It all started out ...

It all started out as a fine memory, something that I wouldn't mind reliving . . . but then everything changed. Running, screaming through the dark with no sense of where I was or where I was heading but certain that I had to keep moving. I was running, but I couldn't remember what I was running from. As the blackness started to get thicker and stronger, my sensory deprivation could stand it no longer. I had to stop, I had to take a breath, I had to figure out what just happened. Think, think and figure it out.

It all started out with him - oh yes, I remember now, he was very prominent in my reason for running. I had to dig deeper, I had to know why I was running. A fire-blazing trip down the road, which seemed to be rather hilly for the area where I thought I was, turns from a coliseum to a university and finally coming to a halt at a home. Whose home was this? It was in no memory of mine, yet my mind took me right there. Brief flashes of volunteering to help out - ah yes, an interview that I was supposed to do on some local event. Wait, me interviewing? That doesn't quite make sense. Why would I be interviewing - I'm no reporter.

I have a bike, yes a regular old petal bike, but I am also finding that I am wearing a full-on motorcycle helmet. What in the hell is going on here? My mind is trying to figure this out, but I seem to be in the steps of Alice and falling further down the rabbit hole.

A visit by a very successful woman on a bike with a helmet that looked like Frankenstein's headgear. She hands me a document - it is the commentary for my interviews, but the times aren't quite clear. She heads out on her bike, and I suddenly realize he is there again. He has been there all along - taunting me.

I get ready to get on my bike, I have a long journey to make and I think I have plenty of time to do it because time is relative. I take another look at my interview commentary and see pictures upon pictures and little factoids about the people I am supposed to talk to - I still don't know what this is all about, but my mind is going with it because I still need to figure out what in the heck I am doing in the dark. Suddenly there is a small tag in the lower-left-hand corner of the document that starts to come into focus, it is the time that I have to be at the coliseum in order to interview these people. The first one is at 6:29 and the second at 7:15. I think to myself, I have plenty of time, it is only 4.

He is all around me, taunting and teasing and I didn't realize just how quickly time flew by. It was now 6 and I had to be at the coliseum and interviewing in less than 30 minutes. It was impossible to do on my bike, so what now. There is this brilliant, fire-engine red Mustang that is just dying to be driven. It is a stick, but hell, I can handle that right now - I have to save my career, or do I? As I run for the vehicle, I am reminded that he is still there. I whirl around, and find him charging his phone and diddling on his computer. What in the hell is going on?

I then freeze in my tracks, the car has no insurance - I can't drive it. Wait, what? You are stopped from saving your career simply because this car has no insurance? What in the heck is wrong with you?!? In the dark, I can feel my mind starting to slip again, something is coming that I don't want to deal with - something massive - do I flee or do I push harder and try to figure this out?

Screaming, blood-curdling screaming is all I can hear. Something has happened, the question is whether or not I will ever be able to push against the darkness to figure it out in time to save myself.