Snapshot of April 20, 2004

This story is not for the faint of heart, or the unbelieving, for it is a story of wonder, not of another fantastic realm, but of awe that this IS a true recollection of the events described, as they happened to me on April 20, 2004.

A few things you should know before I start:  I grew up in Colorado until 1999 when I returned here to Salt Lake.  We still visit my older sister, and other friends from back there fairly often.  On this day, my Dad and I were doing just that, visiting old friends during a vacation.  

Across the street from the house where I used to live, was the house of our good neighbor friends Brian and Janet.  We were just arriving at their house to visit, when we discovered that neither of them were home yet.

My dad then commented, "Brian is supposed to be home every day by noon, so he should be getting here soon."  We got out of the car, and started walking up to the front door, when to my surprise, one of our neighbors from Utah showed up in a mini van.  One by one, filing behind him were about 20 black children that were soaked from head to toe.  They all marched right into the house, without a second thought, or even an acknowledgment our presence.  As we followed them in, I began to realize something was strange. 

  It looked  like Brian and Janet had remodeled since the last time I was there.  Now there were many large spiraling staircases, and glass coffee tables decorating the house.  The kids were running around, up, under and in between anything that they could find, when one came running down a staircase, and tripped into the glass table, shattering it.  He wasn't hurt, and nobody seemed to notice that anything had happened.

All at once, the group left the house and proceeded across the street to our previous next-door neighbors house, where my best friend Marcus used to live.  As they were all crossing the street,  Marcus and some of his friends flew around the corner in his car, and stopped in front of his house.  Then another car, small and yellow this time skidded around the turn into the driveway.   Marcus, his friends and all the little black kids went inside and began watching a movie, and I figured I would go say hi, since I hadn't seen him for several years.  

When I went in, everyone seemed pre-occupied with the movie except for his mom, so I started talking with her at the kitchen table.  She had a strange picture on the table, and picked it up to show to me.   It was of a large tree, that had been stripped of all its branches, laying on its side, with another log sloped across it teeter-totter style.  

 

 

She explained:" In the war, this was the single most important life saving tool we had.  You see, during the war, we all had to start marching out at the same time, at a specific time each day, but we were not allowed to have watches. In the region we were stationed at, there was an unusual wedding tradition that the ceremony would be preformed on the top of the log setup, and as they seal the engagement, the whole company would cross from one side of the log to the other, casing a tremendous noise as the logs shifted against each other.  At least one wedding occurred in the area every day at the same time.  When we heard the terrible squeaking noise, that was our signal to move out."

As she explained how it all worked, it was as if I was transported into the world she was telling me about.  I suddenly found myself in a mountainous desert, with a nearby river.  I heard with my own ears the unbearable sound of the rubbing logs, and looked around me, to find that I was in the company of many soldiers, commanded by none other than Marcus' mom.  She yelled at the top of her lungs "MOVE OUT!"  

I saw a catapult nearby and sat myself in it, only to be launched high into the air, then landing in the river.  Soon, everyone was floating near me.  I watched as we floated around a bend, how the wedding procession was advancing.  Everyone was dressed up, but they were riding ATV's and motorcycles due to the rough terrain.  Some were going very fast, and going off jumps, but all seemed professional in their riding.  Following the smaller vehicles was a mobile home, which the bride and groom got in.  

I realized that they were undercover agents, and that they were going to smuggle us in behind enemy lines, so we all snuck into the trailer.  Just as I opened the door to find out who the bride and groom were, I woke up in my basement, in the spare bed, after a short afternoon nap.