On this one particular spring day, I remember pulling on my cargo shorts and tip-toeing barefoot through the tall grass to check out my garden. I’d planted onions, potatoes, carrots, cabbage and peas the week before and I was excited to see the first seedlings pushing through the dirt. I’d helped family members with their gardens as a kid, but never raised one of my own, until now. Buddy starting digging at the onions and I had to scold him. I took a sip of my coffee. I heard whispering behind me, I turned, but there was no one.

“We best get back. Come on!”  Buddy ignored me and I whistled.

Walking back towards the porch I noticed tulips pushing up from the dead leaves in a big flower bed in the front yard. I fancied the idea of Andy and his boyfriend planting these flowers together in happier times. It saddened me that I really knew nothing about them.

 I heard the phone ring  and ran to answer it before they hung up. I picked up the receiver. It was Ben. He asked if I wanted to go on a camping trip to some lake near Natural Bridge State Park called Mill Creek. He said he’d taken some of the furniture he’d made and sold it at a local flea market for a couple hundred bucks. He also promised to bring plenty of weed on the trip. I was elated. Would we be sharing a tent? All sorts of sexual scenarios played out in my head. I had no idea if he liked me in that way or not, but it didn’t matter.

Later that afternoon, I anxiously followed the the local weather updates because a huge thunderstorm had just passed through Nicholas County with high winds and hail.  Just a few minutes earlier, a tornado watch had been issued for the surrounding counties until 6 pm. It was very exciting to hear the wind howling outside and see the sky become  eerily dark for that time of day. The lightning and thunder scared poor Buddy and he stuck to me like glue afraid to leave my side. After the main part of the storm had passed, I ventured onto my front porch to view the damage of fallen limbs and tree branches strewn about my yard. The lawn was white as if snow had fallen from all the hail that was still on the ground. The air had a lingering cool fresh scent of rain. I wiped the water from the porch swing as best I could with my palm and sat on the damp wood. Buddy jumped up on the swing with me and placed his head in my lap.

It was then, at this serene moment that I started to notice things moving more slowly. The clouds, the wind, the birds in the sky all slowed to a crawl and then stop in mid flight. Even my rocking on the porch swing stopped along with my breathing. A feeling of terror swept over me. It felt like a bad drug trip, but I hadn’t smoked pot in hours. I wondered if I could be having a stroke. It didn’t feel normal.

As I sat there motionless,  the sky darken, the landscape faded and became obscured by a television-like static. At first I felt trapped in my frozen body, and suddenly I was much lighter and free of my body. All around me was a landscape where trees would appear and vanish and even the ground fluctuated between rock, grass, pavement and water.  Like watching poor television reception, things popped in and out of existence. The sky flickered between night and day and the sun appeared not as a blazing ball, but more like a bright golden paint stroke across the sky from horizon to horizon. Vague images of people and animals flickering on and off like ghosts. No one staying in one spot long enough to focus my eyes upon. I thought I heard sounds among the roar of the static. Afraid and alone, I thought I had passed out and died. Unlike a dream, I was awake. I stood and looked around, but there was no sign of my house or others. I called out, but my voice echoed back from all directions. I wondered if this was what it was like to die.

The worst was yet to come as I felt myself slipping away. I couldn’t remember who I was as I melted into my surroundings. It was unnerving. Suddenly this world broke apart and I floated alone in a vast sea of darkness. With no perception of time or self, my consciousness drifted for an eternity. Life as I knew it, faded away and I cried out wanting my life back. Losing complete control and sensing infinity was both terrifying and beautiful. I was convinced I had died.

Something snatched me from the edge of oblivion and everything rushed back. I found myself back again in my  body. A frozen moment with me sitting in the exact position on my porch swing as time crept up to normal. Apparently I had never left that spot. Buddy  still slept soundly with his head resting on my lap. My heart raced as I let out a heavy sigh and slunk into the porch swing.  Whatever happened to me, the rest of the world hadn’t noticed. Rocking back and forth, I pondered the trust of my sanity.

The following day appeared normal, but I was still scared to death of having another episode like the one last one. It was nearly lunchtime as I was making a  ham sandwich by putting mayonnaise on a piece of bread when I noticed a time distortion again as things began to slow. “Oh no! Not again,” I gasped. It felt similar to the onset of a panic attack except with hallucinations. I was afraid this might become some chronic condition that required drugs and rehabilitation to cure me. Could it be a tumor, poisoning?  Was I exposed to some drug, the pot? I panicked. I hated the feeling of losing my ego. Terrified, I felt time stop. Like being pulled by a strong rip tide you kick and kick and kick and feel yourself being pulled out to sea. The world you just knew getting smaller and smaller as a new one opens up into an endless ocean devoid of landmarks to judge distance by. The idea of infinity horrified me. I couldn’t allow myself to think that way because falling is all about anticipation. You know that death is imminent as you see the ground getting closer. With infinity, you fall forever and never make any progress.

I opened my eyes once again to the appearance of television static all around me in every direction. It gave way slightly to a clearer less grainy texture surrounding my body. A transparent ground appeared below my feet along with a flickering sky unable to decide between night or day. It took a while for my eyes to adjust and soon I could walk about in a dreamworld, fully awake.  I glimpsed faces of people faintly in the static. The space surrounding my body become less random the longer I traveled through this chaotic landscape. I was creating a new moment of time in a timeless world. A landscape slowly grew out of the random chaos. The blending of night and day, made for a dimmer version of reality, a shadowy land. There were hills and valleys, the silhouettes of trees and shrubs, the ruins of houses showing long neglect, and plant life taking root upon the corpses of those long dead homes. Another view made it appear new and furnished as if lived in. This world fluctuated, but I could somehow control how I saw it. Trees would appear tall, then much younger and smaller and then old and dead, or cut to a stump.  A force grabbed me, pulling me back, then time accelerated back to normal speed.

I stood there with the butter knife in my hand spreading the last dollop of mayonnaise on the slice of bread. I put the knife and the bread down on the table top. I sat down on the floor, closed my eyes and cupped my forehead in my hands. I let out a sigh of relief because I had a bit more control and was able to retain my ego this time around. I needed to make another trip to see a doctor. “Could this be related to Gulf war Syndrome?” I wondered. I knew of people who experienced strange symptoms, but I expected something much different.