Pueblo, Colorado. 1993.

When I graduated from high school, many years ago I realize now as I think back, I received my first computer as a gift, to prepare me for college. I suppose it was meant to serve as a glorified word processor to help me type papers, and maybe calculate the stray figure here and there, but I had much more planned for it than that. As soon as I could manage, I signed up for a computer account at the university I was planning to attend and started using it to dial into a server there and remotely run Unix programs that let me access the Internet. The programs for email, the Web, Usenet, and even Gopher, were all pretty crude and text-based, but it was still an eye opener to have such easy access to so much information, and I was soon enthralled.

At the time I was living at my aunt's house, so I had to restrict my use of the modem to late at night to keep from tying up the phone line for everyone else. It was during one of these late-night excursions into Internet weirdness that I started to think about the telepathy and parapsychology research fads of the seventies and how they had all come to naught. Those groovy efforts to develop and prove the ability to communicate mind-to-mind had all failed, but I wondered if the reason why might have been other than it appeared.

It was entirely possible, I reasoned, that the failure to demonstrate telepathy had been less the fault of an absence of extra-personal sensitivity, than the sheer enormity of the challenge of linking systems as complex as two human minds. Perhaps direct access to the mind of another was not possible because of the sheer boundlessness, the infinite mystery that is a human consciousness. Maybe those would-be hippie telepaths were just too ambitious in the goal of their efforts at mental communion. What if there were another entity available, less intricate than a solitary human brain, but still staggering in it's complexity and built for connection? What if the New Age were waiting for the advent of the Digital Age? In short, what if I could connect to the Internet with my mind?

Having no expertise in either extra-sensory perception or computer science, I decided that the only way to approach the matter would be through the use of my intuition. With this in mind I unplugged the telephone line from my modem and contemplated it for a few seconds before instinctively inserting it gently into my ear canal. The fit was just about perfect and, more importantly, it felt right, so I arranged myself comfortably in my chair and closed my eyes.

As I sat there, trying to empty my mind, the seven tones of the local number for the university server popped into my head, completely unbidden. Again, this felt so natural and appropriate that I went with it, repeating the number silently to myself like a rapid-fire mantra, over and over until I entered a sort of trance state. As my immersion in the trance deepened, I switched from repeating the tones in my mind to speaking them aloud. “Do-do, do-do, do-do-do” I repeated over and over, quietly at first, then with greater volume and intensity, as I swayed back and forth in time with the digits.

I knew that I ought to keep my voice down to avoid waking my cousin sleeping in the next room, but at that point it was as though another will had taken hold of me. Not only was I powerless to stop what was happening, but I was incapable of even willing myself to stop, as the entirety of my being was increasingly focused one-pointedly on the frantic dialing ritual that had me in its grip. Finally, when I thought I could bear no more, and my convulsive swaying threatened to throw me from my seat, a deafening sound that was not a sound exploded in my brain and my eyes opened wide. It was the digital scream of a dial-up connection.

Consciously, I had only a very rudimentary grasp of Unix commands, but I immediately found that my new state of communion with the Internet had unleashed a torrent of intuitive knowledge of operating systems and computer programs from deep within my unconscious, where the archetypes of computer and information science dwell. At a speed far greater than any man could type, I was taking part in the life of that vast, living network, as the text that was it's life blood washed over me and carried me along with it. I marveled at the wonders of images displayed inline with text. Live videos of remote locations thousands of miles away gave me added eyes into the physical world. Deep in the recesses of the alt newsgroups, I even found other ghosts in the system, visitors like myself that joined me in my exploration of that informational world.

Throughout all of this though, I maintained complete awareness of the immediate reality of my room around me. As I delved into the content of the Internet, I also paced back and forth in front of my desk. As I carried on multiple on-line conversations simultaneously, I also dug through my tape collection for just the right music for the situation. The physical world was simply overlaid with an electronic one that blended seamlessly, and neither appeared more real than the other.

From the beginning I suspected that the telephone cord in my ear was nothing more than a crutch. If I could learn to connect without it, I surmised, there would be nothing preventing me from staying like this all the time. Just then I had a dark premonition of a world in which the power to remain like this, always connected, was within the reach of everyone. I saw countless multitudes stumbling about in a sort of dazed distraction, unable to discern where one world left off and the other began. I saw the false promise of connection that this state offered lead the masses inexorably into isolation and despair. I saw, in an inexplicable yet foreboding vision, videos of cats.

This final vision put me into a state of panic and anger in the face of that fallen world to come. As I paced back and forth frantically in one world, I rampaged through the other. Server after server fell before my on-line fury, flame wars raged in my wake, and someone was pounding on the door to my room, telling me to quit jumping around and go to bed. When I finally strayed too far from the phone jack and the cord fell from my ear, I fell to the floor in a heap from the sudden shock of the disconnect.

When I came to I desperately tried to jam the cord back into place, nearly damaging my eardrum in the process, but it was too late. The connection was gone.

Coming down from my experience of oneness with the Internet was hard, but eventually I was able to ease back into the rhythms of the real world. Within six months the data flashbacks had mostly stopped, and one year later it was as though the whole thing had never happened, with one exception: I was never able to completely rid myself of the foreboding that accompanied my dark vision of perpetual connection. To this day I do not own a smart phone because of it, and you could not convince me to try on a Bluetooth earpiece for any price.

I still have more than my share of failings and limitations, but since those days I have worked toward opening myself to the world, and have seen my meager spirit begin to mature and expand in some small measure because of it. Recently I have even been wondering whether this modest spiritual advancement would have made a difference if I had attained it as a youth, before I had this defining experience with the Internet. Perhaps I might have had a more productive and serene integration with cyberspace, free of the darkness, if I could have only opened my heart to it, and not just my mind.

As I have grown more certain that this is the case, I have worked a new occasional practice into my routine. When the inspiration strikes me, I now take the statue of the Buddha down from his perch atop the Heart Sutra on the little altar in my apartment and carefully set it aside, along with the incense and other items. Then I create a new mandala there with my wireless router at its center and sit before it in quiet contemplation, trying to connect.

Raritan, New Jersey. 2012.

One night, about a year ago, I was up late at my computer listening to music on my headphones and goofing around on the Internet when these song lyrics caught my imagination:

Now you are the warrior

Who will conquer this land

On a horse made of clouds

You will scatter the sands

For some reason I still can't explain, the images from these lyrics, and that of the horse made of clouds especially, wouldn't leave me alone. Since I was just up killing time, waiting for a little bout of insomnia to pass, I started digging around on the Internet. I was hoping to find some random clue or association to help me understand what this fascination was all about, but all the information I was able to find on the history of the band in question, the symbols in the lyrics, possible references, etc. did nothing to shed light on the little mystery of the song's appeal. Eventually, I decided I would give up for the night and try to get some sleep after listening to the song one more time.

As soon as I put the song on, though, my computer screen started to flicker a bit and shift toward green before going completely blank when I tried to adjust it. There was nothing I could do to make it turn back on, so I decided to leave the problem for the next day and powered down the computer. After I shut off the lights and turned to go to bed I was annoyed to see that the monitor had clicked back on when I turned my back to it and was now displaying a vivid outdoor scene that seemed like a still photo until I noticed that the clouds above were moving slightly. I thought that the computer must have been hijacked by hackers and was about to unplug it when I noticed that the clouds in the scene seemed to be taking the shape of a horse, a vague impression of one at first that soon resolved itself into the unmistakable shape of a fluffy white stallion in the sky.

As the scene unfolded on my screen I felt almost present there in that idyllic landscape. While I sat huddled in the darkened room before the image, the horse of clouds descended to the earth where it was joined by the other horses taking shape from their environs. There were horses of grass and wild flowers rising from the meadow as well as water horses splashing from the brook that bisected it. Horses of the palest sky strangely, ethereally detached themselves to join their brothers in the growing herd that now included horses formed from leafy boughs and horses of muddy earth. Horses of asphalt and horses of signposts fell in with them as they made their way toward a town where a maddening variety of horses were waiting to meet them, made up of furniture, compost heaps, sporting goods, and roofing materials. Electric horses leaped from every transformer while the townsfolk cried out for joy and huddled together in small mixed groups of all colors and creeds to happily meld into piebald horses of men.

From there the proliferation of horses increased until the equine welter growing from the physical world was joined by immaterial horses formed entirely from such abstract concepts as love, bitterness, and contempt. Finally, off in the distance, I noticed a massive brown horse against the sky that seemed to be shedding some sort of material from its surface. When I moved closer to the gigantic figure I realized that the stuff dropping from it on all sides was manure, and that the entire cantering behemoth was formed from other, smaller, horses, and the unbearable amazement this inspired jolted me awake from the dream.

It took me a few moments to realize what was going on, but once I became aware of where I was, I took off my headphones and used my sleeve to wipe up the little puddle of drool that built up on the desk as I slept. The sun was already up so I decided to trot down to Quick Chek for a sandwich and a cup of coffee.

While inside I nodded and said hello to a nice woman that I see there once in a while when another young lady in scant attire butted in loudly, saying “why bother with an old nag like that when you can talk to a this young filly” as she walked out the front door, giving me a significant look. When I paid and left I saw her loitering out front so I decided to give her a little piece of my mind for being rude to the woman in the store, but when I stopped in front of her she caught me in her gaze and all I managed to get out was “hi.”

“Um, hi” she responded in a sarcastic little tone that reminded me that I ought to chide her for her behavior in the store.

But again I was disappointed when I heard myself say “I like your shirt.”

“My shirt?” she responded incredulously.

“Yeah, it fits you really well and I can tell it's made of good fabric” I said, having completely given up on trying to control what I was coming from my mouth by that point.

“Well it's just a t-shirt, but it is soft. Would you like to feel it?” she asked, angling one shoulder toward me.

“Yes thank you, you're very kind” I replied. I realized that it was, in fact, just a common t-shirt, but the fabric was as soft as she had promised and it felt wonderful. “This feels wonderful” I said while I smiled broadly, and probably stupidly, into her face and stroked her shoulder as if it were a little bunny rabbit.

That made her laugh, but when she raised her hand to her mouth she caught a glimpse of the tether she held in it and her smile disappeared. I noticed that it had been cut and she told me that she had tied her horse to the post out front with all the others to run inside, only to return a few minutes later and find that the animal had been stolen. I let her know how sorry I was, and that I could only guess how difficult it must be to lose a horse like that. If it made her feel any better, I continued, I could give her a ride home. She said that she would like that, but when I turned to look for my car I remembered that I had walked there. I was about to turn back and apologize, and maybe offer to walk her home, when I felt her hop on my back. Before I could respond she prodded me in the flanks with her heels, urging me forward at a brisk walk while she gently guided me to our destination, running her fingers through my hair all the while and whispered soothing things to me.

When we got to her house she hopped down and brought me some water, pouring some of it over me to cool me down. I moved around the yard a little, shaking off the moisture until she came out with a little bag of sweet oats that she fed me from her hand as she looked me over and said “You are a sweetheart, I think I'll keep you . . . would you like that?” I thought about it for a second and decided that, yes, that would be very nice, so I looked down and gave a little nod as I finished chewing my oats. “Okay then, I just need to take a look at your teeth please” she said, so I opened up wide.

My mouth was scarcely open, though, when I thought of all the fillings I had in there and started to get self-conscious, and before she was able to get a good glance I remembered the crown I had recently got on one of my molars and snapped my mouth shut before she could see it. “Come on now, let me see” she said as she draped her arms around my neck, but I was adamant. When playful cajoling didn't work she turned to tickling, and when that didn't work she turned to force. I was pretty sure that there was no way that this small woman could get me to open my mouth if I didn't want to, so I didn't really resist as she pinned me to the ground, which turned out to be a mistake, because once she had me firmly straddled beneath her all she had to do was pinch my nostrils shut to make me open up and, quick as a snake bite, shoot her small hand between my teeth. I didn't want to bite her so all I could do was slap at her fingers with my tongue in protest as she pried my mouth open and jerked my head to the side to let the sun shine in and lay my dental history bare. “Just as I thought” she crowed “no wisdom teeth! Probably doesn't have the sense God gave a horse!” and then I woke up.

I was laying in my bed when I awoke this time, in a lather and breathing heavily in my too-hot room. Now, I had been through the whole dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream bit before, so I figured that since I was probably going to be exploring my unconscious for a while longer, I might as well try to make myself comfortable. There was a nice little breeze rustling the trees outside my window, so I slipped out of my clothes and went out to enjoy the open air.

It was sunny and pleasant, and the light wind against my body felt great. I was having a wonderful time outside, waving at all the nice dream people driving down the street and doing some light stretches when a woman from up the block came walking by with her dog and raised an eyebrow. “I think you forgot something” she said, as she nodded down at my lack of clothing. I pretended not to know what she was talking about but I was beginning to suspect that this might not be a dream at all, so I finished the set of toe-touches I was doing and went inside and got dressed.

By this point I was a little worried about the whole nakedness faux pas, and that some of the neighbors might take it the wrong way. Since it isn't really unusual behavior that tends to unnerve people, I thought, but erratic behavior, I decided that I would probably have to start taking regular strolls outside in the nude just so people in the neighborhood wouldn't think I was some kind of weirdo. It was while I was coming to this conclusion that my phone rang. When I picked it up I heard a low whickering on the other end and asked “Is this a horse?” The loud neigh in response told me that it was, so I thanked it for calling and hung up. So this was a dream after all, and a good thing too because I was not looking forward to walking around naked in front of all those people every day.

I was feeling very relieved when I walked back into the front room, so I was able to take it in stride when I saw the head of the massive white charger leaning into my open window and nibbling on one of my plants. He was all saddled up and ready to go, so I said what the hell and rode off in search of something to do.

That day we rode. I let the horse roam where he pleased and wasn't disappointed, as he took us to places of such beauty that I would have never believed that they could exist in New Jersey. We made new friends everywhere we went and that night we camped under the stars. The following day we had several scintillating adventures which I won't get into here, and even solved a mystery or two. I wanted to continue on like this forever, but it was a Sunday and I had work in the morning, so we turned in early, battered and bruised from all of the riding and fighting we had done, but happy to have had such a fine weekend.

The next morning Bucaphalus II, for that was the name I had given that unsurpassed steed, allowed me to ride him to work, but when I asked if he would wait for me in the warehouse attached to my office until the work day was through, he turned his head away awkwardly and I knew that he wouldn't. Our farewell was emotional yet dignified, but when I reached my cubicle I broke down and wept without restraint.

Oh Bucephalus II, how I have wondered where you are and what you might be doing. Are you still near, or have you wandered to some far-off place in Pennsylvania, or, perhaps, upstate New York? Are you, even now, riding off to war with some other doughty horseman? Do you ever think of me as you graze under a starry sky?

Denver, Colorado. 2002.

One Saturday afternoon some years ago, after spending several hours at the library as I tended to do back then, I found myself wandering through town in a more or less homeward direction, still a little word-drunk from whatever heady topic I was getting myself worked up over on that day. The weather was fine, and my already exalted mood was becoming more expansive with every step. Without a giving it a thought I hopped up on the barricade that separated the sidewalk I was walking along from the street. At that moment I would have sworn that I could feel my heart expanding in my chest as I stood there on that dirty concrete partition, beaming down on the passing traffic as if from atop Mount Olympus.

Just then, a man about my age in sunglasses and a trucker hat hopped up onto the barrier about three feet away from me and looked at the passing cars with me from behind his dark lenses with a mocking little smirk on his face. With that I suddenly became aware of myself and instantly felt ridiculous. I jumped back down and walked away as my face turned deep red, trying to ignore the man who was now staring down and me as I ducked into a record store on the corner. Once inside, I spent several minutes walking up and down the aisles, nervously adjusting my glasses and pretending to look at CDs as I tried to shake off my unreasoning embarrassment. Having thus fallen from Olympus to Tartarus, I was struggling to find my way back from that low place when it occurred to me just how fragile we really are.

Before too long, though, I was able to gradually let go of that morbidity that had overcome me and lose myself in looking for new music. I didn't notice the door open, but when I heard the clerk say something about not bringing that thing into the store, I looked up to see the man from outside walking a bicycle toward the far end of the row where I was browsing. When he got there he mounted the beat up old road bike, pointed it in my direction, and started pedaling so forcefully that he reared up high on his back wheel before coming back down and hurtling toward me.

With no small amount of luck, I was able to dodge to the side and give his handlebars a hard yank as he passed, sending him crashing to the floor. It was as if he didn't register the hard fall he had just taken though, because he jumped up in an instant and closed the small distance between us in that narrow aisle. When we came to grips, he was using his momentum and an uncanny physical strength to try to bowl me over. It was all I could do to stay on my feet, but luck was on my side again, because as I moved to break away from his iron grip, he slipped on a stray glossy magazine that had fallen to the floor. He managed to flail about and recover before he fell over, but not before I took advantage of the opportunity and hit him with a straight right to the eye that took away the little balance he had regained and knocked him straight back on his rump.

Still nonplussed, but emboldened by that little success, I stepped forward to follow up with more blows while he was down, but he was on his feet quicker than I had anticipated. I put as much power as I could behind a wild left hook, but he ducked beneath it, shot in, and scooped up both of my legs, lifting me high and sweeping my legs sideways as he threw me backward. I landed painfully halfway on a display rack before falling to the ground amid a clatter of upturned CDs. Writhing from the pain in my back where I landed on the sturdy rack, I struggled to defend myself as my assailant followed me to the ground, fighting like a devil.

As we rolled around on the floor, crunching over scattered CD cases, each trying to gain the upper hand, things began to get confused. It's hard to explain just what went on then, but it was as though I lost all sense of struggling with an opponent, but retained a detached sense of the struggle itself. What finally pulled me out of that dreamlike state was the store clerk shouting that the police would be there any minute. Upon hearing that, my adversary stood up, straightened the small spectacles that had been knocked askew on his face, and ran out the door. I quickly scooped up my trucker hat, grabbed my bike, and left just behind him.

Once outside, he hurried off in one direction, while I pedaled away in the other. I had managed to lose my sunglasses in the struggle and felt conspicuous without them to hide my blackened left eye that was rapidly swelling shut, so I quickly turned down a side street and started to walk my bike down the sidewalk as nonchalantly as I could toward my apartment. I must have still been suffering from some remnant of the bizarre confusion that had come over me earlier though, because all the way home, I couldn't get over the feeling that I was going the wrong way. When I finally got there, I stood the bike up and stared at the apartment building I had been walking towards. It looked especially crisp in the bright afternoon sun, but I was confounded by the fact that I somehow did, and did not, recognize it at the same time. I closed my good eye and took several deep breaths to keep the utter strangeness of everything from overcoming me.

With each breath I took, I felt a sharp pain growing in my upper back. When I opened my eyes my vision had become blurred, but my left eye was open again and pain free, and I was relieved to recognize the fuzzy outline of my apartment building in front of me. As I stood there, I had the vague sense that someone was standing next to me, but I was so glad to be home that I didn't care to look to see who it was. I couldn't seem to take my eyes off the building, even as I felt my hat being gently lifted from my head, and a pair of glasses being slipped into my hand. As I put on my glasses I heard the click of a kickstand being put up. I remember thinking how nice it was to be able to see clearly again while I walked up the steps to the front door, as the small, receding sound of rubber tires on cement registered somewhere else, deep in my mind.

Walsenburg, Colorado. 1986.

In the town where I grew up, there was an old, out-of-the-way pedestrian bridge not far from my house that everyone called the swinging bridge. It was about two feet wide and made of rusting steel cables with planks to walk on and chain link fencing on the sides. Some of the planks were broken or missing and there were places where the fencing came apart from the bridge, leaving big spaces open to the small creek below. If you stood right in the middle, you could make the whole thing bounce up and down pretty well with enough effort, but no matter how hard you tried you couldn't make it swing. I later learned that there was an earlier, less sturdy, version of the bridge that did swing, and the name stuck after it was replaced with the steel cable structure I was familiar with. Last I heard, the whole thing had been washed away and has not been replaced.

People called the dirt road and few houses among the trees on the other side of the bridge el Bosque, and compared to the open, semi-arid land that surrounded it, the sparse trees on either side of the creek did seem like a forest. When my grandmother told me the story of la Llorona, this was the spot where she said that the woman had drowned her children. I told myself that I didn't believe in the legend in the daytime, but whenever I found myself going down that road in the evening, I always pedaled my bike as fast as I could, terrified that I would hear her wail and never be able to return home.

Probably because of this association, whenever I heard some weird or fantastic local tale, I always thought of it happening there, by the creek. So, the story about the charming stranger who came to town and danced with all the ladies before anyone noticed the cloven hoof prints he was leaving on the ground, in my mind, happened, not in a dance hall as the story was told, but in a little clearing by the side of the creek. Likewise, when I heard the one about when my tio Concho was passed out in his car and woke in the middle of the night to find a cat demon trying to claw its way in, I assumed that he must have been parked on the road by the creek.

In any case, one day, when I was about eleven or so, I had managed to get my grubby little hands on some cigars and decided that the swinging bridge would be a fine place to go to smoke one without being bothered. As I stood there on the bridge, enjoying the sweet taste of the cigar's tip more than the actual smoke, I remembered a time when a friend and I had gone down to the water to look for crawdads, and decided to give it another try.

After a minute or two of half-hearted searching I was about to give up and sit down to finish my stogie when I noticed what looked like a large, broad action figure half obscured in the weeds. It was about seven inches high with thick, rounded limbs and torso, and a perfectly round, fat head on top with what seemed like small oval stones for eyes. It looked like a cross between a clay golem and a little demon, with its mouth full of sharp teeth. At first it startled me, the way it was placed there in a standing position, but then I smiled at my jumpiness and moved closer to check it out. My smile turned to a laugh when the thought came to me of a tiny troll standing guard beneath its tiny bridge. I liked that idea so much that I laid out flat on my belly several feet away so I could look at the little figure on its own level, imagining that it was a living creature staring at the passing water while it waited patiently for some poor bastard to try to cross the bridge above.

As I lay there, a little wind picked up and nudged the figure, and the small movements it created made the illusion of life more complete. It even seemed to bend to the side a little at its waist as the wind very slowly turned it toward me. My giddiness at just how cool this was, though, was replaced with a jolt of panic when the wind died down and I realized that the thing was still moving. I wished I could hide, but settled for laying very still until I could reign in my frenzied thoughts. While my fear kept me pinned in place, the creature continued to bend to the side very slowly.

As I watched my fear was gradually replaced with fascination when I realized that the thing was doing what seemed to be a very deliberate, graceful dance, so slowly that if you only glanced at it quickly, you might not realize it was moving at all. It seemed clear to me then that I was in no danger from this thing that could obviously only move with extraordinary slowness. Being thus reassured, I let myself relax and watched as the thick, clumsy looking creature moved around with amazing elegance and control in what I thought had to be the most beautiful dance I had ever seen. I was eventually filled with such a sense of wondrous well-being that I think I could have laid there all afternoon and watched this eldritch performance. Before long though, the little dancing troll came to a stop directly facing me, its head tilted forward in a little bow before it straightened up and fixed me in its blank gaze for the first time.

As those two unseeing stony eyes met mine I immediately lost sensation in my body and felt as though I were floating. The grassy ground, the water in the creek, even the air between myself and the now still creature all seemed to waver briefly then pulsate in colors before completely dissolving into a lustrous, multicolored cloud that enveloped me, and I was falling gently forward. The cloud dissipated and I could feel my body again. I was still lying belly down, but I had apparently let my face fall forward, as it was now planted firmly in the dirt. I lifted my head and tried to shake off a little of the confusion as I saw that the creature was now several inches closer to me and bending over an object in the grass, still moving with the same deliberate slowness. Then reality throbbed again and I was in the cloud of colors, drifting downward, but this time the sense of well being was replaced by a vague, thoughtless anxiety.

When I came to, the creature was much closer and had something in its hands that I failed to immediately recognize due to my foggy mental state. After several moments of staring at it as it moved forward at its painfully slow pace, I realized that the thing it held in its hands like a spear was an unfolded pocket knife, long and spotted with rust as though it had laid for some time in the open. Without understanding the full implications of what was going on, I looked into the creature's face in the hopes of learning something of its intentions. I found only blankness and those two expressionless eyes that set the world reeling and undulating again when they met mine.

This time I drifted forward and downward through the relentlessly shifting color shroud that enveloped me with a sense of the purest, incoherent animal panic, so that when I awoke I was able to gather my senses more quickly, but I found that it did me little good because before long at all I was losing bodily sensation again and the creature was so close that the rusty tip of his knife was only about two inches from my face. I strained with all my will against the torpor that had set in, as in a lucid nightmare in which you know that all you have to do is will yourself to wake up and you will be okay. Then, just as the objects in my field of vision began to expand and contract again with that peculiar discolored wobble, I managed, in a great feat of concentration, to turn my face away from the thing's eyes, and the enchantment was broken in an instant.

I jerked back and quickly took up a defensive position, but soon realized that the unnaturally slow creature was now completely harmless again. In spite of the the adrenaline rushing through my system after that close call, I did my best to steady my hand enough to re-light the stub of the stogie that had gone out while I lay helpless for who knows how long. I wondered at this, and at the strange colors that my surroundings had taken on as twilight fell without my being aware of it, and guessed that I must have been laying on the ground for well over an hour, drifting in and out of consciousness

Up until then I was careful to not look at my little tormentor except in my peripheral vision, but when I noticed that it had started it's dance again, the one that had enchanted me, I was suddenly overcome with uncontrollable anger. Without thinking, I bent down and jabbed the burning cherry of the cigar into one of the creatures expressionless eyes. The little oval that had appeared to be made of smooth stone before turned out to be something closer to flesh, I realized, as it sizzled under the lit stogie in my hand. Over a span of time that seemed to extend on and on, the creature's little mouth opened with its customary slowness, and let out a low, pitiful groan just before its head exploded with a sharp pop and its body instantly dissipated into a sickly, colored mist that quickly spread out and settled into the weeds and rocks on both sides of the stream.

The unnatural way that the mist moved had an unnerving effect on me, so I quickly made my way back up to the bridge. From there I noticed some movement from the weeds and rocks where the vapor had settled, and for a moment I held my breath and thought to myself, "please let that be the wind," even though I knew, in my pounding little heart, that wind didn't move weeds that way. So a second later, when hundreds of copies of the little monster boiled out of from under rocks and weeds and other hidden areas below, I didn't gasp, or shudder, or stand frozen in fear. I bolted. Before I had even crossed the few yards of bridge, though, I could see that the little beasts were following me, wielding sticks, stones, or just flashing their terrible, sharp little claws. Unlike their progenitor though, these little monsters were agile and astonishingly quick. I was only a few yards past the bridge when I came to the terrible realization that even on their stunted little legs, the creatures were moving faster than I was at a full run and would inevitably catch me.

Out of habit I was running toward a rift in the fence of a long abandoned football field that I usually cut through as a shortcut, when a desperate thought came to me. The field had been used by the local Catholic high school before it was shut down, and from that tenuous association with holiness, a frantic childish hope grew in me that maybe the place retained just enough sacredness that little creek demons or fairies or whatever would never chase a boy down and tear him to pieces there. By the time I got to the opening in the fence I was certain that by stepping through it I would achieve salvation, so when my little pursuers followed me through without as much as a hint of hesitation I felt as though my heart were breaking. I ran on, past the tumbledown bleachers and onto the field itself, feeling utterly abandoned and full of the terrible certainty that I would never reach the other side.

By the time I felt a handful of the little devils catch hold of my pants and begin to carefully clamber up my legs I was beyond any kind of thought. I was only running, a doomed animal in flight, just barely aware of the black cloud dislodging itself from the shadowy vicinity of the grain mill at the other end of the field, toward which I was running. It must have seemed appropriate enough in that state of mind that I should be brought down from behind by relentless pursuers even as a shifting dark mass approached to envelop me from the front, because it wasn't until I realized what the mass consisted of that I began to scream. With my pants and shirt covered by nearly a dozen of the clinging little creek demons, and my voice hoarse from the animal sounds I was making, I ran full speed into the living cloud of numberless bats. I continued to run as they collided with my face and body, as their numbers blocked out most of the fading evening light. Even when their flapping wings made me close my eyes, I ran in darkness.

It was the little tugs at my shirt that brought me back from that internal darkness. I barely registered them consciously, but those sharp tugs set off a feeling in my mind that I should stop running. Standing still now, I shielded my face from the wings flapping all around me and looked down to see the few little creatures that still clung to my clothes under assault from the colony of bats. They tried to fight off the aerial attack with their free hands, but one by one, the bats dislodged them and carried them away. As stout as the little things appeared, almost as if they were made of dense clay, I now realized that they had become weirdly light and insubstantial hanging on my shirt, and the bats seemed to carry them off with little effort. As the swarm of bats started to dissipate I could see that they were doing the same to the remaining host of things from the creek as well, carrying them all up high into the air and disappearing with them over the trees to the south and out of sight.