The following is a former winner of the Amazing but Incredibly True Story Contest.
Copyright Muse Enterprises for the author, 1997
When I was younger, I looked with disdain upon people who talked about their "out of body" or astral projection experiences. They seemed like the type of subjects you may happen upon while flipping through channels and coming across a talk show. You know those shows -- audiences crowded with swarms of lunatics who like nothing better than to throw insults at the guest panel of West Virginian transsexual farmers' wives who have been abducted and molested by aliens. To me it was all very unreal, and I thought it likely that it was all a dillusional figment of the twisted imaginations of eccentric cult members, or perhaps the remnants of bad acid trips.
Until it happened to me.
When I was about 15 years old and a sophomore in high school, I had a very close friend named Richard. I always marveled at how similar we were: we had the same thought processes, same opinions, same sense of humor. It was uncanny. We could have been the same person the way we knew what the other was thinking and how they felt. Sometimes he would call me up, out of the blue, to cheer me up when there was no way he could have known that I needed it. He would say he just "felt" that I needed him, that he "felt" I was hurting or unhappy. Not only did we not need to talk to communicate our thoughts and feelings, we didn't even have to be physically in the same place.
This went on for months, and I became closer to him than any other friend I have ever had. Then one morning I woke up and had the strangest feeling. In that vacant white time, those few fleeting moments just after awakening but before memory of who and where you are comes rushing back like a wave and, breaking, soaks your thoughts, I was filled with the mot peculiar feeling of a presence. My mind was so completely occupied, distended even, with this presence that it took me a moment to realize what it was. Then, startled into full cognizance, I suddenly knew. It was Richard.
It is curious the way some people can tell when someone else is in the room without seeing them. Not only can they tell someone is in the room, but they can tell who it is... feel who it is. On this morning, I could feel it was Richard who was in my room. Lying on my side as I was, and not yet having opened my eyes, I could feel him standing behind me. And it was not a vague "Hmm... maybe someone is in my room" type feeling. And it was not an insubstantial flicker of thought. It was a feeling that was so powerful, so completely overwhelming, that I knew he was standing behind me -- just as I would know if I had seen him with my open eyes and touched him with my outstretched hand. But I didn't. I coulddn't see him, as I had yet to open my eyes. I could not touch him since I had not yet moved. I just felt him.
I lay there for a good five minutes, maybe more, the ardent sensation unwavering. I waited for a few minutes for the impression to disperse or resolve, but it did not. It continued. Finally, I began to wonder. How did Richard get into my room at 7:15 in the morning? Why is he standing here? What did he come for? I lay there patiently for a few moments longer, waiting for him to speak. He didn't. Soon I became rather disconcerted, and wondered what was going on. He didn't speak, he didn't physically touch me, he just stood behind me. And I felt him. That was all.
After a few minutes, and a few transient thoughts, I decided that I needed to get up, whether or not he was in the room. With a yawn, I sleepily mumbled, "Go away, Richard." And he did. Suddenly, I no longer felt the presence, no longer felt him standing behind me. My back was empty. The feeling of his presence, that I could feel somehow in-between my shoulderblades, was gone. Disturbed, I turned over and opening my eyes found the room to be empty. There was nothing behind me but my sister's empty bed, and behind it, the wall. As the sunlight filtered in through the blinds and struck harshly at the empty space on the hardwood floor, an image of Richard smiling suddenly popped into my head.
Disconcerted, I got out of bed and contemplated calling him, but as it was 7:30am I did not think that would be a wise decision on my part, so I continued to shower and dress for school. The entire day I carried with me an eerie feeling that I could not seem to shake. Richard's presence was now so pervasive in my mind that he occupied almost every thought. Upon returning from school that day, I set down my books, kicked off my shoes, and picked up the phone.
Richard answered on the second ring with his usual greeting of, "Hey Vicki, I knew it was you." (I asked him once if he had ever embarrassed himself by being so presumptuous as to greet me to another caller. He said no, that it had never happened; he always knew when it was me.) As flustered as I was by this point, I didn't bother with any of my customary greetings and got straight to the point of what was on my mind. I blurted, "What were you doing at about 7 this morning... maybe a little after?"
"Hmm..." he responded, "That's my `zoning' time."
"Your what?"
"My zoning out time," he explained. "I get up at about 5 or 10 of 7, hit the snooze once, and when the alarm goes off again, I wake up and `zone out' for a bit before I have to get up."
Confused, I persisted, "Umm... OK... so what do you do when you `zone out?'"
"Well," he continued, "I just kind of think about things... people... stuff... just try to wake up a bit and prepare for the day."
I considered this for a moment. "So he thinks about stuff... people..." The possibilities bloomed in my head. Intrigued, I asked him, "OK, so what were you thinking about this morning, when you were `zoning'?" His answer, simply, was: "You."
Now I was becoming a little nervous. A sick feeling danced at the pit of my stomach and, gulping air to calm my queasiness, I asked him hesitantly, "Uh, what were you thinking about me?"
I could hear a bemused smirk in his voice as he replied, "Oh, nothing really. Just you. We were just standing there together... I was holding your hand. Nothing in particular, really, just us, together."
This was getting really weird. It was all rushing at me with a stark, startling clarity. My last question, my reach for the last piece of the puzzle, was "About how long do you spend zoning out before you get up?" I had to steady myself against the counter when the last piece fell into place as he replied, "Oh, usually about ten or fifteen minutes... about ten today... until you told me to go away."
To contact the author, write to Vicki.
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