Visitor: B

Message: I was nine. I was experiencing much anxiety. I was afraid to go to sleep. I thought if I went to sleep I would swallow my tongue. If I closed my eyes I saw inside my head. It was a very big place. Dark. There was a door with light very far away. I could hear my thoughts. My thoughts were yelling very loud. The sound was deafening. But there were no words. There were no coherent sounds. Even the noise was alien. I could not sleep. I did not know what was going on. The ringing in my ears grew to a fever pitch. I did not know what to do. I called out. My dad came. I told him. He told me not to worry. That night I do not know what happened. I dreamed I was floating. Almost spinning around. Colored dots surrounded me. I was in a white room. Still floating. Spinning faster. Stop. Floating.

The next day was okay. No memories. That next night I noticed something. There were two perfectly oval rash marks on my body. I called out to my dad. He came. I showed him the first rash mark. It was on my belt line at about the point were one would get a hernia. In my adulthood I surmised it is where my testicular tube exits my abdominal wall - where one gets a hernia and oriented horizontally. My dad was confused. Reassuring. He told me not to worry. But, I showed him the other rash mark. Also perfectly oval about one inch long and one-half inch high on my groin adjacent to my pubic area oriented diagonaly. Hmmmm. My dad was perplexed. Again I told him I was afraid I was going to swallow my tongue. He told me not to worry. But then I showed him my swollen testicle. Shit. That thing is as big as a golf ball. That aint right for a nine year old. It's time to go to the hospital. I drank som radio-active kool-aid the doctor gave me. He too a live x-ray image. The circulation was fine. No diognosis. There was nothing th doctor could do. He blamed it on puberty and provided no explanation for the rashes. My dad told me that sometime when you become a man your hormones kind of go crazy. Maybe that's all it is. But rest assured, according to the doctor, it was not torche which is a condition where a testicle gets spun around and the circulation gets cut off and if not treated within 24 hours it causes the testicle to die. Damn! We were glad it was not that.

The next morning my dad was concerned but the rashes were gone without a blemish to be found. My testicle was normal size but it kind of hurt. I took it easy that day. Shortly thereafter I moved my bedroom upstairs. The sensation of swallowing my tongue subsided but the ringing in my ears continued and became audibly louder to where I felt others could hear it. I was still anxious. A week passed. Or maybe more. Then one Saturday I sat in the chair by the window when a call came. It was my teacher. He asked if I was okay. My mom said yes. But he said I had missed a week of school. My mom disagreed. I went to school every day. But apparently I had been absent for a week without memory of where I had been. I could not explain. I had no memory of that week during the days which I was not at school. I did not know where I had been or what I had done. The anxiety climaxed again almost immediately. I tried not to think about it. What was goin on. The Monday I kicked my lunch all the way to school. The neighbor lady scolded me. She did not like seeing that. I really like climbing her tree. Once I climbed it all the way to the top. She was old. My mom me go to school that day. The anxiety continued and over time it subsided.

Four years later I was sleeping lout under the stars in Wenatchee Washington at my grandparents hours in the summer during the Perseid meteor shower showing in a clear summer night sky. I was midnight. Still 80 degrees. Didn't need a sleeping bag. Just a blanket on the ground. The meteors were streaking across the sky. Zipping. All from and in the same direction. Glowing bursts of light streaking across the sky and fading fast. A saw a satellite that night. Slow, looking like a star, but slower than an airplane, constant, one light and unblinking. From horizon to horizon in the same direction and in the same intensity of light followed. And then I saw it. From the opposite direction of everything a star streaked across the sky. Fast. In a flash. And it stopped. Directly over me. For a moment it hovered. It looked like it was a million miles away. A bright and shinning star looking down on me. And then it zipped away. At a 90 degree angle across the sky to the southern horizon. Zig-zagging in short zigs and zags. Fast. Like a pinball. Zig-zagging away in a straight trajectory past the southern horizon away from the west where it came. I felt relieved. That night I slept. I do not remember waking but I slept good under the stars. Sometimes my ears still ring. But I don't worry.

I don't think they want to hurt us. I'm just not sure what they are up to. Why are they so interested in us. Maybe we are an endangered species like the tigers. Like we are so interested in the gorillas. Maybe our mountain is disappearing. Maybe we don't know what is on the horizon like the monkeys don't know about the coming wave of destruction coming upon them. Maybe that is why they are collecting our sperm and eggs and later checking up on us to see if we are okay. I am 44 now. Sometimes, my ears still ring. Sometimes I can still see that star stopping and zig-zagging like it was yesterday. But I don't worry. If I don't think they want to hurt us.