Wednesday, Jun. 16, 2004 - 16:56

I found myself in some town or small city. I seemed, at varying times, both a participant and then an outside observer…. It was mighty peculiar, with different stories all entwined.

There was a bus packed with high school students. It was driving along a road beside which ran train tracks, and a train was travelling by, as well, in the same direction as the school bus. I was on the bus (at times), and then at other moments, I was outside the bus, seemingly flying beside it, watching as the events unfolded.

Something was wrong with one of the rear wheels of the bus. Either a series of bolts or some wiring were loose, or a combination of both. But suddenly the bus was speeding out of control and then it hit something and was throw to one side, effectively driving on just two of its wheels on the drivers’ side (which interestingly was reversed, that is to say the vehicle was configured for American roads).

Inside the bus, the school students were all screaming and panicking… but outside, I floated along side the bus… towards the rear wheel… I could see it was about to come off, and I also noted that the drivers on the nearby train were watching events transpire, looking as horrified as I felt. But then the bus was gone; it shot over the side of a high embankment or small cliff, and tumbled down to the bottom…. Then I was transported back to the town….

I was in some kind of coffee shop. A young woman came into the shop, and she approached a man working behind the counter. The man looked disturbingly familiar. He looked like Simon, only 10 years older and with a beard and moustache. There was another woman also working behind the counter. She seemed to be listening to the conversation between the Simon-Look-a-Like and the First Girl.

The First Girl said to him: “I’ve been tracking you down for years….”

“How did you find me?” he asked her, his eyes hooded and looking nervous.

“It wasn’t easy,” she said. She looked nervous herself, but relieved, and as I studied her features, I got a sense that she was related to the Simon-Look-a-Like; a sister, perhaps?

“You shouldn’t have come here….” he said sounding strained.

“I had to find you. I had to know if….”

But he cut her off. He then explained to her that it was neither the time nor the place to be discussing anything. Even as he said this, he looked somewhat suspiciously to his Female Co-Worker who appeared to be listening to their conversation with great interest, even as she feigned concentrating on other tasks. None of them seemed to notice my presence.

“Come to my house in an hour, we’ll talk more then,” he said to the First Girl.

In the blink of an eye, I was moved through time and space, and now found myself in the Simon-Look-a-Like’s house. It was large and airy and quite lovely, though disturbingly neat, as if it were a display home – there was nothing about it that gave any indication of the inhabitant’s nature; no bric-a-brac, no photos – nothing.

I walked through the house like a wraith, finding myself in the entrance foyer as someone knocked on the front door. I could see a shape, distorted by glass, standing outside. When no one came to let the visitor in, they tried the door… on finding it unlocked, they stepped into the foyer, mere inches from me.

It was the Female Co-Worker. A woman in her late 30’s, I suppose, with light brown hair that had been ‘frosted’ in parts, but needed touching up. She wore it up, in something like a French Roll. She was still wearing her waitressing uniform from the coffee shop.

“Hello…?” She looked around nervously. Clearly, she could not see me. “Anyone home?” she called out. “I came as soon as I got your call…” she added as an after thought.

As the house remained silent, she moved from the foyer towards the staircase, and then along the hall from which there were a number of doors. I followed her all the way.

Suddenly, the Simon-Look-a-Like appeared from behind one of the doors, behind the Female Co-Worker. She sensed his presence, turned and span, started to scream but was then struck o the side of the head with some kind of large object. She fell straight to the floor unconscious.

I stared at the Simon-Look-a-Like in sick fascination; not only because of what he had just done, but because of how he was attired; he wore a fuchsia coloured dress with lilac flowers on it, and drop pearl earrings and a matching pearl necklace. He wore a black wig that was long and lustrous. His face was made up with eye-shadow, blush and lipstick.

It was a grisly and curious image, for he had a beard and moustache, as I mentioned, and the low cut of the dress exposed his hairy chest.

In seconds, we were transported once more… this time to one of the immaculate bedrooms of the house where the worst was to come. There were two boxes of equal height in the room, roughly shaped like coffins, I suppose. One was on its end, standing up, with a black cloth covering it. The other was laying down on the floor, and then, resting on a wooden chair beside it, was something like a water pump, as one might see a plumber use to pump out seepage in a cellar or ditch or whatever.

I moved closer to the box lying on the floor. The Simon Look-a-Like went over to the pump and started it up. He, too, looked down into the box on the floor. It contained the Female Co-Worker. She had been redressed and made up, and looked like a life sized Barbie Doll, except that her hands and feet were bound with plastic binding. She seemed dazed and confused, as if she’d been drugged.

“You shouldn’t have been snooping” he said to her. “Because now I have to keep you quiet … but it’s OK, because you’ll be beautiful and unspoiled forever,” the Simon-Look-a-Like told her. It was then I noticed that the pump was not pumping water into the box, but pumping a thick, gooey plastic resin into it.

The Simon-Look-a-Like crossed over to the other coffin-like box and pulled away the black cloth covering it; it revealed the First Girl (his sister?), who had also been re-dressed to emulate a Barbie Doll. But that is where all resemblance ended, for her face was twisted with terror and fear, distorted by the ripples in the plastic resin that had been earlier pumped into the coffin and subsequently set and harden, forever sealing her fate. Her yes bulged with horror, and her mouth was impossibly wide in a silent scream that would forever go unheard…

“Nice and neat and tidy,” the Simon-Look-a-Like said thoughtfully. “Beautiful forever….”

I was transported away, this time to another house. I found myself standing beside a bed with a small boy in it. He could not have been more than 4 years of age. He was sleeping peacefully. The room was quite large, giving me a sense that the house was reasonably opulent. But then I noticed something strange on the carpet…. A puddle of fluid that ran right round the bed and to the closed bedroom door…

The door subsequently opened and a mountain of a man walked in. He looked to be in his early 40’s, very handsome in a rugged kind of way, with curly blonde hair giving way to signs of grey and large grey-blue eyes. In one hand he carried a red tank… I suddenly realised what the puddle of fluid was: petrol.

The little boy in the bed stirred and the man knelt beside the bed and ruffled the boy’s hair with obvious affection. The little boy – though sleepy – seemed pleased to see the man.

“What are you doing Daddy…?” he asked.

“It’s OK. We’re going to play a game, is all… don’t worry… it’s all make believe,” he said, then hugged his son. “No one will ever hurt you….” And then he pulled back from his son and took a Zippo from his pocket. He flicked the wheel, igniting a flame and then tossed it onto the floor… it instantly caught alight and flames encircled the bed, following the trail out the bedroom door and presumably throughout the rest of the house…

At the point, I was moved again, this time to a place not of this Earth. I shot up through water, then flew high into the sky where I just floated, suspended by a force I couldn’t see.

I looked around my new surrounds and at first my heart was gladdened… but then I sensed something wasn't quite right; things were not as they appeared.

I was in a chamber – a vast room that felt like a cathedral. In front of me was a wall adorned with a lavish stained glass window through which the sun shone in muted tones. The stained glass window was quite plain; comprising a central panel shaped similar to fan. Two cherubs were depicted in mid flight, looking down on the floor of the chamber. On either side of this central pane, two miniature versions of the window glowed, although no forms were depicted in the glass.

Below, perhaps 25 feet beneath me, was a swimming pool. It was marble, as were the immediate surrounds. I could see no doors or other entrances to the room. But I noticed ‘angelic’ forms in each corner of the pool; naked angels (wingless, however), with gentle smiles on their faces… they seemed to be waiting for something… and then I saw the hole at the bottom of the pool, in the centre… presumably the point by which I had entered the pool before shooting up into the air… something was emerging from it… a figure…

One by one, each of the high school students on the bus that had crashed shot up from the bottom of the pool. They reached the surface of the water, then made their way to the side… then, the First Girl and the Co-Worker appeared, followed by the little boy and the man from the house that had caught fire… a cat (a large tabby) came along with the boy… They all looked kind of confused at first, but then they relaxed, staying in the pool, admiring the beauty of the room as well as the ethereal beauty of the angelic forms who each floated in a corner of the pool…

“Is this Heaven?” I heard someone ask.

“It must be…” replied another.

“It’s so lovely…”

But now something else was coming through the hole… I’d already grown disquieted by a strange ‘sense’ I had about the place… from the hole at the bottom of the pool, bees emerged…

’This is wrong,’ I told myself. ’This isn’t Heaven… it’s the place you go to before… but something is wrong here… there’s something very bad here….’

A new figure emerged from the hole at the bottom of the pool. He did not merely float to the surface of the water like the others; no, like me, he shot into the air, whereupon the Simon-Look-a-Like grabbed my ankle and dragged me back into the water, screaming at me: “No! No! You don’t escape me that easily, Jay…”

At which point I woke up….

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