled, running over his way.   “Forget the rope !”   Pete jumped down and we went back to where I’d left the bike.   Well, where I thought I’d left it — it wasn’t there !

“Oh, hell !”   I thought to myself.   I didn’t really care about the bike too much myself, but Bobby just loved the thing.    Thoughts of Bobby’s reaction hurled through my mind, the fear and hollowness starting to give me that painful feeling in my chest.    “Pete,” I said urgently, “we’d better get out of here !   Someone probably saw you yanking the rope.   Let’s go !”    Pete had vivid red hair, and I’m sure he’d stuck out like a sore thumb up there.

Just outside the door was an elderly couple sitting on a bench to the right.   As we passed through they door, the man suddenly cried, “There they are !” and I thought, “oh, shit, they saw us !”   But when I looked at his face, I saw that he was looking up in the air above us and pointing.   I looked up, and there was a small plane flying in towards us.   It was very small — a two-seater at most.   Nothing like I’d ever seen before, though.

“There they are !” cried the old man again, and looked at us with fear in his face.   “Don’t let them near you !   They’ll take you !” he yelled.   I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I looked back up at the sky, and damned if that plane wasn’t zeroing in right at us !

“Get away !” I yelled to Pete.   “Don’t let them get you !”   I thought they were going after Pete.   I pushed him off to the side, and the plane swooped down and out jumped a pretty plain looking guy wearing a very blah grey suit.   He grabbed me and told me to “swallow this,” thrusting a tiny thing that looked like something electronic in my face.   I struggled with him, averting my face and trying to break his hold on me.   “Take it !” he yelled.   I broke away and started to run back towards the mall, but the little plane swooped by again and out jumped another guy wearing the same blah grey suit.   He came after me and grabbed my arm, a large and strange-looking hypodermic in his hand.   It looked like he was about to inject one of those tiny electronic gadgets right into me !   I struggled, shouting, “No !   No !”, and then—

The alarm went off, ugh.   It was 6:00 and time to get up and go to work.   Geez, one hell of a dream.   Just wait ’til I tell my brother Pete about this one !

Off to work I went.   Another oh, so exciting day.   My job wasn’t anything to write home about, but it paid the bills and kept me off the street.   The day went by at average speed, and at 5:00 I turned off the gadgets and came home.   Nothing on T.V. again.    Nothing but drek these days !   Well, the end of another day.   I went to bed, sleepy as all heck, and fell asleep to the tube droning on in the background.   I sure love that timer-off on my new T.V. !

I was sitting on the top step of the back stairwell in the pensión.   The old wood of the structure was greyed with age and warped from the constant humidity — the walls, the floors, the stairs.   The single bulb above shone dimly, casting shadows down the stairwell and over the walls.   It seemed like hardly anyone ever used the back stairs, so there was apparently no reason to light it any better.   Why spend the money ?   This was a poor country and its people were poor.   Glory to the tourists who dared to venture in and leave some of their cash in exchange !

I heard voices talking urgently, and leaned in slightly towards the second floor hallway.

“We’ve got to get him when he arrives.   My sources tell me he’s coming here, coming this afternoon.   The American.   We must not allow him to get any further !”

“Yes, General,” said the other voice.   Their voices were heavy with accents, each one different.   They were speaking English to each other, and it was apparent that they did not share native languages.

“What ?” I thought to myself.   This sounded pretty scary.   I wondered who “the American” was ?   Maybe I should try to warn him or something.   And just as that thought finished meandering past my senses, I heard a car drive up, motor shut off, car door open and close.   I vaguely heard the front door of the pensión open and shut, and then someone was coming up the back stairs where I was sitting.   One of the lower stairs squeaked slightly, and I looked down the stairwell, trying to see in the dark and make out who it was.   About midway up the stairs I was able to see a tall and excruciatingly handsome man with a soft leather briefcase.   He saw me at about the same time.

That must be the American.   “Shhh !” I hissed to him.    I told him what I’d overheard, and he stayed there, standing halfway up the stairs, looking at me intently.   I wondered whether he would trust me and why he would if he did, being a total stranger and all.   Well, he pondered me for another moment and then took the last few stairs up, grabbed my hand and said, “Come on, let’s go !   We’ve got to get out of here.”

“What about my purse ?   My money, my passport—”, I inquired worriedly.

“No, no, there’s no time.   We have to go.”   And off we went.

We slipped down the stairs quietly, left through the back door and went lightly around the side of the pensión.   His car was, of course, one of those fancy sports cars.   He must have taken it in on the ferry, because I can assure you it wasn’t a local car.   The cars around here were old and funny looking, and this one was just gorgeous.   Nothing like being conspicuous !   We backed out of the gravel parking area and took off down the road.   I looked back over my shoulder just in time to see the front door open and an angry face looking out towards us, mouth open, probably spitting some expletives-deleted.

We tore down the highway for some time.   The sun dipped below the distant mountains, and the air was suddenly cold.   I wished I’d had my jacket with me.   He put the heater on, but the car was topless and it was just cold.

The man was a civilian but I guess he had something pretty important that these military guys wanted bad.   He was friendly and oh, so handsome !   I couldn’t believe my eyes.   Handsome man, fast car, intrigue ...   I thought this kind of stuff only happened on T.V. !

Suddenly he came to a sliding stop on the rocky side of the road, and said, “we have to go back.”

“What ?” I said, surprised as all heck.

“We have to go back.   If I don’t deliver a message to someone, he may end up dead.”

He turned the car around and back we went.   When we got near the pensión, he turned off the lights, drove slowly and parked several blocks away behind an old park which had a good covering of trees.   He took my hand and we ran as quietly as we could through the darkness, and then walked, almost tiptoeing, around the pensión to the back door.   We opened the screen door slowly, quietly—

The wooden door burst open and several armed and uniformed men, all burly, ugly guys, grabbed us and pulled us into the small foyer inside the back door.   The man everyone addressed as “General” was there, arms akimbo, and he told the men to lock us in one of the rooms upstairs, one without a window.   They did, and I sat forlorn on the bed.   The man stood by the place where there would have been a window had it not been bricked up.

“What are we going to do ?” I asked.   He came up behind me put his arms around me.   He bent down some and put his chin on my shoulder next to my cheek.   He was so warm and so strong !   He opened his mouth, about to speak, and then—

“Reeeee !   Reeeee !   Reeeee !   Reeeee !” went the alarm.    I swacked it with my hand and sat up, rubbing my eyes.   Sigh.    Another day, another dollar.

They wanted to know if I was ready for the mission.   As ready as one could be, I’d told them.   What could anyone do to prepare for something that had never been done before ?   My partner and I entered the space tower and strapped ourselves into our seats.   It was sort of like a giant space rocket, but it was fixed to the ground and had room to walk around, along with various panels of controls on certain parts of the inner wall.

The next thing I knew, I was alone, completely alone.   I was reaching out, out, out, deep into space, beyond this galaxy, beyond the next.   It wasn’t hot or cold, really ...   it just wasn’t anything at all.   The almost death of the nothingness was nearly terrifying, but there wasn’t anything I could do but just be there, be pushed, pulled, so far out and away from home, my body, my friends, my life, my planet.   I felt like I couldn’t breathe or talk or move, and I couldn’t.   Most horrifying was not knowing if I could get back.   Could I ?   Where was my partner ?   Was he experiencing the same things ?   Could he get back ?

Then suddenly, I was floating.   Detached.   Disconnected from everything.   I’d made it.   To where, I didn’t know and probably never would.   But I’d made it, and that much I knew.   It vaguely dawned on me that the question of “could I get back” no longer seemed to matter.   I was just there, a fantastic place past galaxies upon galaxies upon galaxies out into space, where there was nothing.   Nothing at all.   And I felt almost like I was going to fall over or something.   So far away !

In the deep depths of consciousness, I felt a pull.   A slight tug on my very beingness.   Now I really felt like I was going to fall over.   Then suddenly I was falling, zooming through all that space, millions and billions and trillions of miles, of light years, at a speed unattainable by material objects.   Again I felt unable to breathe !   It was so terrifying !   Then—

WHOOSH !   I slammed into my body and sat straight up in bed all in one split second.   Oh my God !   I took a deep breath and laid back down.   Was it time to get up yet ?   Oh, good ...   still another couple of hours left to sleep !

The ship pulled into the mouth of the harbor, slowing to let the pilot boat come alongside and allowing the pilot to board the ship by means of a rope and wood ladder thrown over the rail.   As soon as he got to the bridge and shook hands with the captain, the various crew on watch, with the help of a couple of tugs, took the ship into port and docked easily.   Ropes were placed, gangway put out, and the evolution was over.   I’d been dying to go ashore for what seemed like forever.   I loved this place and it’d been so long since I’d been here !

I only had the morning off, so I left the moment we got shore okay from the port captain.   I walked up the dock, taking a couple of turns this way and that until passing through the gate and being officially on foreign turf.   The cobblestone streets were narrow and winding, and packed with shops and restaurants.   There were pastry shops and sandwich places, coffee bars, butchers, bakers, fresh fruit and vegetable stands, outdoor cafes.   Did I have any escudos ?   I could almost taste it all from the fine fragrances wafting through the air.   Ah, back in my favorite place !   It’s been so many years !   Lord, how I’ve missed this place !

“Damn,” I thought, looking at my watch.   I’m late and I’m going to be in a whole load of trouble for not being on the job.   Oh, god !   That’s the last thing I need !   I turned and retraced my steps, hurrying back towards the docks.   If I didn’t get back soon, I didn’t know what would happen....

Yeow !   Geez, ever been awakened by a cat jumping on your face ?    Ugh.   Must be time to get up !

So, here I am at work again.   I have to consider some kind of a new career !   This desk job stuff is just too boring, you know ?

The clouds were arranged in a long line of double rows of big, round puffs.   Tornado clouds to be sure, but I’ve never seen them in a line like this, two puffs side by side, in a long line.   And they had a distinct bluish tint to them, and they were crackling and hissing with electrical discharges going off every other second.   And this line of ominous electric clouds was marching straight towards us.

My old car was parked on the dusty driveway, and the old, beaten-up barn with its greying wood was just behind me.   Off ahead of me and a tad to the right was a similar building but smaller, more like a garage.   My friends were back in the doorway of the barn, and their gaze followed mine.

In the distance I could see tornadoes, all going at once, just tearing up the horizon.   What was happening ?   The air began to feel electric itself as the line of blue clouds got close to being overhead.   We all looked at each other and back up to the sky and back at each other.   What is this ?

The wind came up and started to roar.   The air sparked and popped.   It got very dark, orange and blue and grey.   The wind howled and the electricity in the air made all our hair stand on end.   A great noise started, and—

Oh, Jesus !   Thank God it was just a dream.   Another one of those damned dreams !   Wow.   What a relief.   Guess I’ll get up and get ready for work.

I escaped when the quartermaster wasn’t looking.   I made a run for it down the dock and into town, the road lined with wind-blown palms and the humid air hanging heavily on me as I ran as best I could, not being in the very best of shape !   I made a point to turn on several side-streets so no one from the ship could see me from the gangway once they realized I’d gotten away.

They’d been giving me some strange drugs and keeping me prisoner there, along with everyone else.   But I wasn’t for it.    I tried to spit out the drugs whenever possible, but they usually stood over you until you’d swallowed.   Well, here I was, free.   But I still had to get home, and home was a lot of miles and part of an ocean away.   I found a public telegram office and went in, asking the proprietress for some paper so I could compose a telex home.   She complied and showed me to a closet-sized side room with a small desk and a chair in it, one bare overhead bulb hanging above.   I pulled its draw-chain, sat down and started to write my message.   I figured here I’d be safe.   The proprietress of the shop didn’t seem like she was one of those “owned” by the psych ship.   I call it a “psych ship” because they were run by psychiatrists paid by governments to keep prisoners there, out of the way, out of sight and sound, drugged into complacence.   People that governments didn’t want around rabble-rousing.   And I was one of them.

I finished my message and just as I was getting up from the desk, the proprietress came by the door and smiled at me.   The smile, however, was forced and phony.   “Oh, no,” I thought.   “Oh, no.”   She was one of them.

“You told them, didn’t you ?” I asked her.

She nodded her head and said, “you know, the water you drink there is radioactive.   They can track you wherever you go.    Trying to escape is useless.   Even your urine is trackable on their screens.”

All I could feel was despair, total, horrible despair.   Now that I’d tried to escape, I was sure they would be even more cruel, drug me into complete catatonia.   I can’t bear the thought of it !   Isn’t there any way to escape this horrible place ?

RRRRRRRRRRRRRING !   went the alarm.   Shit, that was close !   Was it something I ate ?   Hmmm.   Well, off to work.   I just hate being late.

I’d been touring around for some time, an extended vacation of sorts.   I’d always wanted to see the dark continent, so I’d finally taken off half a year and just went, from country to country, reserve to reserve, township to township.   Not the safest of vacations, but I’d always been one for adventure.

I was in the eating area of a large park — it was more of a huge game reserve, actually.   The grounds went on forever and there were wild animals roaming about here and there.   This area had been set aside for the more feeble-hearted tourists to be able to rest, use the portable facilities, and eat without the worry of being attacked by some lion or charged by an angry elephant.   You get the idea.   It had been the brainstorm of some government official bent on improving tourism to his country.    The area was enclosed by fencing, and guards in khaki stood watch with large guns, their white eyes staring balefully out of their dark faces.

There was even a row of electronic message screens — the kind they sometimes have in banks so you can read the news while you’re waiting in line, only these could also show you pictures.    Incredibly out of place, here in the middle of nowhere !   — strung up in a row above the southeast edge of the enclosure, right by where a large grouping of weather-worn picnic tables stood empty and unused.

I was just coming out of one of the latrines (something I’d been looking forward to for some hours), and I saw a message flash simultaneously across all the screens: “CNN News Pop Quiz.   Who was this man, and what was his place in history ?”   There were three choices, (a), (b) and (c), and a telephone number to call.   Heck, I knew who that was — choice (c) !   I made haste over to the small bank of pay phones which apparently spent most of their time in disuse, and dialed the number on the screens.   Thank God for calling cards !   You never had to worry about having loose change.

A female voice came on the line and said “Choice (c) ?    That is correct.   Let me connect you...”

Suddenly a man came running into the clearing, several men in government uniforms close behind.   I heard a series of pops and thwangs and the man collapsed face-down in the dirt, several arrow-like things sticking out of his back and thwapping in huge vibrations back and forth, making a wooden twanging sound.   This must be some new kind of weapon: the “arrows” had metal tips (I could see one which had gone entirely through the man and was sticking out of his right side beneath his arm), and the first part of the shaft was metal as well, giving way to a wooden shaft, but then the base of the shaft was again metal and had a large, round, nut-like end which I guess held the powder or in some way dealt with being shot out of the rifle-like guns I saw.   It appeared the man had been shot by several different guns, as there were three or four of these projectiles wedged in his now quite motionless body.

I stayed out of view, peering around the tiny wall which made up the little pay-phone stand.   There were excited voices speaking a local dialect I didn’t understand (there were lots of those !), and eventually I heard the bushes rustling as the men apparently decided to leave.   I heard a vehicle start up and drive off, leaving a cloud of dust billowing high enough to be visible from inside the rest area enclosure.

I stepped out with some caution and went over to the man laying face-down and obviously dead in the dirt.   I knelt and turned him over as well as I could with all those arrows sticking out of his back.   He was a white man, something not particularly common in these parts, since most tourists generally went places where the politics were at least a little more dependable.    Oddly, though, he bore tribal skin scarring, markings made at manhood initiations, markings telling stories about things I knew nothing about.

Suddenly I heard noises behind me, and out of the trees and bushes burst several shouting khaki’d men, with long rifles sporting more of those arrow tips.   They ran towards me in a melee of noise and, taking aim straight at me, shot their strange guns.   I could hear the sound of the arrows twanging in the air, the world gone into slow motion, and just as slowly I felt the fear rise up in my throat and spread throughout my whole body, paralyzing me, in that one split second, along with the singular feeling of total mystery — What ?   Why ?   I could hear the arrows beating the air, coming closer and closer....

“Rrrroooowwwwwwww !” said Ranya, my cat, and I awoke to the glorious realization that today was a holiday, the 4th of July, and I didn’t have to go to work.

Maybe I shouldn’t be watching so many of those National Geographic specials.   Oh, boy !

Sometime later, I was sitting in my flat in the huge, grey-wood Victorian-style house.   It was sort of a rooming house, but each entire floor was one’s own suite.   Actually, it had been my Dad’s place, but he’d decided to return to Northern California and I came out to spend the summer, sort of housesitting until he decided whether to sublet the flat or what.   I was relaxing in the living room listening to some music, when suddenly there was a huge explosion !   The ground shook and shook and shook and the house bumped and bounced horribly.   It was like an earthquake in a way, but it didn’t have quite the same motion.   And then something strange happened: the earth seemed to liquefy completely.   The house began to sway slowly one way, then the other way, then yet another way.   It was a slow process, sort of like being at sea and slowly rolling in the waves.   But the house wasn’t a ship, and it moaned and creaked and huge cracks began to appear, the sound of wood tearing and cracking punctuating the creaks.

I ran out, bumped down the stairs and joined the growing congregation of my neighbors.   No one knew what was going on, but almost immediately a large patrol of uniformed men, some kind of national guard or something, came through town and one of them came over to us.   According to him, there had been a huge underground bomb set off by, get this, our own government, some sort of a test.   Quite a distance away.   But it was so big, the ground for hundreds of miles around had gone completely mad and just sort of turned to quicksand.

“Great !”, I thought.   Now what ?   I snuck back into the house intending to salvage a few of my more favorite possessions before the house fell apart entirely.   I had a duffel bag in the closet filled with skiing clothes, and I emptied that out (you can always buy new clothes) and began to cruise around my apartment shoving things into it — jewelry, sentimental goodies, things I’d collected in far-off places.   The building continued to periodically rock without prior announcement.   It wasn’t a comfortable sensation.

Then the guard came through and forced me to evacuate again.   I rejoined my neighbors outside, throwing the duffel into my car.   Mine seemed to be the only car still around, so I kept a wary eye on it.   There wasn’t much to do but stand around and be nervous; I didn’t want to leave until I could try to get more of my things out.

Suddenly a line of dark green cars came through, each vehicle marked “Army Corps” on the side panels.   They were engineers, I’d guessed, and two came over to our building as they traversed the neighborhood.   After a brief inspection, we were informed that we had 15 minutes in which to go inside and gather what we wanted and leave.   Beyond that, they figured the building wouldn’t be safe to be in or even around, along with most of the buildings in the neighborhood.   The din of cracking and creaking sounds was really weird.

So I went back in and grabbed some plastic grocery bags, since I didn’t have much else to use at this point.   I couldn’t get into the closet where the suitcases were, since the door was jammed.   I grabbed a few of my favorite books, but I guess most of my books were still in my apartment in L.A.   That was lucky !   I had with me only a few antique books which had been my grandmother’s, and I stuffed those in one of the bags.

On the adjoining wall were built-in shelves with built-in drawers in the center, and I opened those drawers to see what was in there.   Mostly some of Dad’s clothes that he’d left behind.   But in the third drawer down was a box much like the kind you keep you real silverware in.   I opened it, and inside were several guns.   They must have been Dad’s.   I figured I should take one or two, but for some reason I figured I needed Dad’s permission.    Guess I wasn’t thinking too clearly in all the hubbub.

So I ran outside to the pay phone across the other side of the driveway, and called Dad.   I explained what was going on and asked him if I should salvage some of his guns, and told him I figured maybe I ought to have one on me anyway in case things got wild around here.   He agreed, and wow !   All of a sudden, there he was, picking three guns out of the case and telling me which were for what and why I should take these three.

“Here,” he said, “let me show you how this one works.   Come here.”   So I followed him around the corner to a little office park, the kind where it’s a bunch of connected one-story offices with little outside paths going between all of the wings, with little trimmed plants and plate-glass windows and name plates on the doors.   “S.O.   Horticulture, M.D.”, that sort of thing.   “Jane O.   Measles, O.D.”

Well, Dad beckoned to this overweight fellow who apparently knew him and told the guy he needed to demonstrate this gun to his daughter.   The fat guy said fine, and opened a door to what was apparently a janitor’s closet.   He left the door open, and just stood in there, facing Dad, waiting.   He seemed to know what the drill was.   I didn’t.   The closet had its own plate-glass window on the side wall around the corner, and I could see through the window from where I was standing.   All of a sudden, Dad just shot the guy !   The guy dropped to the ground, folding, and obviously quite dead.   A small puddle of blood spread out some.

The next thing I knew, there was Dad, saying something about “see, doesn’t this gun work just great ?”   I was pretty freaked out !   And confused would be an understatement !   What the hell was going on here ?

RRRRAAAAAAKKK !   Went the alarm.   THANK GOD !   Jesus !   I think maybe I’ve been falling asleep to the T.V. too often !