Chapter 1 ; Light Shimmers

you ever get that feeling like you're being watched? Odds are you probably were. From there, it becomes whether or not you feel paranoid with the sensation. You either look around, trying to find the source of this feeling, but secretly not wanting to, where you blow it off, because it doesn't feel that bad. Those moments for a dozen feel that bad are just fine. Its most likely someone watching over you, rather than waiting for you to screw up.

when I was 12 I had one of those moments. The first one I can remember at least. It was the 4th of July, and we were setting off fireworks in my aunts backyard. she lived on the hill that lead down to a small pond, evergreen trees and ankle high grass as far as the eye can see. We wanted to set of the mortar shells, you know, the really big fireworks to make a loud bang and shooting in the air. In order to do this we needed a flat surface, and since we were on a hill, flat surfaces were in short order.

Being the ever so intelligent children we were, we improvised, grabbing a chunk of kindling from the shed, that was cut in the shape of a wedge, lay it on rhw ground and place the mortar tube on top of it, creating a pseudo shelf for the fireworks to shoot from. Maybe if we were a little smarter we would have noticed after the first shot that the tube bounced violently to the side, and had moved the wedge at an uneven angle. We clearly weren't smarter. Sometimes I wonder how my poor mother survived with all us morons running around; how she didn't go mad and kill us all..

Regardless, the fireworks. It was as my cousin was loading the second shot that I got that feeling of being watched; not the paranoid, the protective. The "I've got your back" feeling a close friend would give. It was so sudden, and hard to dismiss. So I stood where I was, back to the pond, arms crossed, like some little twelve year old badass I thought I was, when my cousin lit the mortar and ran. What I saw in the next few seconds seemed to span several minutes.

One Mississippi. The tube the firework was to shoot out of tipped over, the wooden block no longer supporting it as it twisted and fell towards the pond and me.

Two Mississippi. A blinding burst of light on a small point where the mortar ignited and rocket propelled along its new trajectory, leaving a tail of smoke and sparks behind, scorching the grass around its point of lift off.

Three Mississippi. The ball of crackling red and yellow light spun violently as it missiles its way through the air, my body paralyzed in panic as it approaches my head, closer and closer, and for a brief second, I see the light shimmer, like looking at the reflective surface of a pool.

Four. For no apparent reason, the firework changes course a mere foot from my face, seconds after the shimmer appeared, and rocketed upwards, blowing up over the pond, bathing me in a warm light and a cold sweat, as I fall back onto my rear, sitting in the grass, and trying to collect my thought.

"Holy hell! Robbie, you ok?!" My cousin shouts, but I can't answer him right away. My thoughts are on the shimmer. What the hell was that?

"Are you alright?"

"I think so... It curved..." I manage to stammer out.

" Yea, lucky for you.."

"Did you see the shimmer, though?"

"What shimmer?"

"The shimmer. When the firework got really close, I saw it get blurry for a second." I remember staring out onto the pond, trying to understand what I saw. Even at a young age, I was rational. A realist. Santa and the Easter Bunny stopped being cute when my parent got divorced seven years prior, so unexplainable shimmers needed a legitimate logical explanation as well.

"Maybe your eyes just got blurry from the smoke?" My cousin inquired. To me, that was the only explanation that could've made any sense at the time. Everything else was just plain crazy. At least, I thought it was just crazy.

How wrong I was...