Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead. – Chanakya
I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about. - Arthur C. Clarke
The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions. - Claude Levi-Strauss
We have no right to express an opinion until we know all of the answers. - Kurt Cobain
The #1206 “fiction” series continues …
He stared at the mind map before him, an encapsulation of more than 45 years of unusual events in his Life and in the lives of people close to him. For years he had sought answers to the mystery contained within these events and despite asking as many people as he could, their answers were fleeting, sparse, questionable and lacked any kind of supporting evidence. As someone grounded in the 21st century who had built his entire life around information, he needed irrefutable data to accompany their answers and there was none.
He sought clarity to all of the events and so he had drawn a mind map to help him obtain the clarity. After he had drawn it, he realized the enormity and complexity of the mystery.
“Now I see why this bothers me as it does”, he thought to himself as he stared at the mind map in front of him.
He allowed his eyes to roam randomly over the mind map as each bubble in the map triggered a memory for him.
He thought of the face he saw through his bedroom window when he was four years old. The face was not human and stared at him coldly as the only thing between the 4 inches of space between himself and the face was the pane of glass itself. He had leapt from his bed then and run for his bedroom door, screaming for his parents. As he ran from his bedroom, he turned and looked towards the window.
The face stared at him unsmiling.
His parents went outside, searching around the house, but had found nothing.
Another bubble reminded him of the time he found himself getting out of bed in the middle of the night, looking through the window for “something” and seeing someone outside press up against the outside wall as if desiring not to be seen. Suddenly, “others” were in the room with him and despite his struggles, proceeded to carry him outside through the closed window.
He woke up standing on the front lawn watching a group of lights retreat into the night sky.
Another bubble brought back a memory of driving down a highway in the rural town where he had grown up and as he came around a turn, he suddenly stopped his car when he thought he saw an accident blocking the road. He was blinded by bright flashing lights and stopped quickly when he realized that a group of people were spread across the road and slowly advancing towards him. They approached slowly and methodically and it wasn’t until he realized that someone was standing by his car that he became aware that something was wrong. The figure beside the car started to bend down as if to look into the car window and his awareness of the event suddenly stopped.
He awoke two hours later parked on the side of the road and the “accident” and the people on the road were gone.
And yet another bubble reminded him of the night he and wife were sleeping with their newborn child asleep in the crib. He had had a disturbing dream that night and over the course of breakfast the next morning, began to relate the dream to his wife and she interrupted him by completing the dream. They were startled by the realization that they had both dreamt the same dream, of a group of “people” standing around their child’s crib while they were unable to get up and find out what was going on. Later hypnosis would reveal that they both had experienced an event where they had been prevented from getting up by someone with its face in theirs telling them repeatedly “don’t be afraid” as “others” stood around their child’s crib for a reason unknown to them.
His eyes flicked randomly over the mind map again.
He remembered the time when his child was two and they were reading a Dora the Explorer book together. For reasons unknown to him, there was an image in the book of an alien in the middle of the jungle and his child pointed to it, unprompted, and said “friend”. He remembered with a chill that his child said “friend” every time the child saw that image.
And then about a year later, while reading that same book, his child pointed to the alien image and said “scary”. Shortly after that, the child began having nightmares about “the invisibles” that came into their room to do “bad things”. The child, while obviously frightened, could never remember details.
Then there was the time he was driving in the White Hills of New Hampshire about 11pm one midsummer’s night when suddenly the inside of his vehicle was bathed in an intense blue light. Assuming that it was from a police helicopter above him, he looked through the windshield and couldn’t see anything nor was there anything shining a light in through any of the windows. He also realized that the light inside the vehicle had no shadows, as if emanating from many sources simultaneously. He shivered and thought, “I’ve been driving too long today – I need to find a hotel and get off the road.” and at that moment, the light winked out. His wife slept in the passenger seat beside him, not stirring, and as he reflected on how fatigued he must be to be imagining such things, his son, sitting in the car seat behind him, asked in a quiet voice, “What was that blue light, Daddy?”
Another bubble brought back a memory of one morning when his child, at the age of four, came screaming into his bedroom that “an ugly man” was staring at him through his bedroom window. He shivered when memory of that morning triggered another thought, that his child had experienced other unusual events at the same times in his Life and in the same order as he had when he was young. He had never told anyone about them but had written them down. He had checked them off one by one as his child experienced them in the same order.
He never told his child anything, preferring to observe rather than feed the potential imagination of a child who might make up things to make a father happy.
Their parallel lives and the shared events continued for years.
The mind map represented decades of a mystery that he had accumulated and that had accompanied his family wherever he went.
Unusual events, unusual dreams and even physical evidence left on his body that had been questioned and examined by doctors – all which yielded no answers to the many questions asked.
It tormented his mind – a mind driven to understand the “why” of things.
And yet no answers of any credibility came.
People offered theories of aliens, guardian angels, demons and practically everything else, each suggestion based on their Life experiences and their personal biases but to his frustration, were always presented without evidence to support their theory. Some had suggested mental illness of some form or perhaps a brain tumor but opinions expressed by some of the best doctors in the arenas of psychiatry and psychology had strongly rejected any such suggestion.
And now he sat in front of his keyboard, burning with a desire to share his experiences while cognizant of the impact of possibly being lumped together with the mentally unwell, the faker looking to make a quick buck or the person whose life was so empty that they would do anything to claim their 15 minutes of fame.
He wanted nothing to do with any of them.
He only wanted answers.
Why had these things happened?
Why were they still happening?
Was his family in danger?
The bubbles on his mind map each contained a story – stories that ranged from the odd to the unusual to the terrifying.
The stories described events that had been experienced by others in addition to himself - events that intrigued him, frightened him, annoyed him and made him angry.
He had been frightened by it as a child but now he was concerned for the safety and well-being of his family.
And besides, he didn’t like mysteries in his Life.
Now this mystery burned in his mind, insisting on being shared and demanding to be solved.
He had no idea where to start.
And so he stared at his screen and wondered, “What do I do now?”
To be continued.
© 2015 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved
Background
This piece of “fiction” actually describes personal experiences that I have lived with for my entire Life. What is the origin of the events described here and the many other events not described? I have no idea. Many suggestions have been made as previously noted – I have dismissed them all without data and had my sanity corroborated by people who know more about such things than I do.
I have subjected myself to hypnosis which terrified those present during the session. I have no recollection of the events described in the session but occasional flashbacks from the session have not been pleasant.
I have subjected myself to analysis by some of the best minds in the psychiatry / psychology industry and all have come to the same conclusion – I am normal (whatever that means), have no physical or mental illnesses of any type and they believe that I have experienced the events as I described them.
Why I am sharing these events now?
Again, I have no idea – perhaps my mind believes that someone out there can provide the data that answers the questions I have asked for decades.
Perhaps my sharing will help others understand that they don’t need to hide from others who suggest that they have lost their mind.
And maybe it just feels good to get it off my chest.
Or maybe it’s all of the above.
Some have told me that it takes great courage to share such a story. Maybe although I disagree. Why is courage required to share a personal truth when many people fill the world with negativity, misinformation, hate or confusion without a second thought?
People often fear what they don’t know or understand and are often uncomfortable around people who act in a courageous manner while they secretly wish they had the same level of courage to share their own story or pursue their own dream. Lack of courage on their part then becomes their MO to discredit or disparage the alleged courage of others since it is often easier and “safer” to attack the courage of others than it is to exhibit one’s own sense of courage.
I know posting this will attract the crazy people – that’s what spam filters are for. Some people are so crazy that merely saying “good morning” can launch them into a diatribe that demonstrates their insanity so I’m not concerned about them.
But perhaps someone out there can offer a nugget of knowledge to someone who requires data for practically everything he does.
Perhaps.
Series Origin
This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.
While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)
This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.
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