Death and a Dream

The sound came from the basement. It was a loud thud that managed to knock a small ornament off the shelving, onto the floor adjacent from me. I was the only one home, sitting on the couch, the dogs were perched on my lap.

I grabbed a flash light and headed out to the garage so I could make my way into the basement to see what had fallen or caused the bang. I feared that my hot water heater may have fallen or even worse the supports for the furnace gave way. As I opened the door to the basement, I reached quick for the light switch, and noticed a dark shadow move down below.

Chills ran down my spine, my hair stood on end and Goosebumps covered my body. You know that feeling when you are alone in a room and are suddenly overcome with a sense of fear. Well I had that feeling and it was not going away. I poked my head down and shined the flashlight. Everything appeared normal. I headed further down to the bottom of the stairs to check my sump pump, to make sure that wasn’t the culprit.

I noticed stones, stones that supported the foundation knocked and a small 2 foot hole leading out from my basement. I peered in with my flashlight into the hole. It seemed deep. I had never noticed it before, and the bang I head could not have been associated to what I would think rocks falling would have done. I grabbed a pole from the corner of the basement and used it to poke around inside. I couldn’t feel an end to the tunnel and it felt like it got wider.

“Do I make the hole bigger so I can crawl in and see what this is?” All of a sudden a gust of cold air shot out from the hole, knocking me backwards, and opening the gap more.. as soon as I grasped my barring’s, the winded started to suck inward, with a force of a jet engine. I felt my body beginning to move, I was being pulled in to this tunnel. Grasping to anything nearby, I held on with all my strength. My hands on the edge, I was suddenly stuck by a falling object.

When I came too, my head was pounding. I wasn’t in my basement anymore. I was lying on a wet patch of soft moss, the beam of bright light shining down on my face through pink blossoming leaves all around me. I rubbed my head and made my way to my feet. There was no sign of a tunnel or indication of how I got here. I saw the silhouette of a younger man making his way towards me. Confused I felt certain calmness come over me, as the man made his way through the trees on onto the patch of grass.

I felt like I had met this man before, like somehow I knew him, and he knew me. He greeted me with a warm “hello their friend.” The tone of his voice was calm and welcoming.
“Where am I ? “
He said you’re in a place where time stands still, it’s wonderful place where anything you can imagine can happen. Follow me I’ll show you.”

I followed him out of the area where I had landed and we started to walk out into the open pastures, there were waters falls, fields of grass, giant mountains, and trees everywhere. The air smelled so fresh and the skies were a bright blue with soft clouds.

We continued along and I noticed others walking along waiving at me and smiling. We made our way to an old dirt road and headed down it. I saw a small green house in the distance. Objects that appeared to be miles away, we came across in what felt like seconds. I didn’t feel like we had walked far, but looking back the area we had started from seems miles from our view of sight. As we approached the small green cottage style house, I realized that this house, was my own house.

We made our way up the driveway, “This is my house.” I said how this is possible. The old man took man hand and guided me through the front door, into the kitchen and then stopped at the entrance to the living room.
There I was. Seated on the couch, the dogs sleeping in my lap, my head tilted back as if I was asleep. How could I be in two places at once? What was going on?

A rush of fear came over me, and I fell to the floor. The young man knelt down next to me and said, “We never know when our time will come, but at some point he comes for us all. I’ve missed you, and we are all here to make you feel at home.”

As I looked back up at him, a tear dropped from my eye. Sadness and happiness, several emotions ran through my head. I looked into the eyes of a man I knew for a good portion of my life. My grandfather looked much younger now, like he did in the old photo I had on the wall of him playing his fiddle.

I don’t remember what happened after that, but I felt at peace being in his company. We made our way back out to the field where other people were, the sun shining even brighter now. A beam of light hit my eyes, and made me squint. Rubbing them to ease the brightness, I suddenly I felt the dogs on my lap, I leaned forward. I was on the couch, I felt small pieces of sand in my eyes, and a line of drool on my chin. The sun was beaming in from the windows and shining right on my face. In the corner of my eye, I noticed that the front door was open.

Flying High Above Oneonta NY

If I were a millionaire I would do aerial photography full time for clients. I would purchase my own plane and get certified to be a pilot. Use my flying hobby to offer services for other people into photography or people who want to sky dive. Unfortunately I’m not a millionaire, but I do get a chance to do this twice a year shooting aerial photography for the SUNY Oneonta campus. On this particular day I had a flight out of SUNY Oneonta airport to shoot aerial photography for the campus. It was a beautiful 65 degree day out, and the sky was crystal clear. We shoot at Noon since the shadows will be the most minimal on the campus and the surrounding trees. We shoot in the Fall and in the Spring so we don’t have leaves and other objects obstructing our view.

I arrived at the airport early to meet my pilot Rob who was flying in from Cooperstown. He is a 15 year pilot who teaches flying class at SUNY Oneonta. The small plane we use, we have to take the door off so I can lean out the side and hold the camera vertical to capture a good shot of the buildings on campus. We pack into the lane and prepare for takeoff. The wind is blowing hard, and the flay shifts to the right as we begin to lift off the runway. My heart falls into my stomach as we drop from loss of wind flow, and then rise quickly. We begin to turn and make our way towards the campus.

We take a grid pattern at about 1000 feet above campus flying back and forth computing images. The images will be used by office like our facilities offices on campus to survey the property and plan future projects. They can also be used to map out key points and features, and make a good time line of the changes that have been done to dorms, classrooms and landscaping throughout the years. We complete the grid pattern of campus and start to make our way up to 5,000 feet to get more images. The wind is clod and the temperature drops to below freezing. Off in the distance I see what looks like bald eagle. Rob my pilot sees it to and we decide to try to fly over and get a shot of it. With my zoom lens I can get very close images of things, but this magnificent bird was just too fast and we lost it almost as soon as we saw it.

I have a fear of heights but for some reason once we are off the ground and in the air, all that fear goes away. I realized this the first time I hung out of the plane with nothing but a lab belt holding me in that the perspective was a lot different and I didn’t get and uneasy unstable feeling and fear of heights. We head back to the airport and capture some images of the college camp and our telescopes they use to study the stars. Making our way to the runway my fear of heights comes back, the ground and my perspective changes again as we get closer and closer. We are coming in fast to the run way and again the wind begins to push the plane to the right. We come down so fast and bump down and the wheels chirp. What a great flight, and once I know we are safe on the ground my heart stops racing.

For more details on this story check out my voicethread here: https://voicethread.com/share/2964019/