Out of the Frying Pan

Grandpa's Encounter, Part 3

“First I checked out the bushes where I had flung the water the night before. I saw that the ground had been rutted out and cleared of leaves, just as if something had been pacing back and forth. A lot of the branches were bent and broken and some seemed to have had the leaves pulled off of them, all signs to confirm that there had been something there. But what?

“Which way did it run? Dang, it took off so fast, that at the time it had been hard to tell. I started looking around for more clues and eventually found more broken branches. Following such traces, I was moving uphill at a slight angle. Then I found something else.

“Four trees total, ranging from an inch and a half to a full two inches around, snapped clean off with their tops about three feet away from their bases. The exposed inner wood of each tree was still fresh, still damp with sap. I had never seen anything like that, not even after a storm had come through. There was no explanation for it other than... The thing that came through here wasn’t only fast, it was also extremely powerful. I kept tracking its progress but once I reached the top of the hill, I lost it. I searched all around and found nothing, even down the other side of the hill.

“It was as if it just vanished or flew off.

“I finally just gave up and went back home. I told my wife the whole story of what had happened the night before and where I had gone that day.

“She looked at me and said, ‘I figured there was something more wrong with you last night, other than just being overworked, and I was praying you would tell me.’

“I asked her what she thought it was. She thought for a moment and said, ‘There’s been a lot of sickness going around, maybe it was whatever brought it. I’ve been praying for you everyday as you leave for work and again at night for your safe return. Maybe that voice inside of you was your guardian angel warning you.’

“Maybe she was right. Whatever it was, it was gone. Why it chose me, I don’t know. I still can’t say a hundred percent what it was, but maybe it could have been some kind of demon of sickness like my wife thought.

* * * * * * * * * * *

My grandpa was one heck of a storyteller, I’ll be the first to admit that, but he was also not a person to take religion lightly. As he would say, “It’s up to you and what you want to believe.”